What do you want in a stereo amplifier?

[thadman]

I'm interested in what users of this forum would considerable desirable for a home stereo amplifier near the $350-500 price point.

Some things to reflect upon:

How much power?

What features would you want it to have?

Inputs?

Chassis Aesthetics?

Size?

Color?

Efficiency?

Thanks for your time,

Thadman

[Alaric]

I'm happy with my Marantz integrated. Big , questionable aesthetics , and 30 lbs. Only 95 wpc (rated) but probably good for a few more. The first 25 wpc are Class A and very nice. I could get another on the 'gon for $350 or less. Downside is no pre-outs , so-so phono section , and a fair amount of heat.
I'm looking at the Emotiva 2 channel amp and the Krell KAV 400xi as possible upgrades. Don't really care care about aesthetics-if it sounds like crap I don't care if it looks like Milla Jovovich.
As for features , I have an outboard phono amp , the DAC in my SACD player is better than the ones in most $500 amps (including mine) , and a tape loop is meaningless to me.
In the $500 range , you're probably limited to used amps , depending on your speakers. If you're using lamp cord for speaker cables , you can get away with a whole lot less. IMO.

[Face]

IMO, my favorite amp in that category are Pass clones. Ugly, but have plenty of current to drive just about anything, and they sound good too.

[ahaik]

IMO, my favorite amp in that category are Pass clones. Ugly, but have plenty of current to drive just about anything, and they sound good too.

I have similar taste, heard two pass clones (owns one), beats anything I have listened to by a LOOOOOOOOOOONG shot (Parasounds, Emotiva, good old Aragons, Audio Research, B&K, Odyssey ...) and its only 25 watts per channel.

[evilskillit]

Well depends on what you mean by "amplifier". Do you mean just an amplifier, or an intigrated/receiver. I'm only really interested in 2 channel so 5.1, 7.1 are not important to me. As for power for reasonable listening 100wpc is probably more than enough for most normal people, as long as that represents actual output and not just some figure that the manufacturer fudged. Appearance, big, chunky, powerful looking, and in either black or brushed aluminium.

As far as eqiupment goes I haven't owned many different things. I picked up a Parasound HCA-1000 power amp and PHP-850 preamp on ebay for less than $350 total and have been pretty happy with them.

The amp sounds pretty good, or doesn't have much of a sound, depending on how you prefer to describe amp sounds, heh. Puts out something like 125 watts into 8 ohms and 200 watts into 4 ohms. Ive never had a problem with it playing loud enough and according to the manual if you are listening quietly, eg less than something like 20 or 30 watts per channel it operates in class A mode.

I really would like to try building a nice gainclone amp sometime and see how it turns out but funds have been pretty limited these days but eventually I'll be able to make one and compare it to my Parasound. Find out what I am or am not missing.

[brianpowers27]

If we are talking about a pure amplifier.... Aside from sound quality, I would consider a few features valuable.

--Rumble filter
--Stereo volume know on front.
--Basic lowpass filter
--Digital input
--150w@4ohms stereo
--Flashing strobe lights and visualizationa! :roll:

[Face]

I have similar taste, heard two pass clones (owns one), beats anything I have listened to by a LOOOOOOOOOOONG shot (Parasounds, Emotiva, good old Aragons, Audio Research, B&K, Odyssey ...) and its only 25 watts per channel.

Ah, a fellow Long Islander.

Yes, the only amp I've preferred over the Pass F5 clone is a modified McIntosh 7270. If you want to count integrated amps, the Manley Stingray also trumps it, but doesn't like anything under 4ohms.

[Notorious_AK]

I'm not able to distinguish sound of different amplifiers.
any amp is fine as long as it's not clipping at desired output.
for home stereo I'd choose better looking amp.

[lunchmoney]

I'm not able to distinguish sound of different amplifiers.
any amp is fine as long as it's not clipping at desired output.
for home stereo I'd choose better looking amp.

Same here.

I got a Stellar Labs SLA-470 for cheap, used with a Parasound pre-amp, and it sounds great... or more accurately, it doesn't sound bad... no hum, no hiss, nuthin'... nice and clean.

As long as there's enough power, I haven't really noticed a difference between amps... I probably haven't heard enough of them.. I like it that way, because it means I don't have any itch to buy a better amp... ignorance is bliss.

[Face]

Just over the weekend, a few friends and I compared a few amps and preamps. We compared a $65 Adcom, $450 Pass F5 Clone, and a modified McIntosh MC-7270. There was no night and day difference between the bunch, in fact they all sounded pretty similar. The Adcom was a little grainy, the Pass was the most neutral, the Mac had more plentiful bass and sounded the sounded a little better up top.

It appears the least amount of coloration comes from amplification(SS at least). As mentioned above, as long as it's not clipping at the desired output, you're fine.

[cjd]

Power switch.

Separate chassis per channel.

True balanced operation.

Quiet.

Looooow noise floor.

Flat response 5Hz-40kHz with almost flat beyond that...

Ability to drive high current demand load(s)

2ohm stable

[Dave Bullet]

A refurbished and balanced Pioneer SX-1250. The warm orange glow, with fine music, a good woman and whisky in hand after a nice day of riding the countryside on the motorbike...pure bliss

[ahaik]

Ah, a fellow Long Islander.

Yes, the only amp I've preferred over the Pass F5 clone is a modified McIntosh 7270. If you want to count integrated amps, the Manley Stingray also trumps it, but doesn't like anything under 4ohms.

I actually have an F5 clone, never had the privlidge to listen to a McIntosh maybe a get together is in order :W

I'm not able to distinguish sound of different amplifiers.
any amp is fine as long as it's not clipping at desired output.
for home stereo I'd choose better looking amp.

Just over the weekend, a few friends and I compared a few amps and preamps. We compared a $65 Adcom, $450 Pass F5 Clone, and a modified McIntosh MC-7270. There was no night and day difference between the bunch, in fact they all sounded pretty similar. The Adcom was a little grainy, the Pass was the most neutral, the Mac had more plentiful bass and sounded the sounded a little better up top.

It appears the least amount of coloration comes from amplification(SS at least). As mentioned above, as long as it's not clipping at the desired output, you're fine.

Me and some friends get together every once in a while, listen to music and compare equipment.
The conclusion I got to is that amps after Speakers and Source make the biggest difference in sound quality.
Most noticeable in high quality classical music recording during complex passages, where the only amp I had tried that did not 'mush' the sound (or had the least 'Mush') was the F5 (Aleph J had same characteristics, but never got the compare it to the F5, probably will in this Saturday’s get together), but still very noticeable all around.
In one of the get togethers, I had my 11 year old listening to a blind comparison between the F5 and an Aragon 8008BB, we let him speak first and he was able to describe the differences in detail and was right on par with what we have heard (I guess having young ears and perfect pitch helps )
I think this results from the amp's 'speed', somewhere the DIYAudio there is an image of the F5's response on a square wave, very impressive.

That said, unless you are extremely critical, you will be quite happy with most amps, I own 2 HCA 1000's and for the price of a used one they are pretty nice.

Asi.

[maynardg]

Accuphase P300 should be in that price range on eBay. Recap, and be rewarded with endless clean warm power.