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Which Amplifier for Sonus Faber Olympica 3 Speaker

I own a pair of SF Olympica 3 speakers and have narrowed my choices to 2 amplifiers. My tastes lean toward the warmer richer side of the fence. The Hegel 300 or 1 of the LFD amplifiers. On 1 hand the LFD is lower power but quite balanced. The Hegel is approximately the same price but has 250 wats of power plus a built-in DAC. My speakers rquire some power at 90DB efficient but its a 4 ohm load. I have heard the Hegel but with Magico speakers. It sounded good with nice detail and never tipped over the edge. The LFD is playing on my speakers now but drawing comparisons is difficult given different speakers. Any thoughts re these 2 amplifiers is most welcome.
frontier1
hgeifman
2,113 posts
 
I use the Luxman 590ax for my
SF Olympica 2 speakers. They sound excellent with this class A 30wpc integrated amp.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Although the Olympica II looks similar the lack of another bass driver could make it an easier load in the bass compared to the Olympica III.

The Lux 590 class A intergrated is a nice amp and it looks like it can push current as well, as from what I've seen it can do 30w into 8ohms and double to 60w into 4ohm and maybe double again into 2ohm.
This is the kind of amp that is great for bad loads, like the Olympica III and should sound great up to a given volume level because of it's low wattage.
See it's not really about the watts, it the ability to double those watts for each halving of impedance.

I think I said it before one of the best amps for doing this is the old 25w (yes only 25w) Mark Leveinson ML2 monoblocks, they can give out big current, as they double watts to 1ohm (200w)

http://www.wtconcept.com/levinsonml2/

Cheers George
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,510 posts
 
Given the balance of the speakers and their impedance characteristics, look into the Music Reference RM200 tube amp.
sp25's avatar
sp25
2 posts
 
I have a Simaudio Moon 700i integrated amplifier. I intend buying a pair of O3s in the near future and it was reassuring to see Georgelofi's post confirming my thought that they should work well. In fact they do, as I managed to get to hear the two together at a dealer.
markmendenhall
219 posts
 
Old post, but fwiw, I just paired my SF O3's with a Pass Labs X150.8 stereo amp.  This amp elicits more out of the speakers top to bottom than any other amps I've tried.  Excellent match.  Sorry for being a bit sideways of the specific question above.  

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