Warm sounding ss power amps


Can anyone suggest a ss stereo or monoblock power amp that
has a warmer sound?
I am open to ideas on how to warm up a "bright" sounding system.
Thanks,Johnny7
johnny7
Bright systems are often a function, in part, of bright rooms. Acoustic damping/diffusion could help a lot, especially sidewalls at the point of first reflection. I agree also that cleaner AC will really open up the upper-mids by removing grain and hash. You might try cables, too. I've found solid core copper to be the warmest type.
Since you didn't indicate what budget you have, I can suggest to you the following ss amps: McCormack DNA-0.5 or DNA-1.0, Classe CA-10 and Plinius SA-100II. These amps have enough muscle to drive almost any speakers out there and have a warm presentation AS WELL as being transparent/detailed. As for the brightness factor, it really boils down to one component or a combination of different things (as mentioned earlier). Although, some people have indicated that a room has as much play in bright-sounding systems as the components themselves, then again, if the whole synergy of the system is INHERENTLY bright, then room manipulation could only help so much.
Check out the Clayton Amplifier line...they have a remarkable, warm but detailed, tubey quality midrange.
Very few modern quality SS amps are bright sounding, the single biggest cause of treble problems in a CD based system is you DAC, getting a quality DAC with smooth filtering will do more than anything else to give you a smooth clean relaxed treble.

ICs, power cords, and AC conditioning are next source of treble problems. Proper matching will remove distortion
and tonal imbalances. I prefer copper cables for their more natural tonal balance.

Finally your pre-amp, amp do have some influence on preceived warmth. Class A and Mosfet SS are warmer sounding
than bi-polar output stage designs, but this is just in general. For instance Sam Tellig recently reviewed and liked the warm sound of the Belles Hot Rod amp, which is a mosfet design and contrasted that with McCormack and Musical
Fidelity which are both bi-polar output.

Both Muse and Belles are mosfet SS amps, not sure what the Conrad Johnson SS are but they are usually rated as warm by reviewers. I have owned mosfet amps in the past, but now have bi-polar SS amp with good DAC and proper cables/AC conditioning and enjoy detail and quickness along with smooth relaxed treble.