Which integrated Amp for Vandersteen 2ceSig2 ?

[art80342]

Am currently using a Marantz PM15S1 to drive these speakers - very bright, airy, detailed BUT thin and once its gets into symphony / orchestra music, its messy. Otherwise, for simple femalevocals and jazz, its beautiful.

Hv auditioned the below

- Ayre 7xe
- BAT vx300
- Marantz PM11S1
- NAD M3
- Luxman L-590u Class A
- Musical Fidelity A5.5
- Musical Fidelity A1

Price increase simply cannot justify the sound improvement....am now looking at the below -

Pass Labs int-150
Gryphon Diablo
Luxman L-590u

Any comments ....

[Feanor]

Am currently using a Marantz PM15S1 to drive these speakers - very bright, airy, detailed BUT thin and once its gets into symphony / orchestra music, its messy. Otherwise, for simple femalevocals and jazz, its beautiful.

Hv auditioned the below

- Ayre 7xe
- BAT vx300
- Marantz PM11S1
- NAD M3
- Luxman L-590u Class A
- Musical Fidelity A5.5
- Musical Fidelity A1

Price increase simply cannot justify the sound improvement....am now looking at the below -

Pass Labs int-150
Gryphon Diablo
Luxman L-590u

Any comments ....

Art, you've been listening to some very fine equipment there, and larger variety too, both tube and solid state. Frankly I'd have thought that you'd find something more to your taste amongst these amps. Some you mentioned are lowish in power; that might be a factor depending on circumstances.

Just what do you mean by "messy"? Grainy, lacking air, resolution? Have you listened to many different recordings? Because I'm sure you'll agree that record quality is highly variable. By the way, large-scale choral works are the best test of air and resolution assuming the recording itself is excellent.

One possibility other than the amp is room refections. Strong, early reflections from walls, floor, or even ceiling can definitely mess up the sweetness and air of presentation and degrade the imaging and soundstage.

Another possibility is that the Vandersteen's aren't doing it and it's time to look different speaker options.

[art80342]

hi Bill,

tks for replying, i am basically happy with my system but deem PM15S1 to be somehow the weak link in my system. I listen to mostly jazz, blues and vocals and for these, my current setup is brilliant.

once i poped a symphony CD into the CDP and its a SACD by LINN hence source is fine/reliable again vocals r fine, even jazz but once it hits orchestra, the many pieces of instruments just got so messy, its like u can hear all of them but rythym is bad and its not so coherent ... instead of being able to hear the individual instruments, its somehow blended ... my conclusion after reading thru many forums indicates that the AMP is in charge of pushing out the signals to teh speakers and when the recordings starts to get challenging, the amp must work harder and tats where we can easily tell the diff from gd/v gd amps. My CDP is - as far as i know the well accailmed MArantz CD15 - that was easily one of teh better ones back then.....

i had kind of settled on Pass Labs int 150 as have heard that its CLEAR/WIDE/TRANSPARENT/ and gives pretty good dimensions to music....

[Feanor]

hi Bill,

tks for replying, i am basically happy with my system but deem PM15S1 to be somehow the weak link in my system. I listen to mostly jazz, blues and vocals and for these, my current setup is brilliant.

once i poped a symphony CD into the CDP and its a SACD by LINN hence source is fine/reliable again vocals r fine, even jazz but once it hits orchestra, the many pieces of instruments just got so messy, its like u can hear all of them but rythym is bad and its not so coherent ... instead of being able to hear the individual instruments, its somehow blended ... my conclusion after reading thru many forums indicates that the AMP is in charge of pushing out the signals to teh speakers and when the recordings starts to get challenging, the amp must work harder and tats where we can easily tell the diff from gd/v gd amps. My CDP is - as far as i know the well accailmed MArantz CD15 - that was easily one of teh better ones back then.....

i had kind of settled on Pass Labs int 150 as have heard that its CLEAR/WIDE/TRANSPARENT/ and gives pretty good dimensions to music....

If you are able listen to the Pass Labs at home in your own system, go for it for certain. Personally I haven't heard any of the Marantz Reference series but they do enjoy a high reputation, especially the SACD players.

I would expect the Pass Labs Int 150 to be "clear/wide/transparent", but I would expect most of other amps you've mentioned to be pretty close. You might well find that the Pass Labs also isn't worth the cost difference-- of course the conclusion will be yours alone: you should rely on your own ears.

I do encourage you to not rely on any single recording, even from LINN. Try several quality recordings. Again, I recommend larger choral works with multiple voices and orchestra; this genre is the best at driving out the individual voices and intruments -- I agree that the "separation" of these individual musical constituents is the best possible test of a component's resolution.

[art80342]

hi bill,

u spoke of an important pt i had ignored b4. The amps i had refused are all i hv auditioned b4. The amps i had shortlisted are the ones i had NOT auditioned b4. Seems 'grass is greener on the other side' syndrome is setting in now...

nonetheless, from the many amps that i had auditioned, 2 left the most impression (can say BEST)

- Luxman L-590u - class A
- BAT vx300 - hybrid tube solid state

after all these trials, can finally conclude that Jap vs US integrated amps enjoy 2 different sonic signatures just like TUBE vs SOLID STATES. It may be difficult to switch once u are USED to one....i think the typical laid back Jap sound has caught on me rather than the brute US sound ... and on the notion that i prefer more power, Luxman L509u it shall be... : )

[frenchmon]

Am currently using a Marantz PM15S1 to drive these speakers - very bright, airy, detailed BUT thin and once its gets into symphony / orchestra music, its messy. Otherwise, for simple femalevocals and jazz, its beautiful.

Hv auditioned the below

- Ayre 7xe
- BAT vx300
- Marantz PM11S1
- NAD M3
- Luxman L-590u Class A
- Musical Fidelity A5.5
- Musical Fidelity A1

Price increase simply cannot justify the sound improvement....am now looking at the below -

Pass Labs int-150
Gryphon Diablo
Luxman L-590u

Any comments ....

The following is a review for 2007 on the Marantz amp.


I currently own 2 x PM15S1 driving B&W804S loudspeakers, vertical bi-amping (one amp per side).
The PM15S1 is well built with a beautiful balanced visual design. The vertical blue lighting adds visual drama at night, but fortunately can be turned off. Interestly, while I always liked the rounded edge look of the previous Marantz reference components, I find the new look grows on one and remains visually interesting due to the different textures and curves.

Ergonomics are great with useful features, including ability to hook up multiple PM15 and sync up the volumes for bi-amping or multi-channel solutions.

The other features that I appreciate are: ability to switch loudspeaker output off to allow speaker leads to be changed, or keep the amplifier warmed up; precise digital controlled volume control allowing ability to trim channels, and hence when used in bi-amp mode, tweak output to treble/mids vs bass; and pre-amp outputs.

In terms of sound quality, the PM15 has overall neutral sound, clear mids and sweet treble. This complements the 804S midrange, resulting in a nice pleasant sound, expecially on female vocals.

But negatives include a lack of authority and pace in bass resulting in a slightly sterile sound. The lack of pace manifests as slight blurring of leading edges on percussion, and unfortunately robs some music (e.g. rock) of it's musicality.

BTW, bi-amping brought improvements to soundstage width and stability of the stereo image, but no improvement to overall bass quality.

Also a warning about run-in (whether you believe in such a thing or not), it took a few weeks of continously running in before the overall sound smoothed and filled out.

My advice if planning to purchase the PM15S1 is proceed with caution; make direct comparisons to other amplifiers if at all possible before making a decision.

Could the blurring sound , be the messy sound you discribed?

Also the 15S1 has been discontinued and replaced with the new 15S2. There are many Marantz fans out there who like the "Warm detailed Marantz sound" so I'm sure this problem has been corrected by Marantz.

frenchmon.

[hifitommy]

i looked on audiogon and found these:

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?intatube&1226709706&/VTL-IT-85-excellent

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1228342597&/Audio-Research-Classic-60-tube

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1227669405&/Audio-Research-SP-6B-near-perf

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1228758885&/Audio-Research-ls8-mkii-pre-am

this is assuming you have some disposable cash.

for ss there i found:

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?intatran&1227406900&/Plinius-9200-Integrated-amp

i wish i was doing this for me, but i am set for a while.

[Mr Peabody]

I would agree with Feanor, before spending money you should be sure the amp, is, the weak link. I'm sure Vandersteen is your speaker of choice since that is what you are using, my personal auditions of Vandersteen left me feeling they were colored and muted compared to other speakers I auditioned. On the other hand, I found Classical was the music they were best suited for. Not really for resolution just compared to the Rock and Jazz played the Classical was the best fit. Some hear disagree with my assessment of Vandy and I have since learned some models have tone controls on them. During my audition the sales personnel failed to mention that or attempt to tweak them as I gave them my opinion.

If it is "brightness" you are trying to avoid, I would have thought the U.S. amps would have given you a more natural high end without rolling off anything. I could see though how the Japanese amps may have given you a thinner midrange giving an impression of less congestion through Vandys.

I haven't heard the Marantz Reference gear. A guy I know has some of their monoblocks and preamp and raves about them. The Marantz I have heard seem to me like they have a sort of dark or not so sparkling midrange which combined with the Vandy's may not be a good match. With that being said, Marantz does not have that signature with the newer AV8003, it's more open an airy compared to stuff I've heard in the past, so maybe this is a page from the Ref, I don't know.

Have you experimented with different brands of cables?

[art80342]

Thanks all for the reply. Indeed vandersteen is the ideal speaker for me.

comments frm dealer (after i bought) is that unless one goes substantially above the price bracket - close to 10,000usd - otherwise, it will be difficult to beat the vandy 2cesig2.

they are in a different class altogether - being non boxed up just opens up the sound. anyway, i have decided on the LUXMAN L-509u for the intergrated and just for teh records, my cables are NORDOST - 4flat wyrewizard speaker cables and NORDORST dream caster.

CDP is using Vintage Marantz CD15 with Musical Fidelity Tube buffer X10v3....

Will revert with comments after my machine arrives