Whats the word on Jeff Rowland pre-amps?

The Synergy IIi is a very fine preamp and would obviously work well with the Rowland amps.

I believe that most solid-state preamps don't sound stage as well and lack the musical timbre of tube preamps. The Synergy IIi is a rare exception. I own the Coherence II, which is the best preamp Rowland ever made, and it smokes the three tube preamps (CAT, Hovland and Jadis) I ran before it. The Synergy IIi is quite close to the Coherence II in performance.

I know nothing about the newer, cheaper Rowland preamps.

As for amps, you may want to consider some of the older Rowland amps on the used market (Model 6 monos or 8ti stereo). They are incredibly well built and I believe superior to the new budget / home theater-oriented amps (201, 501) that Rowland now sells.

Raquel, what is your opinion instead about the current JRDG top-of-the-line amps: 302 stereo and 301 monos?
I currently own a pair of Rowland 7M monos and thinking about upgrading. I did hear the 201 pair. They sounded graceful but lacked depth and ran out of steam driving Maggies 3.6 speakers.

I have not yet heard the 300 Series amps, but my guess is that they are supurb in the right systems. I am going to try to demo a 302 in my second system, which is currently amp-less (the last amps were Model 6's with batteries, which were incredible).

I currently have a Jeff Rowland Model 10 amplifier with a Conrad Johnson 16LS Series 11 preamp in my system. At one time I had a Synergy 11i with the Model 10. While I found the Synergy highly detailed it just never worked for me, it may be system dependent but I just found the sound to analytical for my taste. Maybe it was just too much of a good thing, a truly revealing amp with a highly detailed pre amp. I went back to a tube preamp and tried a few before ending up with the CJ. In my system it is the best of both worlds, an exceptional ss amplifier and an outstanding tube preamp.

Why move to separates? Get the new Jeff Rowland Integrated which has two 201's builtin. This will save you considerable $$$. I too have heard the 201's and they weren't controlling enough compared to my Lamm M1.1 on my Wilson WP7's, but they were extremely smooth and liquid with great soundstaging. I am still tempted to try the 501 monoblocks. So unless you have a tough 4ohm load like the Magnepan 3.6's and the WP7's these will provide.

I have heard the 301's (powering Wilson Maxx II's) at my dealers house and 302's in his showroom on WP7's and they were pretty amazing with nothing lacking compared to his old 9Ti's.

I owned a CJ premier 14 (the model before the 16ls), and it definitely is warmer (not tonally accurate but musical) than the Synergy IIi (which I currently own) but it was noisier and had about 1/4 of the volume steps of the Rowland and was subject to picking up noise in my house, worked fine at a friends. Running the Synergy IIi on Batteries with a custom cable is amazing!

I am not familiar with current JRDG preamps, but have had many of their past designs amps (1, 2 and 8) all driven thru either a Consonance or a Coherence preamp (agreed with Raquel here).

I would consider the new Rowland Sinergy preamps in your case, design considerations play heavily in JRDG setups in my experience.

Fernando

If anyone were interested in some of my latest a/b comparison between the JRDG Capri linestage and ARC Ref 3, see:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1200110667&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona

Guido