Amplifier Dilema

Hi,

It is sad for me to think about spending money. How many bananas can you use to cover a small golf course with the same amount of money spent ?

I am currently running a pair of "way older than me" Magnepan MGIIIa in active three way using three stereo Alesis RA-500 amplifiers and a professional stereo analog crossover.

I am building interest in getting a pair of Emotiva XPA-3 to replace three of my Alesis RA-500. It seems to me that Emotia has that "expensive" look. Well, it's not McIntosh but what can I say...

Power tubes are currently not an option since I want to run sillicon-ly (solid state).

Brystons, Mbl, PassLabs, McIntosh are currently out of my league unless someone from AK (or Mr. Pass himself) wants to inherit their amplifiers to me... :yes:

Should I leave my Alesis-es and get a pair of Emotiva XPA-3 to juice up my maggies?

I need a second opinion and pro/con list on "upgrading" from Alesis to Emotiva since "upgrading" means spending money.

I am not poor I just don't like spending money for "flashy looking" stuff which possibly can feel cheap over the time.

I am also looking forward to have a small halloween party at my place so I need to take action(s) quickly.

How about B&K?

jomondz:
How about a used B & K amp? I drive MG 1.6s with a B & K amp. Plenty of power (350 wpc at 4 ohms). Another option…
Good luck,
Mike

Hi mnilan,

Good suggestion on used B&K amplifier...
Another plus point on B&K amplifier: it might sound a little bit push-pull "tubey" because B&K is not using bipolar transistors for the output stage..

Decision has been made: I am using Alesis RA-500 for 2014 halloween party, boost the bass and then move on to plan B.

Here is the choices of plan B:

B.1 Remove volume control, reduce op-amp gain, increase coupling capacitor for better bass, bypass/decrease output inductor and resistor for "direct" drive.

B.2 Build a dedicated amplifier (labor, time, and money expensive). Maybe something single ended and minimalist because SE Triode Class A tube amp sounds f*****g sweet, clean and super detailed; very hard to describe. Tube amplifier sounds made my ears reach "eargasm". Why not dream big and build some powerful 200W single ended tube amplifiers? What a dream... for now.

The drawback of low power single ended tube amplifier is, no BODY SHAKING BASS. Only one type of ORGASM is involved, which is EARgasm ONLY.

B.3 Save some money and acquire end-user product? (to save labor and time)

B.4 Forget everything audio for a while and be free. Go travel to places...

here is an inexpensive option that gets good reviews:

http://www.arccinema.com/crown-xls-drivecore-amplifier-review/

Hi 59volvo,

Nice suggestion and what a good read. The look of the crown amplifier itself gives that bold "statement" i suppose to say...

I am convinced again that the Crown amplifier also make a good cinema sound system after reading your link.... or... do commercial cinemas are actually using crown amplifiers and I don't know about it until someone told me?

In my opinion, converting a "harsh and edgy" square wave PWM signal into a "smooth" signal by low pass filtering might not translate into a "perfectly clean" high frequency (treble) sound material compared to a minimalist class A design; especially in quiet classical music passages.

Maybe I am wrong about the PWM... Maybe it's just my mind that forces me subjectively to believe that class A is better than other classes especially in driving high frequency signal... I tried driving the highs using an amplifier with T*i**th technology and the sound seems harsh and "dirty" to me but the mids... oh wonderful! I certainly am having a goosebumps moment when a jazz female vocalist is singing. Maybe it is just me... Maybe it's a bad amplifier coming from a bad production batch. Don't sue me T*i**th or anyone, please...

I might want to use the new-technology-and-highly-efficient amplifier to drive the low frequency speaker since ample amount of energy is needed to produce the body-shaking bass and efficiency might be a concern.

In my experiences Tripath amps are Sketchy. NOT in small part cuz OEM Chips went out of production in '06 And What's on the market are orphaned remainders.
But mostly Chinese Fakes Of poor quality. You were lucky it didn't damage something, to be honest.
TI Lm3886 is a MUCH better Chip amp and Current .
These can be paralled into massive power. Noting that a decently designed 3886 amp can deliver 11 Amps (yup it's in the datasheet)
Also a *well designed* 3886 Amp is Pretty well the equal of one of Nelson's current designs.. Heresy fer sure.. but not wrong either
Worth a look:
http://www.neurochrome.com/audio/?page_id=1092
Just saying.

or check one of these out (all 160+pages!)

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=574806