Looking for a very good monoblock amp.

[swatcsi]

Hi, this is my first post and I need some help!

I have decided to buy the Magnepan 20.7's when they come out.
The dealer who offers the speakers sell's a wide range of amplifiers also, I have chose to buy the components from the same store, so I can bundle them together and get a better price.

The amp's that stood out to me were these: Ayre Acoustics: "MX-R", Cary Audio: "SA-500.1", Ray Sonic: "Red Mable", and Lyngdorf: "Millenium MkIV". He also sells McIntosh amps.

I've listened to Magnepan's before and adored the sound, though I know very little about amps if anyone has experience with the ones listed above it would be very helpful. Thanks!

[Reid Malenfant]

Hi swatcsi, though I'm not 100% sure that is what your name is ;)

Could you please go to the welcome section of the forum & introduce yourself properly, you'll find it here (http://theartofsound.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=15) :) Just click on that link, start a new thread & say hello...

A little information on your system & the type of music you tend to listen to wouldn't go amiss either, not that we are in any way prejudiced you understand :)

By the way, I moved this thread earlier as I couldn't see the relevance of it being in the AV forum, that could change depending on your reply.

[Ali Tait]

It always helps when buying monoblocks to make sure you buy two amps. :eek:

[jostber]

These kinds of ribbon speakers should give wonderful sound, and they want a lot of power to give a steady bass and dynamics. I saw somewhere that Audio Research use these speakers in their reference system, so those amps should work well. McIntosh amps should also perform fine, though they are quite expensive.

Magnepan says something about requirements here:

http://www.magnepan.com/faq#receivers

I use the Bob Carver Cherry 180 monoblocks for my Vandersteen speakers. They work really great in my setup.

[jandl100]

Your dealer is about to make a BIG sale - make him earn it - get a whole series of dems to make your own mind up about which amp to buy! ;)

[swatcsi]

I am going to give all these amps a listen, I was just wondering if anyone knew of any flaws, or something really stand out, about these above amps. Since this is my first step into the high end speaker side of hifi (I've been into headphone audio for the last 2 years), is there anything important to look out for?

- Shan

[jostber]

You might want to look at the Planar Circle forum at Audio Circle. They should be able to give you good responses on this.

Planar Circle:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=177.0

Magnepan question thread:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=92581.0

20.7 thread:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=101589.0

[jandl100]

The amp's that stood out to me were these: Ayre Acoustics: "MX-R", Cary Audio: "SA-500.1", Ray Sonic: "Red Mable", and Lyngdorf: "Millenium MkIV". He also sells McIntosh amps.


I've no experience of those specific components, but if you are desperate for opinions and you'll put up with some comments on the broad characteristics of the brands from hearing some of their other components ....

Ayre. "Flat earth" sounds - all about the pace and the rhythm. Not much musicality there, in my limited experience (one of their top CD players, the 7XE). The tonality is a bit contrived and thinned out to make it sound 'faster'. The US equivalent of Naim.

Cary. Very variable sounds, the US equivalent of Musical Fidelity in a way, they don't really have a set "house sound". I've had a Cary pre-amp that was very laid back indeed, and a pair of mono-blocks that just fizzed with excitement!

Ray Sonic. No experience.

Lyngdorf. Their cheaper class D amps are very musical, but not so fast on transient rich music. Laid back, but interesting.

McIntosh. Laid back, they have a way of not tracking dynamic contrasts very well, which gets boring after a while - we call it Pipe & Slippers in the UK. :)

Maybe that helps a bit for things to look out for?

Just IMO, IME & YMMV. :)

[YNWaN]

...Not much musicality there, ....Their cheaper class D amps are very musical,...

Please explain what precisely you mean when you write that a component is, or is not 'musical'.

[jandl100]

Please explain what precisely you mean when you write that a component is, or is not 'musical'.

Nice to listen to. Pleasant. You think "yeah, that's how it should go". Then you doze off.

How's that for a definition of "musical"? :)

Lyngdorf 2175 amps, Spendor speakers, Meridian electronics ... they're all "musical" ... :zzz:

[That's intended as a bit of a joke, really. But a kernel of truth therein resides. ;)]

... but if you really need to ask, then no amount of explaination will do you any good, I suspect.

[Marco]

Hi Jerry,

99% of the time we tend to agree on hi-fi, but...


Lyngdorf 2175 amps, Spendor speakers, Meridian electronics ... they're all "musical" ... :zzz:


...The SP100s I used for 6 years, before I got my Tannoys, were certainly not sleepy sounding, or boring in any way whatsoever! :eek:

I totally agree with you about the more modern 'S Series' floorstanders, but the 'Classic Range', which basically consists of varying sizes of BBC-style monitors (standmounts), are voiced VERY differently.

Have you tried any of those, or were your comments based solely on the 'S Series'?

Also, this:


Ayre. "Flat earth" sounds - all about the pace and the rhythm. Not much musicality there, in my limited experience (one of their top CD players, the 7XE). The US equivalent of Naim.


...is not my experience of Ayre CDPs. Having heard Martin T's Ayre SACD/CD player in his system, it fundamentally does not sound as you describe. You know me, and so will know that I would not like an un-musical sound (of the type you're alluding to) - and indeed neither does Martin! ;)

Anyway, as usual, all this stuff is of course very context and system dependant :cool:

Marco.

[jandl100]

Yes, I guess my comments on Spendors are mainly based on the S series, as you say. But only mainly - I have heard some of the Classic (BBC heritage) speakers (I owned SP1/2), and they didn't really do it for me either. After a few days of marvelling at their tonal rightness, it became very much like watching paint dry.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii114/jandl100/SpendorSP12OTLs.jpg

I can't recall now - did you ever do any mods to your old Spendies to liven them up a bit, or were they pure 'stock' items? (albeit superbly set up, of course ;)).

Re: Ayre. Well, I was very specific on my comments referring to a particular model, and I would defend my opinion there to the death! :D T'was truly a flat earth nightmare. Probably 'impressive' on electronic music, but hopeless on acoustic music where a reality exists to compare it to.

[YNWaN]

Nice to listen to. Pleasant. You think "yeah, that's how it should go". Then you doze off.

How's that for a definition of "musical"? :)

I've never dozed off listening to any live music - so I guess none of it was musical (by your definition). To be honest, I feel 'musical' is one of the more worthless subjective terms when used in the subjective description of hi-fi.

[jandl100]

Yeah, fine - sense of humour failure there, Mark.

Let's face it, we'll seldom agree on anything. ;) I suggest you read my whole post, and not just cherry pick to find fault.

[Marco]

Hi Jerry,


Yes, I guess my comments on Spendors are mainly based on the S series, as you say. But only mainly - I have heard some of the Classic (BBC heritage) speakers (I owned SP1/2), and they didn't really do it for me either. After a few days of marvelling at their tonal rightness, it became very much like watching paint dry.


Yes, I remember that you had those. However, the SP100s do have a rather different (more energetic and dynamic) musical presentation. I remember that fact hitting home rather forcefully when I upgraded from SP1/2s! :D


I can't recall now - did you ever do any mods to your old Spendies to liven them up a bit, or were they pure 'stock' items? (albeit superbly set up, of course).


Lol.... The only mod I did to them was remove the linking spade plugs, connecting the crossovers to the drive units, and hardwiring the cable instead, which did improve things, but otherwise they were 'stock'.

Like I said though, if you listened to SP1/2s, and then to SP100s, you wouldn't think that they came from the same manufacturer! :eek:


Re: Ayre. Well, I was very specific on my comments referring to a particular model, and I would defend my opinion there to the death! T'was truly a flat earth nightmare. Probably 'impressive' on electronic music, but hopeless on acoustic music where a reality exists to compare it to.

I don't doubt you heard what you heard. However, it is only valid in the context in which you heard it. I heard very different things from you, from Ayre, in again a very different, but equally valid context ;)

Marco.

[jandl100]

Hi Jerry,

99% of the time we tend to agree on hi-fi, but...

...The SP100s I used for 6 years, before I got my Tannoys, were certainly not sleepy sounding, or boring in any way whatsoever! :eek:

In line with those comments, perhaps we can agree that 99% of Spendors are a bit on the sleepy side? :eyebrows:

Anyway, we seemed to have wandered a bit :offtopic:, but hey, this is AoS! :D

[sq225917]

Don't mess about stick them on the end of a 300 watt Krell and forget about worrying.

[jandl100]

Don't mess about stick them on the end of a 300 watt Krell and forget about worrying.

Yup, that's excellent advice! :thumbsup:

[swatcsi]

I haven't heard much about Krell, if at all, how do they fair for their price? As well I'm always open to new suggestions :D, all this information from these threads is almost a bit overwhelming!

[Yiangos]

A word of advise Shan.Before you purchase the maggies,ask your dealer to loan you a pair or a 3.6 if he can't or won't loan you a "fresh" 20.7 and have a listen to them in your own room.Maggies are on of those rare beasts that sound wonderful in certain rooms and awful in others as their upper mids tend to harden quite a lot.Also,you'll need plenty of power to drive the big Maggies and a smooth sounding amp.From the amps you listed,i'd go for a big Mac.

[swatcsi]

Thanks for the advice Yiangos, I'm actually planning to put them in my basement of the house that I will be moving into soon, as of now though the basement is unfinished. I do think the dealer will let my try out a pair for a little while as it is a 5 minute drive from my house. I'm going to listen to all these amps before I make a decision, though as I'm new to the speaker world I'm not sure what is well regarded besides the big names such as McIntosh.

[Ali Tait]

Big class A amps would be a good choice I think. Have you considered Jungson? Lots of amp and great sound quality for the money according to reviews.

[swatcsi]

It would be hard for me to audition the amp, as there is no dealer close to where I am located, I think I'm just going to play it by ear and see what sounds the best. I have very little experience with specs, could someone please tell me if this amp has enough power / is it worth it for its msrp http://www.raysonicaudio.com/product_details.php?ID=35, it goes for around $12000 for the pair.

[jostber]

With all those KT88's and 220W of power per channel you should be well covered power wise.

More on their amps here:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/raysonic/cd128.html

Their are Canadian/Chinese so if you want to have something all domestic another brand might be your choice.

[DSJR]

Not the kind of advice you'd be wanting, but levinson amps - the bigger the better - used to sound great with Maggies (have they changed that much in a decade or two?) and the FPB series of Krell is now almost affordable now and also have plenty of wallop as well as some grace with delicate details...

Re Spendors - I know exactly where Jerry is coming from and in his case, it could well be tightening cone surrounds (only takes several years on the SP*/2's and /3's apparently), coupled with not enough free space.....