SS Amp for natural vocals

I prefered the Belles Reference 150A by a pretty big margin and with several different sets of speakers.
Fly_fish_nz (Threads | Answers)

The 150A Reference is a darned fine amplifier...underrated and overlooked by many audiophiles.

Disclosure - I have a pair of 150A Reference for sale. They are being replaced by Pass Labs XA-60.5.

I'm new to this hobby, ok habit... but have read many of your opinions stating that the pre amp and speakers play a large role.
I am using a cj met1 6 channel tube preamp with dali 800s and 400s along with an avr ss amp ( denon 5803) and vocals sound outstanding. Granted I may not have the trained ears of yall but the preamp has unveiled the ss amp to where vocals sound great. I am looking into replacing my denon with dedicated power amp because of what i read here, but wonder if the gain will be marginal because the sound is pretty great already. Perhaps he should consider moving up to the 800s or cabling choices?

The DALI 400s benefit giantly from a great amp with lots of power and damping. I heard it with three amps and was blown away with the 400s driven by Rowland 501s. I think you'll experience night and day difference.

The first I heard the DALIs with was a nice mid-priced intergrated with just under 100 WPC, then I heard it with the Rowland 102 stereo amp and finally with the 501s. The little integrated had out of control bass, such that it was unacceptable to me. The 102 cleaned things up nicely, but the 501 really controlled and deepened the bass and cleaned the mids and really made the ribbon tweeters sing. It was a wonderful combination. The gain was NOT marginal.

Dave

"The DALI 400s benefit giantly from a great amp with lots of power and damping"

If so then there is only one amplifier here below $10k price - Spectron Musician III SE - amp which can control this speaker with grace and reproduce voices "to die for"

All The Best
Rafael

Well Rafael, not exactly.

The Jeff Rowland Design Group Continuum 500 integrated amp is only $8800, with 1000 watts into 4 ohms. It handles the DALI's very nicely. (I literally just walked in the door from listening to the Continuum driving the DALI 400s and the Vienna Beethoven Baby Grands, for about the last 3-hours).

I should say that I'm having second thoughts about the DALIs. I was disturbed that the DALIs don't really handle low bass as well as the Vienna Acoustics, losing the harmonic richness in a Johnny one-bass-note kind of response below a certain frequency. Given the price and size I'd expect much better bass resolution.

The DALIs excell at highs. They're incredible with things like fingers on strings and air in voices. The mids are also very good, but I prefer the VAs, that's without regard to price. If you consider price, then the VAs are an overwhelming choice for me.

Dave