Solid State Power Amp Reviews

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Solid State Power Amp ReviewsSolid State Preamp ReviewsMusic in the Round
Music in the Round #2
Kalman Rubinson  |  Sep 21, 2003  | 
It doesn't take much to read between the lines of Sony's discontinuation of the TA-P9000ES analog preamplifier and their introduction of the SCD-XA9000ES SACD player with IEEE1394 digital output at Home Entertainment 2003. (A similar feature from the DVD-Audio camp has been promised.) Surely, we will at long last be able to have external digital processing and DACs in our preamp or control units. In addition to the freedom to mix and match components, this opens the door to having a single digital component manage bass and channel balance for all sources, and room/speaker correction without redundant redigitization.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Mark Levinson No.436 monoblock power amplifier
Larry Greenhill  |  Aug 24, 2003  | 
All high-end audio companies turn over their product lines periodically. Even those amplifiers I have depended on as references go out of production. Although my reference amplifier can remain a part of the reviewing sequence, readers won't be able to purchase a discontinued model and get the results I describe. Thus I am compelled to get a review sample of a new amplifier or speaker, and hope for the best.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Classé Omega monoblock power amplifier
Brian Damkroger  |  Jul 13, 2003  | 
Have you ever had one of those conversations with your Significant Other that begins "But I thought you said..." and goes downhill from there? The Other's tone is condescending, and the body language—hands on hips, head slightly tilted—lets you know you're in big trouble.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Lamm Industries M2.1 monoblock power amplifier
Paul Bolin  |  Apr 13, 2003  | 
How did Michael Jordan, talented as he was at the peak of his powers, always manage to impose his will on his teammates to push them to victory when it counted most? What made Sandy Koufax able to elevate his pitching to a superhuman level when the stakes were highest? A knowledgeable, hardcore sports fan can watch the performance of two players with nearly identical statistics and, after not too long, tell you which one is merely very good and which one is great. What makes a star are intangibles—those qualities you can't quantify or analyze, but can't help but recognize when you're in their presence.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Parasound Halo JC 1 monoblock power amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 16, 2003  | 
Thirty years ago, the upstart audio company NAD revolutionized the manufacturing of consumer-electronics components by "internationalizing" the process. Instead of physically making products, NAD hired a project team in one location to design a product that was then built at a sub-contracted factory located elsewhere. The arrangement allowed NAD to go into business with relatively little capital outlay and low overhead. Other companies have since copied this ingenious business model, and, as transportation and communication have improved, doing so has become easier and more efficient. It has brought prices down and quality up—mostly in the low and middle segments of the high-end audio and video markets.
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Solid State Power Amp ReviewsSolid State Preamp ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Final Laboratory Music-4 phono preamplifier, Music-5 line preamplifier, & Music-6 power amplifier
Art Dudley  |  Jan 26, 2003  | 
Modern hi-fi is little more than a way of getting electricity to pretend that it's music. Of course, good source components remain all-important, and even if loudspeakers are imperfect, most of us can find one or two that suit our tastes, if not our rooms and the rest of our gear.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Bryston 14B-SST power amplifier
Larry Greenhill  |  Nov 08, 2002  | 
Talking to fellow audiophiles, I sometimes hear generalizations about power-amplifier design: "High-power amplifiers don't sound as good as low-power amplifiers." "Tube amps are more musical than solid-state amps." "Class-A circuit designs always sound better than class-AB." "Bridged amplifiers don't image precisely, throw deep soundstages, or have the transparency of non-bridged output stages." Etc.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
PS Audio HCA-2 power amplifier
Kalman Rubinson, Sam Tellig  |  Oct 15, 2002  | 
I have a way of grating on people's nerves. Ask Marina, my wife. She calls it my "mean streak."
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Halcro dm58 monoblock power amplifier
Paul Bolin  |  Oct 13, 2002  | 
Revolutionary is a word that's tossed around all too lightly in the world of audio. The understandable impulse to tout every new development as a quantum leap forward in sound reproduction has made it difficult to sort out the evolutionary from the truly groundbreaking. And there's not that much left to do in amplifier design that is worthy of being described as "revolutionary," or so it seems. Vacuum-tube circuitry has been thoroughly understood since the late 1940s, and 40 years of development of solid-state has rendered it, in its finest implementations, a worthy competitor and alternative to the venerable tube.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Theta Digital Intrepid 5-channel power amplifier
Kalman Rubinson  |  Jul 20, 2002  | 
Theta makes a power amp?
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Theta Digital Citadel monoblock amplifier
Jonathan Scull  |  May 12, 2002  | 
As we all know, it's the sound that counts. However, good looks enhance pride of ownership, and Theta Digital's class-AB, 400W Citadel is as handsome a monoblock as these jaded eyes have laid eyes on.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Rotel RB 1080 power amplifier
Kalman Rubinson  |  Mar 30, 2002  | 
What could be easier to review than a power amplifier? No features or functions aside from inputs, outputs, and a power switch. So when Jonathan Scull asked if I could help out by taking on the Rotel RB 1080, which another reviewer hadn't been able to get to, I accepted the assignment. Before I could click my heels and say "FedEx!" twice, Rotel's 200Wpc RB 1080 had appeared.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Smart Devices 2X150VT power amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 10, 2002  | 
If your audiophile habit goes back more than a couple of decades, you're probably doing a double take looking at the Smart Devices 2X150VT. Looks like a Hafler DH-200, doesn't it? That's because, at its core, a Hafler DH-200 is exactly what it is. Smart Devices doesn't name names in its brochure, but they do say that "You may recognize this amplifier as one of the dominant premium performers of the 1970s and '80s"—a reasonable enough description of the MOSFET-output DH-200, which combined outstanding sound with a very reasonable price—especially if you built the kit.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
McIntosh MC1201 monoblock power amplifier
Jonathan Scull  |  Mar 14, 2001  | 
While walking home from the office the other day I passed a gleaming, perfectly detailed Harley-Davidson, lightly customized, as many are these days. I didn't stop and drool, but I couldn't unsnap my eyes from it. As I drew parallel to that hawg, a Ricky Martin look-alike threw his leg over the saddle and thumbed the starter. No, you don't have to be a tattooed, beer-gutted redneck anymore to rear up and slam down on a kick-starter of one of those beasts. These days, it's all done with the push of a button. Dude.
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Solid State Power Amp Reviews
Bel Canto eVo 200.2 power amplifier
Kalman Rubinson  |  Mar 04, 2001  | 
The word on Bel Canto's upsampling DAC was already out when I visited their room at the 2000 Consumer Electronics Show looking to get one of the first samples. But despite my protestations, all Bel Canto's Mike McCormick wanted to talk about was their company's new digital amp, the eVo 200.2. Sure, there's a future out there in which all sources will be digital and D/A conversion will occur in the speaker (or later?). But today, I see no practical advantage in a digital amplifier with only an analog input. It may be more efficient and it may be new technology, but the amplifier has got to stand on the same footing as any analog design and justify its existence by the way it sounds. The eVo did make a good case for itself at the demo, so I signed up to get one for review.
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