Amp upgrade recommendations

Tpsonic,

Contrary to popular beleif the GamuT D200 has a lot of power. The amp has 200wpc into 8 ohms. 400 Watts into 4 ohms and can deliver close to 50amps of current. This is not a D100, you really have to push this amp for it to loose composure. Your Vandy 3A's will be no problem for this amp.

Also, I have compared directly Plinius amplification and the GamuT D200. IMHO the Plinius only has the bottom end over the GamuT. Everything else, the GamuT does better. Plinius sound is muddier and darker than GamuT sound. Unless you get a New Plinius 102 amp. I have heard that this amp they fixed a lot of flaws SA100 series has. I do not want to knock Plinius too much, I had 2 SA100 mk3's in MONO for a few years, and I will tell you... for driving Magnapan 3.6's it is very difficult to find getter more powerful amps for the price of used SA100 mk3 amps. These amps could drive my Maggies like no other amps I ever had (665 wpc into 4 ohms). The thing about the Maggies is that they are not dark sounding speakers (especially if you remove the tweeter resistor). The darkness of the Plinius amps is counteracted by the 3.6's to produce an extraordinary good sound. I would not recommend Plinius power with too many other speakers.

Pass would be an interesting comparison to the GamuT. So would McCormick.

The D200 amp sounds nothing like any other solid state or tube amp I have heard. And people are giving them away for $2600 used. I find this amazing...

KF

Asi Tek, sorry for the confusion. My intention was to compare the DNA-1 to the DNA-125 and then the DNA-2 to the DNA-225 respectively. This, I believe, is the correct comparison for these older models to the newer.

Glad you like your 225 so much.

Thanks. No problem!

DNA-225 is a great amp!

Consider the Classe line, the CA-201, CA-301, or their CAM monoblocks. These amps receive some of their big brother's Class 'A' technology. There is no need to have them modified, they are some of the finest sounding amps right out of the box (except for their break in period).

At the risk of nit picking I'd like to add a minor addition to Stehno and Asi_tek's dialog: Based on discussions with Steve McCormack and a variety of others the SMc Rev. B modded amps are "similar" to the newer production models. That's because several of the Rev. B upgrades were incorporated in the new products. Calling them "equal" is a bit of a misnomer as they do not sound the exactly the same. Which is better, of course, will depend on the listener's preferences and the associated gear.

For more information do a search on Audiogon; there's been a lot of commentary on the entire DNA series as well as the SMcAudio mods.