2017 amps - $10K to $15K who is on your short list?

Jim, If you want to hear the BHK 300 mono's and you ever travel to the NYC Area, I'm a dealer and would be glad to meet another  A'goner and let you have a listen in Manhattan.  

 Especially with NOS tubes and good power conditioning, I feel the hybrid design reveals the best aspects of both technologies and makes the TAD's truly sing.  Bascom king did try a solid state input as part of the original plan to offer swappable tube and SS input sections, but once they heard how amazing the tube input sections sounded, they felt no one would use the ss option and dropped it.  
PM me if you like.   

Yes, don't forget what Paul, used and loves Aesthetix gear and said lets do this also.
 Check out the Aesthetix Atlas Eclipse, Atlas MBs zero feedback = natural.
 Best,
 JohnnyR

Audioman58
Very nice. Thanks. I saw something online in a search that revealed ‘on a Higher note” which appeared to be a retail outlet for the Griffin products.
Good.

leeagc
I guess you meant to write ‘Diablo and dnoe’. Yep. I could agree. Especially with the apparent output power rating.
Vinyl and me, just don’t get along as well these days as we used to, so that portion of the spectrum has no appeal to me going forward.
I’m strickly ‘digital’. Point and click. And click. And click. And….

Jriggy
Thanks. Yeah. I’m finding out a lot more about Jeff Wells. A Friend of mine lives out that way and is quite familiar with him for some years now. I never knew. Oil well.
The inference on the reported voice of Wells amps/gear seems appealing, being a tube first sort of guy lately.

sfcfran
Parasoumd JC-1 monoblock pair: 9000 pair. 1st 25 rma watts are class A beautiful, with 400 watts of pure signal path a/b in total.

Thanks so very much. Saw a mention of these in a review I recently read which were part of the man’s regular system. Stereophile? Not sure.
Hearing Curl’s lesser amps I came away with the impression they were well, too cool sounding. Maybe these are quite different. We’ll make the effort to find out with any luck at all.

russbutton
a pair of Bob Latino VTA M125 monoblocks, available in either kit or assembled form.
Thanks for the info. Assembling an amp is what I used to do now and then professionally, long ago. Its not something that is doable now.
Take another look at my Agon handle and you’ll figure out the why of it.
Thanks again.

I’m sure there are other signal amplifying Pearls which don’t often get the pub they might given the entry fees allocated for them by their makers.

My aim is to splice the ‘whatever amp (s)’ downstream of my Thor line stage preamp which IMHO is a keeper fast approaching antinque status. This is despite the fact it has sat static for a few years on the tall Sound Anchor rack.

A minor concern is my Thor TA 1000 MK2 is single ended in & out only. It has shown it works well with other purely balanced amps provided a quality adapter is inserted. so it’s as said, a minor issue and no deal breaker either way.

I feel its as good a performer as many of the preamps selling now for about the same as the amps being placed onto this summary. It did originally sell for $10K sans the NOS tubes of course.

The notion of a solid entry in the Integrated amp phylum however is not a bad idea at all. For anyone willing to spend for it or them.

For myself, the problem is choosing the primary path and then of course, garnering as much synergy as is possible up and down the signal path, and with speakers. Yep. New upscale Speakers as well are going to be acquired as I alluded to previously. That is, God willing and the hurricanes don’t land in my yard.

The Wells Majestic Int. sure does seem a worthy candidate to get a unit which would surely trickle down into a bedroom or ??, and could serve well as a baseline for comparison listening down the road. It would relieve some pressure too on making a hasty amp buying decision, if it, or another INT were bought first.
Its damping factor keeps it as a very viable choice.

Naturally, the chosen loudspeakers will or should, dictate the amp’s electronic attributes, the rest like voice, presentation, and degree of detail and extension which are ordinarily subjective anyhow, will finalize the formula as budget and conscience allows.

Any MBL or other amp makers devotees willing to chime in here?

Jim, one of the most interesting and highest performing products you mentioned but nobody replied until now.

We are the East Coast representatives of T+A and in their case you can look at two options the first being their PA 3000 HV integrated which is $18k or one of the their PA 3000 power amplifiers which is $19k so  a bit more but still within the ball park.

The integrated amplifier from the HV series is a remarkable performer, that was recentely compared to $120k, yes that is not a misprint CH Precision's seperate components, in the Absolute Sound, Allan Taffel found that when we switched systems he was having a difficulty telling which one is which.

So if you can't really tell or are having difficulties determining which is better between a $120k worth of fine Swiss gear vs a $18k integrated amplifier I would if I was shopping for electronics want to hear that piece.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/ta-pdp-3000-hv-cdsacd-player-and-dac/

To give you a few more bits about T+A they are the largest high end company in Germany with 110 full time employees with 10 of those people being full time engineers, MBL, Burmester are 10 person companies.

Why does this matter? The company's name sums it up, Theory plus Application. T+A.

This brand is the number one brand in Germany and because of their size and engineering talent can come up with novel and unique designs that can compare with radically much more expensive gear!

The HV series, stands for High Voltage, and in these designs transistors are run at comparable line voltages to tube designs, T+A  engineers theorized that the reason tubes sound so good and musical was not due to even order harmonic distortion/coloration but due to the increased linearity of a device which occurs at higher  voltages! This is novel and unique thinking.

The result T+A gear has athe smoothness and naturalness of tubes with the speed, clairty, and dynamic punch of solid state as well as their practicallity no noise, and no tube replacements would ever be required.

Their $4,200 dac the Dac 8 DSD has been compared to dacs that cost $10k and more, the dac features novel and unique filtering, and conversion techniques as well.

So if you were to trade in or sell a preamp that you wouldn't need the HV 3000 intergrated might be the perfect solution for you and if you look at the features;

300 watts into 8 ohms, 500 watts into 4 so you will have the power to drive any loudspeaker for now and forever
a phono card option that brings you close to a $6-10k phono preamp for $1800.00
built in room correction and eq options
a completely silient design
a huge three dimensional sound stage
incredible build quality and styling
dynamic transparency with a liquid midrange
fantastic dynamics and a tight punchy bass.
practical size and weight
no noise 
no tube replacement
in the case of the PA 3100 an upgrade path to improved sound by adding an outboard power supply
legendary German build quality and design

and lastely incredible sound quality for a reasonable price point, the HV series integrated has been compared to $120 worth of CH Precison seperates and the upgrade PA 3100 which offers front meters and the option to add an outboard power supply for even greater performance at $21,000 was compared to a $45k Dagastino integrated

http://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/ta-elektroakustik-3100-hv-pdp-3000-hv-sacdcd-p...

So when you add it all up, T+A should be on your short list if you look at what T+A offers for the price, I think you will come to our conclusion that their products represent both a unqiue level of performance and are a remarkable deal for products which can compete with Solution, Dagastino, CH Precision and the very top echelon of audio gear yet is way more affordable at 1/2 to 1/5 the price of the gear they can easily compete with.

Lastly the marriage of T+A with Paradigm is incredible we should know we were demonstrating this system at the New York audio

https://www.facebook.com/rutherfordaudio/photos/pcb.612221115616753/612220672283464/?type=3&thea...

and after the show
showhttps://www.facebook.com/122499304489958/photos/a.122500301156525.22643.122499304489958/138072913200...


Dave and Troy 
Audio Doctor NJ

Wow thats a tough one all get back to you asap.