Full-sounding SS amps (besides Pass)

Taww,
I owned Neodio top of the line integrated and if you get a chance to get your hands on one go for it.  His two cdp’s are the most musical available.

Hi Peter and thank-you for the detailed reply.

I prefer the sound of MOSFET output stages - to my ears Bipolar always produce a "lisp" "s" kind of sound.

I know both design and parts selection are important and I have heard the "lisp" type sound with a couple of amps, including Cary's newer 500.1 SS amps (that I simply couldn't live with) but I never had that problem with their older 500MB SS amps that I found to be quite musical and liked much better.  The older 500MBs used Sanken 50 ampere, high current, wide bandwidth bipolar output devices.  My Class A Claytons, which use Motorola bipolar transistors do not have any signs of "lisp" or haze or any other artifact but I am sure the Class A operation bias and large power supply contribute to the sound.

I prefer the conveniences of having monoblocks and I am curious about your choice of really large stereo amplifiers vs. dedicated monoblocks, and whether the sound is affected (or not) by bridging a pair of your stereo amps (such as the mini-Olympia) as a monoblock implementation.  Do the amps provide fundamentally the same sound quality whether they are operated as a single stereo amp or a bridged mono pair?  Are there differences in addition to power output, such as input or output impedance, frequency or distortion characteristics, or other differences between the amps run in stereo or mono?

The new Cary SA-200.2 solid state amp has been good for me so far. However, I’m cheating a little by using a Cary SLP-98 tube preamp in front of it. :) Full, huge, sound. The detail/softness can be tuned with interconnects too. Cary Audio and another AudioGon’er recommend this hybrid pre/amp combo.  Really glad I tried it.

I often compare the SA-200.2 to a Cary V12R EL34 tube amp in Triode/Ultralinear modes. While the tube is nice and lush, sometimes the smooth and deliberate dynamics of the SA-200.2 solid state amp is fun too.

Very impressive lineup of equipment Peter!

Not necessarily warm or tubey per se, but fleshed out in the upper bass and harmonically complete in the midrange, as opposed to lean.

Ayre!