Solid State amps with 'presence'

Hee hee! A berning might be very good, has enough watts 70, and almost sounds like a valve amp!
 
Simon the Distributor of Reference 3a uses Bel Canto. An ASR would be a good amp to use. The Dulcet's are small and you will be restricted a little just because of the diminutive size of the speakers. I like them a lot. I have a pair I'm playing with at the moment. They do like a bit of power to get the most out of the Carbon midrange unit. A Mark Levinson 336 would be a good match, but I would switch it on with a broom handle.
 
I would recommend Audio Analogue.
The Italians make it right, almost every time and, yes they do have a presence. A slight touch of tubes, I would say.:)
 
YNMOAN said:
Voices are extremely real and palpable on my system, but the source and speakers are at least as important, with regard to this quality, as the amplifiers.
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I would agree, and say that the amp probably has the least effect on this quality of a system. Get the rest right first.

Have you heard another amp in your own system as it is now, and in your room, give this quality you speak of?
 
Yes, although I am a believer in the hierarchy of the principle of source, amp then speaker, this is in general terms. I would agree with Tenson that the amp, in many ways, has the least important role to play with regard to 'palpability'. If your speakers are not able to differentiate subtle midrange inflection (and many otherwise fine models are not) then your system will not achieve this quality. In addition, and to an even greater extent, midrange 'palpability' relies on very subtle micro dynamic interplay. It is my first hand experience that even subtle alteration to the design of ones source makes a remarkably profound difference to this quality of 'palpability'.
 
I would support the two posts above.

One of the most palpable speakers I've heard is the Quad ESL57.
It pulls off this amazing trick whether I power it with a WD tube amp or a Cambridge SS.

Swap the Quads for a pair of Spendor S3/E and you get a less palpable mid band for sure - with both amps - the tubes don't save the day.

Of course some tube amps do have a less than linear transfer function into typical speaker loads, so they will sound 'different'.
If you think that difference = 'palpability', fine.
 
Tenson said:
I would agree, and say that the amp probably has the least effect on this quality of a system. Get the rest right first.

Have you heard another amp in your own system as it is now, and in your room, give this quality you speak of?
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I think the rest of my system is fine, Opus 21 and Dulcet's.

Yes I tried an 11w 2A3 push pull amp which gave me that tangible sense of presence but it ran out of steam too quickly. My Sugden makes a fair fist of it, maybe as good as solid state can, I don't know, hence my question.
 
I've recently auditioned a number of power amps and I found that the palpability factor, something important to me, was markedly different between the three. On the basis of that experience, I'd say the amp is quite critical.
 
Rather than an idividual issue with a component its a question of the system and what works within it isn't it? A component that may sound uninteresting in one context may be the bollox in another. As far as the system goes that little bit extra can come from just getting the set up right. My Wadia came alive when I replaced Clearlight cones for Pulsar points I had knocking around. Not that it didn't sound good with the CCs, the PPs gave the system that extra presence I didn't know was there. Wouldn't work for everyone but did for me. What cables/power cables/support are you using?
 
Thanks for the reply, I figured get the amp sorted and then go on to cables and supports. Currently using twenty year old Audio Note silver interconnect, LV power cables, chord odyssey speaker cable and old style (20 year) sound organisation tables.
 
McShads said:
Thanks for the reply, I figured get the amp sorted and then go on to cables and supports. Currently using twenty year old Audio Note silver interconnect, LV power cables, chord odyssey speaker cable and old style (20 year) sound organisation tables.
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While I agree all your bits and bobs are perfectly good rather than just accepting others opinion try to home demo some stuff when you're in a position to. I bet there are some worthwhile improvements to be had in particular via the support. Only your ears will tell you.

re Amps someone else suggested Larvadin, had you thought about going that route? Should work well with the Dulcets. The importer uses a R. Audio CD55 and Larvardin Monoblocs (amoungst other things I would hazard a guess) so I presume they'll work well together if you don't mind the bare basic facilities. There are a couple of dealers advertising ITs for £2k at the mo.
 
I am going to make you listen to some valves 'class-a' and show you the error of your power hungry ways!
 

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