Warm to neutral amp for £1,500?

[drummerman]

Agree, I have no previous experience with CA but the amps display gave up five minutes after unpacking. Not good. - Still, for 1.5k for the pair (less if you take out the system deal) its stupendous vfm if you like the sound! Facilities and power are beyond criticism, sound is subjective and you either like it or not.

I am sure your bel cantos and especially MF are better but it would be silly to compare either one of them with the above. I am glad you like the kw's. Sounds like an absolute bargain but I think its more than I want to spend just on the amplifier. I saw this 50" pioneer kuro and fell in love with it so something has to give somewhere

I would take the 840A over Arcam's FMJA38, cyrus'es 8vs2 and some others I can recall from memory but there comes a point where you can do better of course. Imo AVI's actives are still better sound and value for money especially if you want to do justice to the CA components and add good speakers which pushes them way over 2k.

By the way Igg, I have heard a lot of Rega stuff and I'd wager a guess that their new high end amplifier will probably not sound dissimilar to the Cambridge A 840v2. More control, focus and sweeter than their lower range products but no excess fat or warmth bourne out of poorly controlled upper/lower bass. Perhaps I'm wrong but it would be interesting to find out.

 

[John Duncan]

Are you keeping the 840s DM?

 

[drummerman]

JohnDuncan:Are you keeping the 840s DM?

Short answer is probably not but there's a longer one if anyone's interested

 

[Anonymous]

Bel Canto S300i is £1600 brand new. 300w per channel into 4 ohm and sounds neutral/warm. Very impressive, a must hear!

 

[Anonymous]

drummerman:
JohnDuncan:Are you keeping the 840s DM?

Short answer is probably not but there's a longer one if anyone's interested

Go on Mr DM, always interested in hearing your progress with the project!

 

[John Duncan]

igglebert:drummerman:
JohnDuncan:Are you keeping the 840s DM?

Short answer is probably not but there's a longer one if anyone's interested

Go on Mr DM, always interested in hearing your progress with the project!

Yup, start a new one - "Today I am mostly not keeping the CAs because..."

 

[drummerman]

JohnDuncan:igglebert:drummerman:
JohnDuncan:Are you keeping the 840s DM?

Short answer is probably not but there's a longer one if anyone's interested

Go on Mr DM, always interested in hearing your progress with the project!

Yup, start a new one - "Today I am mostly not keeping the CAs because..."

Point taken MrDuncan, I won't launch into that one.

 

[Anonymous]

Well,

Going back to the question of the original post, and given this two or three facts:

- You're searching for warm/neutral sound

- You need power and high current delivering to your 84dB speakers

- You already own the X-Ray v8 CD player.

In my honest opinion, you should head towards Musical Fidelity A5.5 Integrated or whatever the A series you can buy in the second hand market.

If not... I'd go for Primare i30 or the Pre/Power combination.

 

[drummerman]

Igg, I'm not trying to be funny here but have you listened to Arcam's FMJA38? I know its not the most original suggestion but it may actually make a good match with your spendors. Its kind of a 'non-showy' all-rounder. Its non-fatiguing, insightful, fairly powerful and looks good. Fine facilities too and you could upgrade to separate power amps in the future. Just because it would'nt be my choice does'nt mean anything. Plenty of people do. You should be able to get a good discount and could put the cash towards the matching top player which is very good. Perhaps the sum is greater than the parts and it may be worth trying as a system with the spendors.

 

[Anonymous]

drummerman:Igg, I'm not trying to be funny here but have you listened to Arcam's FMJA38? I know its not the most original suggestion but it may actually make a good match with your spendors. Its kind of a 'non-showy' all-rounder. Its non-fatiguing, insightful, fairly powerful and looks good. Fine facilities too and you could upgrade to separate power amps in the future. Just because it would'nt be my choice does'nt mean anything. Plenty of people do. You should be able to get a good discount and could put the cash towards the matching top player which is very good. Perhaps the sum is greater than the parts and it may be worth trying as a system with the spendors.

Yeah, I think that purely because the Arcam stuff is very accessible in dealers I ought to give it a listen to see how it fares. I would really prefer to aim at the pre/power combo. My only concern would be that my CDP and speakers are both very neutral so could do with a bit of colour to bring life into the mix. I think the MF A or KW series would probably do a better job of this. Not sure.

I'm trying very hard to look into valves but I know that if I have to drive for miles just to hear one amp then I'll end up giving up and heading to 7Oaks. There's a great used hifi store in Peterborough that does a lot of superb valve stuff so I might throw the dice of fate and see what he has at the mo.

My Quad has just died and I love to play with hifi, so I might upgrade it and then see what happens. If it goes well then I'll try a valve preamp with it. Failing that I'll get a 33 pre and give them to my dad

Thanks for the input everyone. It's noted and appreciated.