The Fastest most musical amp


Since I got the upgrade bug and the only cure is to change my preamp and amp I am looking for some advice of our great Audiophile community to help me find the amplifier and preamp combo that suits me best. My priority are the folowing: I want to find the FASTEST and MOST MUSICAL amp and preamp ( It can be tube preamp ( tough I think all tube preamp are slow) or solid state preamp but only solid state amp.) I know that spectral is known to be one of the fastest but I don`t like the idea of being forced to use the Networked MIT cable (which slow up the sound much)
dismalonyx

Showing 3 responses by rsbeck

I auditioned a pair of Watt/Puppy 7's. The dealer had Spectral 360 Monos with the Spectral Pre and MIT cables.
I believe he had a Wadia 861 on the front end.

It was clear as a bell, extremely fast, but completely
lacking bass.

I don't know if it was the Amps, the speakers, or what.

I own a pair of Krell FPB 350 MCX's. These things
are extremely fast and took the bass response in my
speakers so low I turned my sub-woof completely off
during 2 channel music listening.

If you are into solid state, fast and sensitive amps,
want full bass response -- put Krell Mono's on your
list.

I would love to hear the Watt/Puppies with my Krells.

Without getting into semantic corn syrup, speed to me
describes an amps ability to start and stop each tone
on time which keeps tones from smearing. Smearing,
or notes bleeding into one another will make for grainy
sound and detail, blackness, and rhythm will be lost under the smear. As has been stated, if an amp doesn't have enough power, often the bass is loose, flabby, or even missing. Maybe agility is a better word. When speakers are driven properly, I suppose some people could feel that the amp is slowing things down, but I certainly don't hear it that way -- to me it sounds pleasingly quick, or "agile" and it results in better
music. So, we can argue over terminology or we can see that we all want the same thing. Less grain, no smearing, detail, deep, tight, bass and uh...magic. Now, there's a word that needs no explaining, huh? Heh-heh-heh. Why doesn't someone start a thread
asking which is the slowest amplifier -- just for the heck
of it. Nahhhh....