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Thoughts on Burmester vs. Rowland

Hi all,
I've got a Burmester 956 and am thinking of moving to a Rowland 302. I have a pair of McIntosh XRT28s and am using an Exogal as the dac and pre. The Burmester sounds great but can get brittle and compressed on top when I really crank the volume. The XRTs are 4ohm nominal. I haven't heard any Rowland gear but it seems like the 302 gets away from the old syrup sound and is well regarded. I like dynamics and "boogie factor" (probably how I ended up with the Burmester!) I can't quite reach the 911 so I am examining other amps with more than 250w at 4 ohm. I've also considered Parasond JC1s, Sunfire Signature 600, Plinius, and even Ampzilla.
Thoughts?
128x128koslekt1

Showing 2 responses by koslekt1

koslekt1's avatar
koslekt1 OP
24 posts
 

Thanks for the input.

The room is 30 x 18 with 15ft tall ceilings. I believe the sensitivity of the speakers is 88db, but I'm not 100% certain of that. The 956 is 240wats at 4ohm, not 500, so that is a sizeable difference. I've thought about adding a preamp in front but the Exogal folks have done their homework and adding one seems to add a layer, so I'm not super excited about that. I haven't ruled it out entirely, though!

koslekt1's avatar
koslekt1 OP
24 posts
 
Thanks! The big room is a nice challenge to have - hence the bigger speakers :) Spectral is a solid idea, I'll have to check them out. I know they have some diehard fans.

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