Lets just say the Marantz has been somewhat of a revelation for me.
I should preface by saying that transistors have not had much of a place in my system, at any level, for a long time. I still feel quite strongly that is far easier assembling a musically satisfying system around tubes than transistors and i have never been successful with transistors alone. The Marantz however has opened my eyes to how far things have come. That being said, the other SS amps I have had around recently are better than in years past for sure but still reminiscent of what I did not care for before. The Marantz seems to strike a note with me, even though its not easy to describe why.
I can tell you what the marantz is not: it is not dry or analytical or overly sharp or unnatural. It also is not warm, fuzzy, bloated slow or forgiving.
Now how well it may match with your speakers I cant say, not having heard them. With my 40.1, which are fairly neutral with a nice hard hitting midbass, the Marnatz was superb. What I loved the most about it, and which I hope is present in the 9s2, was its spatial organization. It was uncanny here. it also has speed with texture and dimension.
Anyway it should be on your list at 2k used although you dont see them often. I also found it to be very flexible with a front panel switch between the SE and Balanced inputs with adjustable input gain for both. i used both the balanced 101d and SE 6h30 outputs of my Supratek preamp into it and it was nice to have two different signatures in hand at the flick of a switch.
I should preface by saying that transistors have not had much of a place in my system, at any level, for a long time. I still feel quite strongly that is far easier assembling a musically satisfying system around tubes than transistors and i have never been successful with transistors alone. The Marantz however has opened my eyes to how far things have come. That being said, the other SS amps I have had around recently are better than in years past for sure but still reminiscent of what I did not care for before. The Marantz seems to strike a note with me, even though its not easy to describe why.
I can tell you what the marantz is not: it is not dry or analytical or overly sharp or unnatural. It also is not warm, fuzzy, bloated slow or forgiving.
Now how well it may match with your speakers I cant say, not having heard them. With my 40.1, which are fairly neutral with a nice hard hitting midbass, the Marnatz was superb. What I loved the most about it, and which I hope is present in the 9s2, was its spatial organization. It was uncanny here. it also has speed with texture and dimension.
Anyway it should be on your list at 2k used although you dont see them often. I also found it to be very flexible with a front panel switch between the SE and Balanced inputs with adjustable input gain for both. i used both the balanced 101d and SE 6h30 outputs of my Supratek preamp into it and it was nice to have two different signatures in hand at the flick of a switch.