Rowlands vs. Levinson Amps.

One of my audiophile friend has 501 as well as VTL 450 & Classe CA-401 (recently sold). Speakers are Avalon Eidolon, front ends are top notch.

No contest, tube rules, by a big margin especially on classical music. Almost like between digital and analog, he does not use his Rowland for classical music at all. Classe has better bass and comparable quality for the rest of freq spectrum.

There are still lots of life for traditional solid state amp as far as I can "hear". Pass, Edge, Plinius come to mind and they are all very fine.

Semi, The 501, and the 201 Rowlands are much the same amp, with the 501 suitable for heavier loads. According to several owner reports, the two versions sound similar.

The Rowland 300 series amps are of a different cloth. They are a good jump in sonics. Regrettably, they are expensive.

Interesting thing about those amps you mention (Classe, Plinius, VTL, Pass), some owners of these same amps have happily replaced them with H2O amps.

It's analog power supply sets the H2O apart from the Rowland 201, and 501.

levinson's sound crude?! a pioneer receiver might sound "crude", altho' some would argue over that too....
ANYWAY, years ago, there was a difference between the two manufacturers-levinson was crisp and revealing/rowland was "softer". but now, i feel that rowlands are more dynamic than ever and levinsons are more musical than ever. that for me means- which amp do you think looks better/runs cooler/costs less/is a better match for your speakers, etc. either way they're about as transparent as it gets. or you could get a good tube amp and give it the tlc it needs, if that issue should arise, which it might not for 3-5 yrs. i heard a vtl amp recently with careful matching of everything, and it really made me want to get, at the very least, a good tube amp to experiment with.

Muralman1, you state:

"Having a digital switching power supply ... is the wrong way to go about it, IMHO"

What are the technical and performance reasons for your belief?

Man this thread has gotten way off the track! I've heard both Rowland and Levinson amps. You don't have a bad choice here. A freind owned an all Rowland system (pre w/monoamps) and his system was easily one of the best I've heard. The looks of the front panal are killer too. I own Levinson 436s and they sound exceptional also. I never brought my amps over to my friends house buy I did bring my #32 to place in his system when I was thinking of buying it, and there were differences, but more like your favorite flavor of ice cream.
As for solid state vs. tube, I do like the sound of the many tube amps and preamps I've heard, (mostly CJ and Audio Research) but I've witnessed first hand several tube amps self destruct: (tubes arcing, capacitors blowing) and be away for service for months . . . besides the fact that one never knows if those tubes functioning properly or slowly fading away. For these reasons, I give solid state the nod!