Classe or Bryston?

Audioears - for the record the Classe CA 200 was in the April, 1997 issue under class B and taken out in shortly thereafter because that model was upgraded cosmetically to the 201. Hey, all the advertisers can be found in rec. comp. somewhere - including Bryston! A few years ago John Atkinson ripped the Polk flagship line. Polk was always good for ads every month including the inside cover. They pulled their ads. Then the 'phile did a review on some Polk monitors and you got it, recommended them. Now Polk's back in the ad rotation!

With regards to the 'cosmetic' upgrade on the Classe 200 to the 201, that is half true. They modified the CA-200 at some point in its production life (I think it was in 1998 or 1999) but they did not change the name at the time. You can tell the difference between the two models because the revised CA-200 has the heat sinks on the side instead of the back. They then did do cosmetic changes to make it the CA-201. Thus the model Stereophile reviewed and the model available today are not identical internally.

Nhorton - you sure about that? I've never seen a 200 with heat sinks on the side, I know the 300 and 400 I've seen have always been on the side. Anyway, mine are on the back and IMO it is a great amp, I did alot of comparison shopping/critical listening - I think it has the most natural sounding midrange of any SS amp available.

Very sure, I have one of the late model CA-200's and the sinks are on the sides. Before buying I wrote to Classe to confirm that they did do a revision and they confirmed it. Here is the content of the email: Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 17:39:36 -0700 From: Robert Reply-To: cservice@classeaudio.com To: Noah Horton Subject: Re: CA-200 vs CA201 The CA-201 is identical to the last version CA-200 (hest sinks on the sides) except for the cosmetics of the faceplate. cservice r

Interesting...thanks for the info. Enjoy the music!