2. amps-preamps
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Should I buy a new amplifier; and if so, what?

I have a Mark Levinson 336 amp, Levinson 380S pre-amp, Levinson 390S CD Processor and Thiel 7.2 speakers, with Audience interconnects, cables cords and an Audience AR-6TS2 conditioner. Recently, my amplifier's bad caps blew the drivers in my speakers (including the woofer and crossover circuitry) -- that will probably cost me about $3,000, and the replacement of the caps would cost another $3,000. So, I am contemplating purchasing a new amplifier. Can anyone suggest a good amplifier to consider for my system? Thiel said they have used Krell and Simaudio with the 7.2's with nice results, and probably a few others -- I need to re-contact Thiel's customer service rep. Any suggestions, recommendations from Audiogoners would be appreciated.
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stevecham
3,298 posts
 
I can confirm that Krell will work fine for Thiels (400cx with CS6) and after ten years with this set up it is quite warm sonically and thermally, but also very revealing. I have no inclination to change amps and, so far, the caps are just fine.
dancer
56 posts
 
Look in to a Krell FPB 400cx. It's a nice sounding amp.
digepix's avatar
digepix
99 posts
 
I always find it interesting the fault protection on expensive amplifiers, there is none apparently. So now you're presented with $6000 repair bill just to get back to square one, no improvement or spend more money on a new amp. If you're left with those choices I would buy a new amp every 5 years just to be safe it might actually save you some money in the long run.
vegasears
922 posts
 
Classe?
renjy651
73 posts
 
The Levinson 336 is a 10k amp. The reason Levinson repair center charges 3000 dollars is brutal. This is how they make a huge profit. The 336 when the caps explode it will take out the 3 surge resistors on the slow start circuit. you can replace those wires very cheap. These surge resistors are there to protect the amp in case there's a short or capacitor fail. No other high end amps have this cap problem. The reason they used philips caps made in China. They used these caps on 331/332/333/334/335/336 and Levinson 33h. These caps need to be changed on these amps. You can replace these caps for 800 dollars on 336. These caps are very hard to find. I have purchased caps for all these amps from factory. Very expensive. Because no one uses this high voltage for filter supply.
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