Spectron vs Parasound vs Cary vs ?

Stl114..do yourself a favor and give the Papa 802d what it really deserves. Lots of power!! The best and one of the most powerful amps on the market under $10K is the Sander's Magtech amp and it will drive the 802d's with such aplomb and majestic splendor that you will never look back. The amp will easily drive down to 1/3 ohms. The amp has a very large 3.0 kVA transformer. It has 20 Motorola 15 amp thermal-trax transistor's. It has a patented linear voltage regulator that eliminates voltage switching and voltage fluxuation which is typical in most amps which is why they run hot. The amp has no clipping protection circuits and will never clip no matter how hard you push it due to the voltage regulator. And the amp runs cool to lukewarm at all levels. The amp took two years to design by Roger Sanders and is built by Coda in California. Coda is the former engineering team from Threshold. The amp is warm, natural, very smooth and dynamic and it puts out 900 watts into 4ohms and weighs only 55 lbs. It only costs $5K!! Roger allows you to try the amp for thirty days and will return your money in full and he pays for the shipping both ways. Comes with a lifetime warranty. One of the hidden treasures in high end audio.

The Anthem Statement amps do not have stable voltage at all gain levels. Its a typical solid state design with fluxuating voltage with no full voltage regulation so the amp will run much hotter than the Sanders Magtech and has a much lower damping factor.

Bill..not giving bad advise at all. All amps do a good job but some better than others. The most important is how efficient is the amp you own. This is why Class D amps have made great strides during the past seven years because of their efficiency. The key benefit to stable voltage is there is no wasted current failing to leave the amplifier output. When the voltage is unstable, then you have the problem of the voltage constantly fluxuating and a percentage of current fails to leave the amp causing heat problems and less continuous output of watts at different ohm levels. This wasted voltage creates heat which is why internal heat sinks and external heat fins are necessary.

Baranowski..There is no spec listing with companies that manufacture amplifiers that specifies the percentage of wasted voltage. Amps that are very hot to the point you'll get second degree burns if you lay your hand on the heat fins for a short time period is an amp with poor voltage regulation. Amps that are luke warm to slighty warm is a good sign the designer did a good job regulating the voltage. One of the many things I like about the Sanders Magtech amp with full voltage regulation, is the top cover is a complete solid piece with no slits or cut open air vents that would allow dust and dirt to get into the amp.

BALONEY..what a load of crap. Voltage fluxuation results in a volume of wasted current that decreases the available current to watts to the output since the voltage is unstable. The wasted fluxuating current holds up in the amp due to unstable voltage regulation which results in a higher volume of heat heat due to current delay in the amp. By stablizing the current with a linear regulator eliminates voltage fluxuation and there is no wasted or delayed current in the amp which results in lower heat since the total voltage is completely stable going to the output resulting in a cooler running amp. The Sanders Magtech amp puts out 900 watts into 4ohms continuous and drives down to 1/3 ohms. The amp runs cool to lukewarm at all gain levels and has no overload shutdown clipping circuits since it is impossible to clip the amp due to full, stable voltage regulation and the amp idles at just over 30 watts. I dare you to name any other class A/B amp on the market that does not have oveload clipping shut down circuits in the same price range as the Sanders Magtech. Good luck finding one.

"I also don't question the possibility that the approach to voltage regulation, used in that design, (the Magtech), may be a significant contributor to its high efficiency and cool temperatures..Al" This statement Al acknowledges the very point I'm making. I had a two hour conversation with Roger Sander's three weeks ago on this very issue. Different designer's, as he explained, take different approaches to regulate voltage attempting to stabilize the voltage to improve the efficiency of the amp.
Some methods work better than others, and in some cases, according to Coda engineers I spoke to, voltage regulation can cause an amp to blow up if not done properly. Again, high heat dissipation in an amp causes the amp to get hot due to unstable, fluctuating voltage. The focus here is LINEAR VOLTAGE REGULATION. To say that power consumption creates heat is not accurate since its unstable flucuating voltage that causes the heat problem. If you take any high powered amp on the market that runs extremely hot, and install the Sanders linear regulator, the amp will run much cooler according to Roger which is why his design is patented so others cannot use it and keep it exclusive to the Magtech amp.

The discussion has to do with excessive heat problems. The more efficient the amp is the cooler it will run which is why Class D amps run cool due to pulse width modulation
which moves well over 90% of the current at a constant stream to the output. Class D amps have transfomers, transistors and power caps just as A/B and A amps but they run cooler since there is far less build up of wasted current not going to the output. Again, as I indicated in my conversations with Roger Sanders, His patented linear voltage regulator keeps the voltage stable and eliminates voltage flucuation which increases the efficiency of the amp so there is minimal wasted current which results in caps and transformers putting out very little heat resulting in his amp running just about as cool as class D amps because of higher efficiency.