The Two Channel Advice Thread

I was always a fan of Arcam Alpha. My integrated amp (I think it was the AA5 back then) lasted 20+ years before being retired. I do think they are north of $1,000 now (maybe around $1,500) new and at retail. But maybe consider a slightly older model, used off of Ebay or Audiogon. I may do that myself, in fact.

 

I'm dying to read a comparison of the Hypex DIY Ncores and the Vidars even though one is class D and the other is AB.

Both are around $1500 or a little under that in monoblock configuration - they seem to have roughly the same power output too.

 

I've been looking around the 2 channel space for a while and its such an information overload. I feel like every man & his dog is trying his hand at a speaker / amp design company, there's just so much choice. I like tubes into modded 800s when the speakers are attached to my face so I've been looking at high efficiency designs and SET amps but even narrowed down to this I'm having a hard time choosing. I like building stuff so I'm tempted to just DIY (lots of info around here!). I live in an apartment though and I just know I'm going to create a horrible mess of wood chips

 

The most obvious competition would be Emotiva's stuff, followed by Parasound's offerings. Both are Class A/B. I've never tried any of their amps except the first version of emotiva's A-100 though.

 

Emovita seems to be the most logical comparison. Maybe their stereo XPA would be a good match?

 

Although I don't have any personal experience with either, a couple of brands that are mentioned repeatedly over on Audiocircle (where I mostly lurk in the Salk forum) are Audio by Van Alstine and Odyssey Audio.

Might be worth taking a look at.

 

Aww man are there lots of pics of Salks there? Are there any more beautiful cabinets in the biz, seriously?

 

The NY crew will definitely compare the Stratos to the Vidar once it is available. @SteelCannon has a pair of BMRs and @Dr. Higgs will be getting his Phil 3s in a few months. Should be a very interesting comparison.

 

Highly recommend the Bottlehead directly heated preamps. I like my Quickie so much I put a pot in it that costs more than the kit.

 

You can probably pick up a Teac AI-2000 (http://www.teac.com/product/ai-2000/) from their brief foray into upper midfi for cheap, it was originally $1500. It's like old-school class a/b dual-mono built like a tank heavy iron with no bells and whistles.

Since the industry is increasingly shifting to class d gear that might be a more apt comparison, no idea on what to suggest there.

 

To compare for your own edification, or to provide recommendations for other people?

If the latter, I'd definitely second the Emotiva suggestions, because it seems like the natural cross-shopping comparison. But I've never heard their stuff, so can't speak to it from the former perspective.

(I'm zero percent surprised that you don't like NAD stuff, because I'd describe my old NAD integrated as almost syrupy smooth, which are not adjectives I'd expect to appeal to you.)

 

lol, yeah there's tons of pics of owner's systems. I love mine.

 

I agree that Emotiva's stuff would be good to compare against. I personally have a Fusion Flex (essentially a feature-added mini-X a-100) (link to info) that I use. Can't really comment on its capabilities versus other amps since it's my only amp, but the NY crew can certainly use it for comparisons if anyone's interested.

 

Another vote for Parasound. Their vintage 90s offerings (HCA-1000/750 for power amps, PLD-1100/850 pres) go for $100-$300 on eBay. The pres are class A and the amps run A/AB in high bias. Plenty of clean power (my HCA1000 pushes 125W into 8ohms), tanklike construction, solid parts.

I got myself a nice stack for half a kilobuck and figured that it'll be really hard to beat for the price. I wish I was back home to let you guys have a taste.

Other fairly priced good performing brands that I came across while researching for a pre/amp combo were emotiva, adcom, and rotel. Decided on the Paasound due to positive reviews and lower used market costs.

 

In Class D the Nuprime STA-9 would be a pretty close Vidar contender. $649 and about the size of a large-ish hardcover novel.
It would be very interesting to see how these opposite ends of the value ring stack up against each other, given the tradeoffs of size and heat for performance and SQ.

• Specifications:
  • 
    Inputs:
  • RCA: Un-Balanced input x 1
  • XLR: Balanced input x 1

  ​
  • Outputs:
  • Stereo Speaker Out x 1 or
  • Mono Speaker Out x 1

  ​
  • Single End Class A + D amplifier design
    
  • Power: 2 X 120W / 1 X 290W @ 8 & 4 Ohms
  • Peak Output Power: 2 X 280W / 1 X 320W @ 8 & 4 Ohms
  • Input Impedance: 47k Ohms
  • Input sensitivity: 132mV, 1W @ 8 Ohms
  • Gain: x 22
  • Signal to Noise Ratio: < -95dB at 1W, 10W, 100W
  • THD+N: 0.02% (Stereo) / 0.01% (Mono)
  • Frequency Response: 10Hz to 50kHz
  • Dimension: 235 mm W x 281 mm D x 55 mm H (including feet)

 

Out of the left field I would recommend Crown XLS poweramp - -also some Hypex Ncores. Neutral sounding and plenty of power. Hegel integrated amps are pretty sweet. Unsure of secondhand pricing in the States, though.