Best of the Classe amp line??? 200/201 - 400/401?

I second you Brent, I used to own one and sold it (stupid). But it had limited WPC, a problem with some power hungry speakers, but you could arc weld into low impedance loads. Tnkujry, I live in Montréal, where Classé is made, and knew the founder Dave Reich. When they stopped making pure class A amps, for me they became a «me too» company making amps just like everybody else and lost what made them different and so nice. Don't get me wrong actual Classé amps are proably very good but surely not sweet and tubey at least not to my ears. I use a McCormack DNA-2 DLX LAE and it is the amp that sounds the closest to the Classé DR-3 VHC: sweet, tubey, fast but very powerful. I think Jeff Rowland also has that reputation for sound but never heard it.

Just my 3 cents (2cents US) advice, good luck.
What a great hobby...

Serge

For what ever it's worth I like the the Rowland followed by the older DR series Classe amps.

I almost purchased a CA-201. Very nice sound. It matched well with my Classe 47.5 preamp and my Classe cdp 1.5 cd player with xlr interconnects. In the end, I went with the Odyssey monoblocks. In my system, very similiar sound to the CA-201 but with the flexibility of monoblocks.

DR-9 or the DR-3 and I stupidly sold both of them.....

I have heard the Rowland line and find it to be one of the best. Very honest amps. Cost is a consideration here. The 201 is 1/2 the price of a Rowland Model 10, but then again, the 401 is neck and neck. I owned a McCormack .5 for 5 years, and loved it, but it could not power the bass of the VR4/5s.

Yeah, what a great hobby (addiction).

tnkujry