When someone tells you it's a $40,000 amp, does it sound better?

You do not have to be wealthy to buy a $40K amp. I just started a second full time job to maybe buy a $35K amp in 2023. Priorities.

I have had about 10 amps in the last 2 years and they all sounded different at volume levels no where close to clipping. I sold my KRELL amp yesterday and only have Benchmark AHB2 monos left. Both of those 2 amps are very different sonically. I usually connected my amps to my very revealing and quiet Benchmark LA4 preamp. So it was mostly the amp and source I was hearing.

My next amp, for a second system, is supposed to be a $40K amp, but we will see if that is a pipe dream or reality next year. The reason to spend that much is because it will be sonically similar to an amp I owned and sold but it lacked the power I needed. The $40K amp will have much more current and power than any amp I have owned before. My next speakers can make great use of that current.

I have owned cheaper very high current amps but they were nowhere as good as what I am looking to get.

A lot of that cost is also bling though that is not important to me.

For me, it is really a matter of sonic preference and not so much on price. The Mola Mola Kaluga is a no no for my ears. The D'Ag is also a no go for me. I heard that gear with Dan demoing it with $250K Wilson gear, no thanks. Magico for the most part, another no go, except for 1 model.

I am considering a $35K amp for my Livingroom system. The cost of that amp is way higher than I normally spend but I have reasons that made me chose that over a $6750 used amp in the same lineup. I also considered the phenomenal CODA #16 at $13K, but I want more power.

My to the grave amp in my office cost $3K each (monos)

@jumia 

A good DSP arrangement solves a lot of room problems and equipment problems and is underrated and not fully appreciated.  Probably because the interfaces and the product are so difficult to work with. It's a real pain in the ass to deal with DSP the way it's set up and really shouldn't be.  Mcintosh has a room treatment box that provides no graph before after and no way to make changes and requires microphone for sampling just like everybody else.

My safety net for audio room issues is AccurateSound.ca. The guy running that service has a remote DSP creation service that works well (and easy for the client). I used them for a big speaker in a small room and the results were excellent. I no longer use that DSP (Convolution filter) because I have a small speaker in this room, and it is a seamless fit.

It may sound very nice and very good but I wanna see something and I wanna be able to change something.

I have not tried this new software that AccurateSound has created but they have something to allow you to try different Convolution filters quickly to see how it sounds.

If you are a ROON or JRiver user and are mainly focused on digital streaming audio, then AccurateSound is gold. This is a computer software-based approach to room correction so it will work with all gear. The software they use is very expensive audio software and is very complicated.  I also consider this solution miles more powerful than any DSP stuffed into audio gear (no matter the price of the gear).

@jumia I put some money into interconnects for my Benchmark system. The sources to the preamp use Audience Au24 SE XLR and RCA. The speaker cable is Audience FrontRow. The cable between the Benchmark LA4 preamp and Benchmark AHB2 monos is low cost Benchmark XLR (there is a reason I did not spend more here).

I think the cables are dialed in perfectly on this system. I also have a power management system that I think is very good, a Torus RM15. Essentially what Bryston uses internally in their amps for instantaneous power deliver.

I have tested all of these pieces both with 2-channel and my RAAL SR1a headphones (which are as revealing as it gets). There is nothing I am unhappy with in this system.

On the new system I am building for a much bigger room (volume) I want to get exactly the sound I have before with an amp I sold last week. I just want way more power from the new amp than I had before. There are also some other improvements on the new amp that I have not heard yet that I think will make me buy the amp. I am buying a $2K or $3K preamp instead of the $16K preamp my dealer is suggesting. I rather put more money into the amp.

I had a really nice car for 20 years. A stick shift BMW M3 E46 that I put 200K miles on. I sold that recently and now have a RAD Wagon cargo bicycle which I did 4K miles locally over the past 13 months. A car no longer has any attraction for me. Now the audio system I am building is much more interesting.

@jl35 I say yes. A great example was the TAD ME-1 speaker. It was $15K with stands, which was very high for a monitor. They dropped the price by $5K (I think) to be more competitive with gear like KEF Reference 1. That last about a month or 2 and they raised the price again to $15K. That told me that they could make a profit at $10K but wanted the cache of $15K exclusivity. 

With a warm amp that is a great monitor, but I lost interest after that price gymnastics.

@dayglow I owned the KRELL K-300i integrated amp and also the KRELL Dou 175XD amp and loved them both. The 175XD is better and I sold both.

There is a new KRELL amp that is supposed to be released in Nov 2022 called the KSA i400. I am thinking that amp will work great for my future Livingroom system. Only issue is the price (which I figured a way to solve) and the 26-inch depth of the amp. That is a bit on the large size. Got to see if I can sneak it by the wife without her noticing :)

Option 2 is the CODA #16 which is not as big.