the best amps for bass, best for the rest?


hullo fellow beardies!

i'm building a system that requires two power amps, one for the main speakers and one for the subwoofers.

the speakers are the Nola Baby Grand Reference, combined with the two seven foot bass towers from the Nola Grand Reference, c/w their electronic crossovers.

so one power amp will drive the baby grands, while the other the sub towers (coming in below 40hz)

which would be your nominations for best amps for bass, and best amps for everything except bass?

the obvious choice is to use valve power amps for the babies, and solid state amps for the subs.
i lean towards monoblocks.

current leading contenders are a new vtl 7.5 pre with 450 monos for the babies and a used pair of krell750mcx monos for the bass.

another option is to mate a used boulder 2010 with the vtl 450's and krell 750's.

a rather more expensive option is the boulder 2010, a used boulder 2060 and then either a second 2060 or another amp to complement the boulders. the 2060 could either run babies or subs, do you guys have any opinions?
or the same model amp runs all frequencies (2 x 2060)
or alternatively something completely different...?

i will choose the power amps first then match with an appropriate pre-amp.

my room is 7m x 5.25m x 2.4m high, with a concrete floor. i prefer electronic dance music (drum and bass, hard / deep / banging house and trance), dubstep and reggae / dub.
i dj roots, rockers and dub, was part of an illegal sound system for a decade hosting regular parties and an annual festival, along with dub nights.
i reside in the uk (scotland) and have no neighbours to worry about
infinitelybaffled
I can't comment much on the VAC preamps, as I use a Shindo preamp with my VAC amplifier. I had used VAC's Renaissance preamp (an older top-of-the-line model) in my old system for a little while a long time ago, which system went down below 20 Hz, and noticed no lack of bass, but I can't comment on their current models. I'm surprised by that information to some extent, given the fine engineering and power supplies in VAC's products. I would expect, unless the source you're referring to has measurements, that the VAC is at the worst fine to at least 25-30 Hz, which might cover a lot of the music you listen to unless it uses a synthesizer to go down to 20Hz and below. Rolled off highs don't bother me, I'm too old to hear them and I think the rolled off highs sound more natural and closer to what I hear in live venues anyway. Out of curiosity, what is the source of the rolled off comment? Were there measurements?
here you go:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/vac-renaissance-signature-mkii-preamplifier-page-3

i get the feeling that over the next year i will be comparing products from vac and vtl, to complement the boulder 2060's handling of the bass.

has anyone tried their respective power amps a to b?
i guess on cost basis the vtl mb 450-III would be equivalent to the phi300, i think it is?

and is there a more direct equivalent vac pre-amp to vtl's 6.5 series 2, cost-wise?
and rcprince i am deffo with you on the treble, i can live with a certain roll-off at the top end.
but i value the sub20hz region too highly to ignore it; that's where the fear factor comes in, and my preferred musical style has plenty of incursions into the sub-bass
george your 'not short of a buck' observation requires an answer...my income isn't high, equivalent to about $40k pa.
the last few years i have been living a hermit's lifestyle and spending exactly half of my income on my system, possible on account of a lack of kids and living on a smallholding, so growing lots of essentials.
and in the interest of humility, i will confess i have been suffering under a driving ban for a while, so all the money i would usually be converting to co2 has been rescued for the sake of mankind. or hifi.
no, that's definitely hifi
i will let you guys be the judge of whether there is significant information sub-25hz...this is my reference tune for bass; 'freak' by fluke
it sounds to me like two titans throwing lightning bolts at each other across a stormy sky:

http://youtu.be/qA1m2dIQmhI