Looking to upgrade From my Odyssey Mono extremes


Hey guys,

I currently have odyssey mono extreme's and while I do enjoy them, They seem to me to be a bit on the bright side with my current setup.

So with that, I am looking to upgrade.

I had my sights set on Mcintosh MC352, but I was wondering how it would compare.

Also, Looking at other brands, and Tubes as well. A used pair of neo 250's look to be roughly in the same price range as well.

any first hand experience would be appreciated!

Thanks!
johnzm
His AV123 LS-6 speakers are ~90dB/8ohm, with vertical arrays of seven 6.5" woofers, so they are easy to drive. I can understand wanting extra power for dynamic headroom, but 200wpc is a little overkill. Actually, a lot of overkill.

So, there are plenty of PP tube amps under $5k that will drive the living snot out of those speakers.
I will reiterate what you don't want to hear. Your amps are probably better than you speakers. Your source and speakers play a more significant roll than your amplification, especially at this price point. A $5K amp will not change your speakers into $5k models.
You can pick up Magnepan 1.6s for around $1K and take a quantum leap upwards. New caps like Mundorf silver and oils could add more fluidity to your amp, vishay resistors, hexfreds. Upgraded tubes in preamp.
Plenty of money left over for upgraded cables and a vacation to Hawaii.
If you want to stay solid state and better that the odyssey's maybe models of jeff rowland 6,8 or 9's might work for you;I have not heard any of the models you listed except; I did own a pair or mccormack dna-1 mono's driving a pair of merlin 4b+'s and it was a very very good combination.Maybe even talking with Steve McCormack would let you know how his product match your speakers.
The Manley Neo 250's I think would be very close to the manley ref 440/200 mono's I had driving my current speakers soundlab m2's;using the pentode mode was fine with 440 watts but the triode mode was more sweeter in the midrange and high's as it should be being in triode configuration;amps were built extremely well and I had no performance issues in the 2 years I owned then.
As far as your room is concerned it might be worth doing some frequency room analyzation with tones,pink noise and a spl meter to see if there is a area of your listening enviroment that has major deviations from the rest of the room;it doesn't take long to do and won't break the bank.