CLASSE - Great amps or highly flawed?

Heard them back in the 80s. They bored me. I met Ken Kessler, the reviewer, and asked him how could he possibly like such dull sounding amps. He said he felt they were neutral and that is the way music sounded. Could never understand it. 

Hi noromance,

Not arguing your opinion, but many (including me) used the early Classe’ class A/B amps via the XLR inputs. Dave Reich designed the DR-9 with single-ended inputs and later succumbed to pressure from Glen Grue to add XLR inputs. Reich did so in a less-than-ideal way, using a cheap opamp in the XLR circuitry. This continued for years in the DR-10, DR-15, and DR-25 and even in the later Fifteen and Twenty Five models after Reich left Classe’. I can personally attest to the lack of dynamics and liveliness of these amps using the XLR inputs. The result was that they were often described as "dark sounding". A different story completely using the single-ended (RCA) inputs IME.

Is it possible that you were also a victim to this in your auditions of the '80s?

Best to you noromance,
Dave

I would not buy since they moved production to China !

^Agreed.

Most of this thread is pre-that, in fact, waaay pre-that, jakeman.

Best to you,
Dave

I had a McCormack DNA-1 and a Classe CA-300.  The McCormack was obviously faster and probably a more open sound, but the CA-300 was more of a stable brute of an amp for some Martin Logans. My son-in-law now has the CA-300.  The CA-300 was much better than the CA-200 with low impedance speakers.