What modern (confined to this decade at least) integrated amp do you think provides the best imaging? Please no $100K amps, just the affordable stuff (say under 10 grand). Thanks!!!!!

Amplifiers don't provide imaging, they amplify. Only the recording, speakers and room do that. But if you are a believer, try the Shanling A-3000.

Amplifiers don't provide imaging, they amplify. Only the recording, speakers and room do that. But if you are a believer, try the Shanling A-3000.

no, but amplifiers can mess up the recording's sound, or they can 'improve' it.

if an amplifier just 'amplified', then why would we care about expensive amps?

everything in a system contributes to the sound quality, and thus also imaging.

jckonicek, try a Mcintosh MA6900, or their new MA7000, or an accuphase E450 or E550 (the 550 is class A, but less power), maybe a Gryphon will also fall into your budget...

heck, you could even get seperates...

maybe a Mcintosh MC252 with C220 pre, or a C45/C46 if you want SS...
also look at a Primare PRE30 and A32
or parasound seperates...

what speakers are you using?

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

If you have an original recording that was miked correctly, recorded and mastered well, and you are using an amplifier that does not do anything to degrade the signal, then the most impact on stereophonic imaging will be speakers, their placement in your listening room, and your listening room's acoustics.

The correct matching of speakers to your amp and the correct orientation of speakers in your room, e.g. distance from back walls and/or corners, distance apart, toe-in, etc., are very, very important.

My guess would be that most, if not all, integrated amps from, say, $2000 and up, are going to sound pretty damn good, and the differences will be minor at best.

trends audio ta-10 with a pair of well placed high eff speakers. ta-10 is around $150

My guess would be that most, if not all, integrated amps from, say, $2000 and up, are going to sound pretty damn good, and the differences will be minor at best.

I'm not sure about that.... a McIntosh amp (warm, musical) sounds a lot different than a Bryston (cold, accurate, analytical) amp! IMHO, of course.

Whatever jckonicek ends up with, I hope he auditions it first!

I never said they would sound the same. I said I would guess that most would sound pretty darn good at that price. I was referring to minor differences in imaging, anyway.

If any amp sounds warm, musical, cold, analytical, or sterile then this amp's operation is not linear. A good linear amp won't add or subtract any emotional character to the source. Only speakers and room interactions do that. Everything is in the specs. If you can't measure it, it doesn't matter. That's the cold truth.

The Krell KAV 300i (their original integrated amp) is quite nice. I've heard it drive speakers from one end of the spectum (Acoustat 2+2's) to the other (Ferguson Hill FH1's) as well as Kilpsh LaScalia's, modified Chario Academy 2's, and a few other I can't remember. You can find one on the used market for well under 2K. Of course, you can spend the extra $$ for one of the newest Krell KAV 400Xi's.
Here's a review: http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/krell300i_e.html
Happy listening
Mike

no need to spend big $$$$ Accuphase E202

If any amp sounds warm, musical, cold, analytical, or sterile then this amp's operation is not linear. A good linear amp won't add or subtract any emotional character to the source. Only speakers and room interactions do that. Everything is in the specs. If you can't measure it, it doesn't matter. That's the cold truth.

Speakers and room are no different than the electronics in a lot of ways, they should not provide anything, and can only take away. Some enjoy additional character that can come from either electronics or speakers, like euphonic distortion or speakers with grand piano like resonances, built like instruments, in contrast with the dead box-monitor like speaker that some find bland.

A good amp doesn't need a speaker to be matched to it either, it would be load invariant and drive just about anything with ease, without the character of it changing in the least, but this is often not the case.

What's your idea of a good "linear" amp anyway? It takes more than just a flat frequency response. A flat freq response could in fact be completely deceptive as to what you'd expect from it. You also need frequency independant distortion and load invariant for example. Most manufacturers only quote you a very low THD at a single low frequency, ignoring the fact it likely rises dramatically in just a few Khz and keeps shooting for the sky. How about current capability, step response, etc?

Assuming we are discussing the ideal amplifier behavior though, yes it can still go from sounding cold and analytic, edgy, all the way down to overly smooth, silky, fluid, veiled, colored, etc. The ideal is colorless, perfectly transparent, balanced between analytical/warm, while clean, fast and smooth. This is extremely musical and easily able to convey the source material. The amp vanishes, adding nothing and taking nothing away. This is a very rare amp.

Given perfect circuits, the reason for the different character in the voicing comes about from the practical side of electronics. Every single passive component used has it's own special characteristics which depart from the theoretical ideal. Resistors are not always acting like resistors, they have their own noise and distortion. At higher frequencies caps act like inductors, inductors act like caps, resistors act like resonant tanks... size, shape, material composition, and basically, everything, all come into play.

With practical limits the sound of a circuit can be changed night and day just by changing one single component, and the effect of it would never show up via even the best known measuremnts, let alone the kind manufacturers usually boast for marketing purposes. Only listening tests tell the final story.

That's a skill that's acquired over years of trial and error. Guys who do that end up with particular recipies that hopefully get them the kind of character they're after and it accounts for the "house sound" or trademark signature, whatever you'd like to call it. Guys who do that make the best and most well regarded gear around.

So the real answer is, everything matters. Measurements aren't all telling, especially when you dont' know what measurements actually matter, or aren't privy to them because they're often too embarrassed to provide them, and because you're trained to accept deceptive measurements that don't at all matter.

Imaging and ambience are conveyed through the micro detail in the signal, and the timing /phase relations of them. The very smallest and weakest transients. It is crucial they be right to perfectly convey them as much as possible, that's why you tweak your speakers and your room, but this is also the hardest for any amplifier to do, both in terms of circuitry and component selection. It is completely wrong to think that any "linear" amp is equal to the next or that measurements tell the full story.

Krell KAV-400xi

Manley Labs Stingray dose a fine job and in triode the stage extends half way into the room.And amps do have an affect on soundstage.An amp with alot of negitive feed back is a image killerIt helps the preamp is 100% passive .and The best part its only $2,300 so its well under $10,000. and useing the EL84M as the output tubes it can't sound anything but sweet.

If any amp sounds warm, musical, cold, analytical, or sterile then this amp's operation is not linear. A good linear amp won't add or subtract any emotional character to the source. Only speakers and room interactions do that. Everything is in the specs. If you can't measure it, it doesn't matter. That's the cold truth.



purely theoretically seen, that would be true.

but in that case I would have had a Mark Levinson amp, and I don't, because I hate their sound.

that's called taste. something subjective.

Krell KAV-400xi


Ditto. Heard one last week and purchased one.

I also listened to the Linn "Majik" series and was impressed (less power, though).

What modern (confined to this decade at least) integrated amp do you think provides the best imaging? Please no $100K amps, just the affordable stuff (say under 10 grand). Thanks!!!!!

Musical Fidelity kW 500, it gets everything right.





Hyper420, great post!