How good is this amp and what would you say the sound from this amp is, neutral or sweet sounding? Anybody advise on an alternative maybe sweet sounding amp with a built in DAC under £800?
This is why I’ve asked about the speakers being used. A customer of mine has LS50s, and was looking at this when it was released. All reviews seemed positive, and it looked the perfect amp he was looking for, particularly as one reviewer used it was some crazy expensive speakers. Having bought one and tried it with his LS50s, he didn’t think the Marantz was quite up to the job. That’s nothing negative on the Marantz, as most sub £1,000 amplifiers aren’t up to the job.drummerman said:It has superb reviews here and elsewhere. Able in very expensive systems.
davidf said:This is why I’ve asked about the speakers being used. A customer of mine has LS50s, and was looking at this when it was released. All reviews seemed positive, and it looked the perfect amp he was looking for, particularly as one reviewer used it was some crazy expensive speakers. Having bought one and tried it with his LS50s, he didn’t think the Marantz was quite up to the job. That’s nothing negative on the Marantz, as most sub £1,000 amplifiers aren’t up to the job.drummerman said:It has superb reviews here and elsewhere. Able in very expensive systems.
He'd tried a few amps with his LS50s, and was being very careful about what he bought to go with them. He described what he wanted the amplifier to do, and how he wanted the KEFs to sound, and judging by what he said, it sounded like he just wanted them to be driven properly. He read some guy's review about using it with some $10k speakers (?) and thought that if they could drive those, they'd drive the LS50s easily. At that point I'd not heard the HD1, but based on what he told me about the review, I can see why he wanted it, and told him that so far, the best amps I'd heard with them were Class D.drummerman said:Not up to the job in what way? If you want loud with an inefficient small standpoint you need 200 watts.
At normal levels quality is more important than loudness.
Maybe the amp is crxxx and the reviews are wrong?
Who knows.