Hey, I'm relatively new to this whole world, as am actually an engineer on the recording side of things, and only today for the first time ordered passive monitors for my home setup (most studio monitors are active these days). In fact power amps I know little about as they're not found often nor a critical part of studio recording, mostly relegated to the live sound environment.
I know that studio monitors are classically paired with Bryston 2B or 4B amps, sometimes McIntosh and that's about all I know about anything! I've read about a million reviews which are in the end useless since all told it seems every power amp reviewed from $1000 to $20000 warrants 2 paragraphs of end-all-be-all praise. So if Bryston's the standard I know of, what are some comparable or cheaper alternatives to get me on the right path? Obviously for my application I'm more interested in neutrality than anything else, and power need only be 100 watts average.
Just as an aside, I'm amazed the depth and detail to which you guys carry your passion...It seems discussion and reviews for equipment all overlook one critical component however--the original recordings? They seem to be held to an untouchable status whose justice could only be done by an endless pursuit for the greatest of all playback systems. I have to say in my experience engineering and bystanding a multitude of albums across movie scores, jazz, rock, gospel, and more I'd say at most one percent of all recordings would ever warrant any kind of investment, let alone a large one, to get the most out of them! If more money is equalling better sound for you, then it's definitely no longer neutral. A best-of-the-best reference-grade setup using pro gear wouldn't cost a hundredth of what you could spend at some of these dealers! For every discussion about speaker mount material qualities and stylus vibration there was a $20 DI box on the guitar track you're analyzing, a tape deck that wasn't aligned the night before the session, an EQ someone forgot to print or a patchbay connect that hasn't been cleaned for 15 years. We engineers are beyond anal by nature, but even we have limits and usually end a mix at 2 am with an "aw F it, it's good enough."
Recordings before the late 60's shouldn't ever be considered close to hi-fi. Sure the mics were there, we're still using the same ones since the 40's, but the consoles and tape machines were not. God forbid as well that your recordings were done digitally up until several years ago. In the 80's digital DAT tapes were probably used as some intermediary for most recordings from that decade, they were wildly popular. Pro Tools is the industry standard software workstation but its hardware D/A/D conversion and mixing algorithms are atrociously notorious that an Atari would put to shame when they first started in the early 90's (pro tools is where anything with "digitally remastered" in shiny gold letters has been). And today forget about it there's no such thing as a record that hasn't been in pro tools. Even if it was recorded to tape that's where it winds up (THE tape manufacturer Quantegy is out of business). Any newer album that has or will ever see radio play has also been hard clipped to increase loudness a few dB or so. I don't know a mastering engineer that'd do that, I assume its the labels. Pro audio companies themselves have not been without their scandals from time to time for cutting corners. The much-praised "24-bit" Mackie D8B mixing console really had an 8-bit stereo bus for its output and they lied for a year about it! And now the biggest shift ever in the industry is the use of software models put out by gear companies used in lieu of their classic and vintage EQ and compressors.
Anyways, I could go on for a while, but you get the idea. I don't mean to knock anyone's efforts, but I'm just trying to lend some perspective! All I'm saying is that even at the TOP multi-million dollar studios, component for component, the equipment between performer and master CD couldn't ever match that of a somewhat well thought out and funded home theater setup. A signal chain per track in a studio has to be duplicated and maintained 100 times under one budget. There's just no competition! And I'm including the likes of Skywalker Sound, birthed for the original Star Wars movies, home to countless classical recordings, and a facility that's been nominated for Academy Awards every year since. If have anything constructive to say at this point 
it's that good studios are known for their rooms first, equipment second. Knocking out the right wall and putting in an angle somewhere might help your whole experience more than a million dollar gift card.
Hey, I'm relatively new to this whole world, as am actually an engineer on the recording side of things, and only today for the first time ordered passive monitors for my home setup (most studio monitors are active these days). In fact power amps I know little about as they're not found often nor a critical part of studio recording, mostly relegated to the live sound environment.
I know that studio monitors are classically paired with Bryston 2B or 4B amps, sometimes McIntosh and that's about all I know about anything! I've read about a million reviews which are in the end useless since all told it seems every power amp reviewed from $1000 to $20000 warrants 2 paragraphs of end-all-be-all praise. So if Bryston's the standard I know of, what are some comparable or cheaper alternatives to get me on the right path? Obviously for my application I'm more interested in neutrality than anything else, and power need only be 100 watts average.
Just as an aside, I'm amazed the depth and detail to which you guys carry your passion...It seems discussion and reviews for equipment all overlook one critical component however--the original recordings? They seem to be held to an untouchable status whose justice could only be done by an endless pursuit for the greatest of all playback systems. I have to say in my experience engineering and bystanding a multitude of albums across movie scores, jazz, rock, gospel, and more I'd say at most one percent of all recordings would ever warrant any kind of investment, let alone a large one, to get the most out of them! If more money is equalling better sound for you, then it's definitely no longer neutral. A best-of-the-best reference-grade setup using pro gear wouldn't cost a hundredth of what you could spend at some of these dealers! For every discussion about speaker mount material qualities and stylus vibration there was a $20 DI box on the guitar track you're analyzing, a tape deck that wasn't aligned the night before the session, an EQ someone forgot to print or a patchbay connect that hasn't been cleaned for 15 years. We engineers are beyond anal by nature, but even we have limits and usually end a mix at 2 am with an "aw F it, it's good enough."
Recordings before the late 60's shouldn't ever be considered close to hi-fi. Sure the mics were there, we're still using the same ones since the 40's, but the consoles and tape machines were not. God forbid as well that your recordings were done digitally up until several years ago. In the 80's digital DAT tapes were probably used as some intermediary for most recordings from that decade, they were wildly popular. Pro Tools is the industry standard software workstation but its hardware D/A/D conversion and mixing algorithms are atrociously notorious that an Atari would put to shame when they first started in the early 90's (pro tools is where anything with "digitally remastered" in shiny gold letters has been). And today forget about it there's no such thing as a record that hasn't been in pro tools. Even if it was recorded to tape that's where it winds up (THE tape manufacturer Quantegy is out of business). Any newer album that has or will ever see radio play has also been hard clipped to increase loudness a few dB or so. I don't know a mastering engineer that'd do that, I assume its the labels. Pro audio companies themselves have not been without their scandals from time to time for cutting corners. The much-praised "24-bit" Mackie D8B mixing console really had an 8-bit stereo bus for its output and they lied for a year about it! And now the biggest shift ever in the industry is the use of software models put out by gear companies used in lieu of their classic and vintage EQ and compressors.
Anyways, I could go on for a while, but you get the idea. I don't mean to knock anyone's efforts, but I'm just trying to lend some perspective! All I'm saying is that even at the TOP multi-million dollar studios, component for component, the equipment between performer and master CD couldn't ever match that of a somewhat well thought out and funded home theater setup. A signal chain per track in a studio has to be duplicated and maintained 100 times under one budget. There's just no competition! And I'm including the likes of Skywalker Sound, birthed for the original Star Wars movies, home to countless classical recordings, and a facility that's been nominated for Academy Awards every year since. If have anything constructive to say at this point
it's that good studios are known for their rooms first, equipment second. Knocking out the right wall and putting in an angle somewhere might help your whole experience more than a million dollar gift card.