2. amps-preamps
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Recommend me a prepro/amp combo for zu essence

I'm planning on purchasing a pair of zu essence speakers, and would like to build a prepro & 2ch power amp combo with them. Plan to setup in a home theatre environment (ie. connected to ps3, plasma, etc.) Plan to start with 2.1ch & go to 5.1ch later. Have heard the Pass Labs x30.5 with the essences & was blown away, but it's obviously an expensive option. Is there anything else you would recommend? I'm fairly keen on sticking to solid state. I've heard essences with Peachtree audio & thought it sounded fairly unimpressive. Also heard them with a Naim amp, which was quite good. What can you recommend in the way of a prepro for this type of speaker? Maybe Emotiva UMC-1? Or would the preamp be too poor? Budget $7K for pre/pro & 2 ch power amp
lavs
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
7,068 posts
 
The speaker is very easy to drive and 30 watts is often a lot of power on them (depending on room size of course). So you have a fairly wide range of tube powered amplifiers that can easily do the job.
wilsynet's avatar
wilsynet
264 posts
 
Having owned the Essence before, I would normally recommend the Atma-sphere S30 or the First Watt J2.

However, you're planning to use this in a HT environment where you may be watching hours upon hours of television, and, well, OTL and Class A solid state are typically pretty power hungry, it seems such a waste to do that just to watch the latest episode of House.

Having said all that, given the HT application and the way I personally feel about it, I recommend as a preamp the Modwright LS-100 which has HT bypass and as power amp, the Modwright KWA100 which operates in Class A/B.
wilsynet's avatar
wilsynet
264 posts
 
Oh my, I just noticed the original post was from July and August of 2011. This is an old thread. The OP has long since moved on I'm sure.
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