Home Theater Amp...ADCOM, B&K, or ROTEL??

[gcooper77]

Looking for the best overall value, sound, precision, and clean look in a multi channel home theater amp. Dollar for dollar, which is my best bet?? Looking for a 5 channel amp, or possibly several 2 channel stereo amps, all in the same family. Please help. I'd prefer to keep it within the $1500 range.

Thanks all!!

[Rikki]

This question may not make a difference in that price range, but what will the amp mostly be used for home theater or music ?

[topspeed]

What speakers are you driving? What pre/pro are you using? What do you listen to?

[gcooper77]

It is in a somewhat dedicated home theater room. However, I listen to a lot of music, SACD's....

Running a Marantz 7300ose receiver, Pioneer Elite DVD/SACD/CD, and currently all Klipsch speakers. Will be upgrading to either PSB, B&W or something of that level towers and system. Have a huge Velodyne sub, so I don't need a seperate channel for sub..

[topspeed]

You might want to read the thread on PSB's in the Speaker forum before you go down that road.

The B&W's would work better, imo with either the B&K or Rotel than Adcom. All three are well built and come from respectable companies. To my ears however the warmer, lush sound from B&K and Rotel would be a nice match. I had a B&K for 15 years and it never failed once so I can personally attest to their reliability. They are a tad fuzzier than the Rotel but I'd be hard pressed to hear the difference between the two in a blind test. Adcoms are also very good although I think the pairing with B&W's (700's and higher) may reveal some grit and edge to their character. The Marantz's pre section will be your limiting factor here so keep that in mind.

You might also check into Parasound, Audio Refinement, Outlaw, and if you don't mind used, my friend recently found a nib Conrad/Johnson 5600 on ebay for $2K. What a sweet sounding ss amp that one is.

Hope this helps and good luck.