Anyone heard the marsh and odyssey amps?

Hi Chipster, The Marsh is great. I don't know anything about the other amp you mentioned. The perfomance of this amp is amazing at this price point. I agree with many of the things J_c stated. Hi J_c, The Goldmund, ARC, Cary, Gryphon, and last but not least Viva. I have heard these amps in my system. Should not use words like slaughter. Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. You have a very nice amp J_c. Please do not think I am not of the same mind as you but I have heard what I heard and I have heard better. My tube stuff annihilates this amp.

I just auditioned the stereo version with Symphonic cap upgrade. The build quality is superb, and the sound is equally impressive - clean, wide-band, undistorted, with tons of power. I was comparing it side by side with $10k VT200, and the Odyssey was in the same league, but the difference was in the sound of excellent solid state vs. the sound of excellent tube. But I don't think it's even remotely fair to compare 10k to 1k.

Brulee, were you being cynical when you replaced the word "slaughtered" with "annihilated" ? Now, seriously, which ARC do you own and believe sounds better than the Marsh ? I love ARCs. Still, in my experience the Marsh is better than both the 100 and 200 watt tubed ARCs. Better in every part of the spectrum, better in dynamics, and better in transparency ! I have not heard the reference 300 and 600 but they cost as much as a BMW and will probably raise your living room temperature by 10 degrees. I have also not heard the other amps, and never even herd of Gryphon. The only amp I can think of which rivals the Marsh and costs less than 10K is the Gamut, which is around $5K. I would say it is marginally more transparent in the midrange, somewhat purer in the highs, but less good than the Marsh in the bass. The differences are marginal, perhaps even just imagined.

To compair tube amps with the Marsh isn't really fair, and brings up the tube vs. SS debate once again. In spite of the common notion that an amp should sound warm, smooth, or liquid, the fact is, that a good power amp should have no sound at all. It should merely take a 2V signal, and boost it to 30V or so; that's it. There are those that will say that if an amp adds any smoothness or anything else, then I'm sorry, it's a peice of crap. Some people like the colorations that tubes add, and that's fine. I have nothing against tubes, and in fact plan to run my Marsh A400 through a Blue Circle BC21 tube preamp when it arrives next week. My decision to purchace the Marsh was largely based on the recent TAS review. I don't mind mail order, as long as I have the option to return it if not satisfied. I don't like to limit my options to only what's available locally, and neither should you. The Odyssey amps have been getting great feedback, and are definately worth consideration. I think either one will offer superb sound at a great price, but I would try the Marsh first.

It's about satisfying your musical desires. There is no technology available today that can interpret what the human ear/brain hears and translate that into measurements. You can by a midfi receiver from Sears with distortion measurements of less than .01%, but will still sound like crap. Don't try to dismiss tubes because they add color. That's BS. If it makes the music pleasing to listen to so you want to listen to more, then the amp, whether tube or SS, is worthy of consideration. In most cases, the tube amp can do this better than SS, but not always.