All I want for christmas, is an amp

[kingnothing83]

Can someone please help me to get over my christmas blues. My tannoy custom f1's some QED silver anniversary cable and QED jp2 interconnect are on their way through the post and im struggling to find an amp! I've narrowly missed out on several cambridge 640a V2's as well as a rotel ra-04 and ra-03 due to either the asking price going slightly too high or general life commitments getting in the way (im looking at second hand if you were wondering).

Because of having to replace my car im on a really tight budget, im probably going to have to stray away from the brand new route, i'm looking at something for around £150 ideally £200 would be an absolute top, anymore and i could just as well get a rotel ra-04 new. So, could anymore suggest something decent currently on ebay or similar? Thanks in advance

Oh and its probably worth mentioning I like listening to rock generally, but too much other stuff to list so it needs to be a good alrounder, and i'd be put off anything extremely old

 

[d_a_n1979]

All i could suggest is take a look at Ebay and get yourself a decent amp from there. You'll get plenty of good examples for less than £200 on there

Persoanlly i'd aim for an Arcam Alpha 8 or 9 integhrated amp. Very good amps and you'll get one under the £200 limit. They'll work v well with the Tannoys.

 

[kingnothing83]

Thanks very much for the suggestion. Is the alpha 9 significantly better than the 8? As there are only alpha 8's there at the moment. When did the amp launch and how much was it new any ideas? Finally, do amp's get worse with age in the same way that a car will lose horsepower the older it gets (this may be a stupid question for those of you in the know!) cheers

 

[Thaiman]

Look out for Linn Majik too, can be a bargain as it is very under rated.

 

[kingnothing83]

There's a Linn Majik selling, for just over £100 thats going today actually, seems to have retailed for $1200 at the time, so cant be too bad i wouldn't have thought. But id appreciate some advise about how these things deteriorate with age.

What connectors does the majik and the arcam 8 have? I guess the speakers will connect in the same way and they'll have an RCA phono on there?

 

[d_a_n1979]

The Arcam 8 and 9 integrated amps were very good in their time and they still are now. Average Arcam amps will be somewhere between 7 and 10 years old. My Arcam 9 set-up still sounds as good, if not better than when i bought it

The Arcam 9 amp is very good, and if you can afford to partner it with a good power amp (such as the Arcam 9P or the 10P) then youre laughing.

For the Tannoys, the Arcam 8 amp would be plenty. Plenty of power for good controlled and punchy bass, nice crisp treble and well controled and clear midrange.

What music do you listen to?

 

[kingnothing83]

Sounds good dan, the bargain hunter in me thinks the linn majik is exciting as theres one currently selling for £100 that cost £900 new, but i think it'll go quite a bit higher and if i wait for that i'll have missed the 2 arcam 8's that go today. So i think I might go down the 8 route. I listen to a great deal of stuff, metal - metallica, megadeth, rock - foo fighters, nirvana, muse, coldplay, guns n roses, led zep, white stripes, lots of random stuff such as bob dylan, talking heads, johnny cash, the beatles, elliot smith, the clash, and occasionally classical such a holst, maybe the odd bit of very new electronic stuff such as CSS, hadouken, etc.

More rock than anything else though. Would the arcam alpha 8 do me a good job with my tannoys for that?

 

[d_a_n1979]

I think the Arcam would be spot on

I listen to alot of Electronic music (leftfield, underworld, daft punk, air, fischerspooner etc) but also listen to metallica, iron maiden, system of a down, pink floyd... And my Arcam set-up does me fine. I've auditioned Nad, Rotel, Marantz and none of them bettered the Arcam.

Also, with the Alpha 8 amp, you can always partner it with the Alpha 8P power amp if you want to improve the sound eventually and if you come to sell it, you wont lose much, you may even be lucky enough to make a profit on it as i have done with previous Arcam seperates.

 

[d_a_n1979]

Actually going back on that the Tannoys arent bi-wirable BUT having the Arcam 8 integrated and the Arcam 8P power amp (if you were to upgrade later on) would give you hell of a lot better of choices for speakers.

Arcam amps really suit B&W speakers and the new 685's would be spot on for your music and these amps...

Some food for thought!

This looks like a cracking example - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Arcam-Alpha-8-Amplifier_W0QQitemZ190183939022QQihZ009QQcategoryZ3280QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Finishes soon too so keep watching (if you can)

 

[kingnothing83]

Great thanks for all those suggestions, im going to have a bid on one of those arcam 8's today. My music will be coming from a mix of high quality mp3's and increasingly lossless flac audio from my pc with a decent soundcard (a dac will likely be my next purchase). Should i connect my soundcard to the amp's aux RCA input, or does it really not matter if i connected it to aux, cd or whatever. Cheers and i'll let you know how my bidding gets on!

Oh and the example you mentioned is the one i have my eye on!

 

[d_a_n1979]

I've got my PC connected to my Arcam via a v good quality 3.5mm jack to 2 phono interconnect into the Aux input on the Amp. Works fine for me

 

[kingnothing83]

Cool, mine will be connected with a QED jp2 interconnect which got
decent reviews, will do for a start. Do you select aux on your arcam
when it is connected to your pc or does it make no difference where you
plug in the rca leads?

 

[d_a_n1979]

I use aux for the PC and CD for the CD player as per norm

 

[kingnothing83]

Cheers, well the guy isn't selling the amp at the best time as its during working hours so with a bit of luck i'll pick up a bargain. Thanks for all the help, i like a bit of daft punk and system myself, so you obviously have good taste!

 

[d_a_n1979]

I do try...

 

[kingnothing83]

Damn, i was leading the bidding with 2 seconds to go and someone beat me, what can you do? Very angry at that. Theres another going in 2 hours, will have to try to get that, looks pretty similar to me http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Arcam-Alpha-8-Integrated-Amplifier_W0QQitemZ320195998910QQihZ011QQcategoryZ3280QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[d_a_n1979]

Yeah had that done to me before as well.. Gets annoying after a while!

 

[kingnothing83]

Yeah, hopefully i'll get the next one, seems identical except the picture looks to have a scratch above the volume control, im not overly concerned about that though. Recon this one looks decent? Wish me luck

 

[d_a_n1979]

The amps in mint condition. It's not a scratch its the direction marker.

I'd deffo push for that one. If i were you i'd wait till the last 10mins and then put a final amount bid in, say £90 and see how it goes from there. Hopefully you'll win this one!

 

[kingnothing83]

Even better, sod it this ones mine unless someone goes bidding crazy

 

[d_a_n1979]

I dont think it'll go for more than £100 but keep a careful eye on it. There's always someone else watching it like a hawk!

Like i said, sometimes its best to place a maximum bid and then see how that goes until the last 30seconds. I've won my whole system off Ebay like that, Very happy with the results!

 

[Anonymous]

Nooooo

ten minutes is too long, I have won quite a lot of stuff on Ebay and the secret is to put your bid in the last the last five seconds then any other bidder has not got enough time to put in a higher bid and outbid you.

 

[d_a_n1979]

The 10mins rule was just to see who else the other bidders are and to see how much theyre upping the bid by!

Once you can see a pattern of sorts then you can wait to fire in a last min bid to outbid everyone else.

 

[kingnothing83]

With the last amp there were just 2 bidders which was annoying, would have got it for £60 otherwise. Im determined to get this one so had already put in a good offer which should get it. But im going to have 2 windows open this time, one ready to make a bid that will definitely get it (unless someone goes daft) and one to monitor the bidding. Wish me luck

 

[Anonymous]

The trouble with that is all you are doing is hiking up the price, Never put any bid in till the last 5-10 seconds.

[quote user="d_a_n1979"]The 10mins rule was just to see who else the other bidders are and to see how much theyre upping the bid by!

Once you can see a pattern of sorts then you can wait to fire in a last min bid to outbid everyone else.
[/quote]