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Who is the KING of MONOS?

WHO IS THE KING OF MONOS???

Mcintosh 501:
Big. Heavy. Reliable. Built like a tank. Smooth and pleasing. This chuck of metal will flow liquid sound at you all day and not even get warm. It is Fun to listen to and fun to look at. Arguably the best looking amp of them all. Some accuse it of being too laid back. Others would consider selling an appendage to obtain a pair.

Krell Evolution 600e.
Pretty. Maybe not Mac pretty but still pretty. Unlike lesser Krells it is smooth and articulate. Possibly possesses the best bass of any amplifier anywhere. Expensive. If it can be the King it should be expensive.

Cary SA 500.1
Probably has one of the best reviews ever written. Cary is said to be a perfect middle ground between Krell and Levinson. Not too laid back. Not too harsh or dry. Just perfectly nestled in the middle. Not big or heavy. A little plain to look at. Middle of group price tag. A few complaints floating around about reliability. A few complaints that Cary is cheaply made. Is it worthy of a King’s Crown? 10 Audio thinks so………

Levinson N 53.
It is pleasing to the eye. It has lots of clout. It has cost no object claims. It costs a lot of big American Dollars. It has a non typical switching power supply. Levinson is sometimes accused of being too warm. Is this the case the N53? The company has encountered a lot of turmoil in the recent past. Can it overcome the negatives and beat the rest? Will the new D technology be its demise?

Classe CA-M600.
Aesthetically pleasing but doesn’t match anything else. Another smooth operator. This amp has also been accused of being too laid back and polite. Sometimes polite is a good thing. Can it be the polite King of Monos?

Pass Labs XA600.5
Can anything negative be said for this beast. Another block of beauty that has a glowing meter. A little magic and a little hocus pocus maybe. I can see the others getting a little nervous with the Pass in the mix. If only the company would answer the phone and tell me who the dealers are. I hope the product is better than their customer communications.

Wyred4Sound SX-1000
Can it even fit in with names like this? According to the reviews and the manufacturer it can. Its Class D. Its Light. It looks good. According to a lot of people it does things Class A / AB cant. It is by far the cheapest or cost effective of the group. Can this economical wonder compete or beat any of these brutes? Will it wimper and run away with its tail between its legs? We shall see.

Let us discuss who the King should be. Let us discuss who it shouldn’t be. Who cares about price. This is a Royal group. Who is the best of the best? No one wants to hear “They all sound the same.” Don’t waste our time. These boxes have magic inside. Who has the most? Which one should we all be dreaming of when go sleepy at night?. Who is the King Of Monos?
128x128paimei
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,217 posts
 
It's not a stupid post! But it does beg the question, if there is a king, is there an emperor of the monos? Is there a benevolent first comrade of the monos? Is there a Godfather of the monos? (Is there a Fredo of the monos?) Ultimately is there a god of the monos? There might be a supreme mono deity to which all monos everywhere worship. If a simple question can lead to such string of probing, provocative and profound other questions, then how could it possibly be stupid?
jafox
1,456 posts
 
Paimei, I am not "with" Audiofeil at any time. However, he has far more knowledge and experience in this field than you realize. He just happens to have a low tolerance of nonsense here and his posts often reflect this.

There is no way any amp can be considered to be the top performer in any regard. It has EVERYTHING to do with the speaker to be driven. We choose a speaker that we like, that integrates well with our listening room, and then we find an amplifier that is capable of driving that speaker to its performance level.

A watts-per-channel rating often has little to do with an amp's performance. I have owned the Convergent Audio Technology (CAT) JL-3 mono amps for 6 years this month. With 16 power tubes (6550 or KT88) per mono block, it is conservatively rated at 150 w Class A. But don't let the "low" power rating fool you. It can quite significantly outperform many much higher rated amps into some speakers. Just look at the whimpy output transformers on many of these highly touted amps in this thread and compare to the CAT.

With some of these "top rated" amps, go listen to some seriously complex music with a lot of bass content at high volume. During this time, pay close attention to how the rest of the music in the mids and upper octaves maintains its integrity. With many amps, the music will crumble because the amp's power supply and output transformer can not handle the load for any given amount of time. You might be surprised that often times, the higher-rated mono-block beast-of-an-amp is not the "best" performer here. And this is one example as to why this thread is stupid as Audiofeil pointed out early on.
roysen
68 posts
 
Well,

Can you point out exactly what post in this thread where it is stated that rated output power is the measurement use to determine the answer to the initial post?

However since we are talking about amplifiers, its quality is related to power as well as distortion and noise.

It is also not quite as simple as the previous poster described because when you decide to upgrade by changing the speakers, it would be great not having to change the amplifier too. By choosing an amplifier able to drive anything the first time you do an amplifier investement, you will not be forced to change the amplifier every time you change speakers.

Objectively the measuring stick for the best amplifier would be the one with lowest noise and distortion which is powerful enough to drive any speaker. The subjective measuring stick but you need to replace the lowest noise distortion with subjective sound quality.

To be able to drive any speaker requires power. So that power is part of what makes the best amplifier should not be a surprise to anyone.
csmgolf
887 posts
 
The OP stated it several times, the first of which was in his first post on 12/6. The stated requirement was 500 to 1000 watts, with those greater than 1000 watts to be done later. I am waiting with much anticipation as this current thread has been so scintillating, the follow up is bound to be beyond words. I agree with all who state that the amp and speaker are inseparable when evaluating either. To place power restrictions on the amps and then disregard the speaker interface make this thread dumb, as has already been stated. None of this takes into account how the preamp and amp interact. Power of the amp is not the only factor to it producing great sound. I believe Bombaywalla said it best in this thread. BTW, I was always kind of partial to Johnny Carson.
roysen
68 posts
 
Of course speaker compatibility, room, preamp, source components and even cables have to be taken into consideration when choosing which amplifier to buy which also has to match personal taste.

That however is very different from comparing amplifiers against each other trying to find out which is best.

Are you guys saying that Stereophiles Recomended Components list and TAS Golden Ear Awards are dumb and not worth reading?

I would guess these lists are the most used shopping guides for audiophiles and by that useful even though the evaluation behind the products ln these lists does not take into account your personal context and the buyer has to add that too his/her own evaluation.
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