Which Solid State Amplifier is Making you Happy?


I'm trying to find a new amplifier to replace a Musical Fidelity A3CR. There are lots of candidates: Rowland 501s, Pass Labs 350.5, Levinson 431/432, H2O, etc. What are people using and what has been a good sonic investment? I'm currently driving B&W N803s, so it's a pretty normal load. My MF amp does not offer enough punch or bass control. It flattens out at higher volumes. I'll spend what it takes, new or used. Less than $8K would be nice. All comments welcome.
Peter
pscialli
Rumadian, you heard the prototype H2O? So did I. If I were to hear that now, I would judge it rather harshly. Maybe that is a bad choice of word. It was anything but harsh. It sounded like a very good class A amp.

I bought the third generation of the H20 Signature monos. Since then, I upgraded the module, and caps in this well reviewed version, under direction of it's creator. Now I have this insanely dynamic, deeply penetrating, crazy real sound out of my 1 ohm speakers.

Guidocorona, aren't you going to visit me? I will have a pair of Scintillas for sale soon.
Vince, I am trying. . . closest I've been able to arrange is to be in Fresno on Sept 6th and 7th. . . but I haven't lost all hope yet! Guido
The last three SS amps I have used were all nice. The big Krells are the best of the three with my Thiels.
Krell FPB 650M, Ayre K-1xe, Parasound JC-1s.
I've had a Coda amp for some time now and have found it
able to keep up with any upstream changes showing a
difference in the pieces and able to put the peddle to the
metal for power. In any case I feel a high current amp seems to work best overall.
There are so many amps being named, I wonder if there are any bad sounding SS amps (hyperbole). It does seem that SS has come a long way.