What Integrated Amp for Reynaud Offrandes

Soliver:

Thanks for the great input. May I quote you to my wife on the "smart move" part? Just when I was about to get this sorted out, you have to complicate my life with all these SET amp temptations, and the NAF 845 SE looks VERY tempting.

I wonder how much of a difference there truly is with the newer Offrandes. Bob definitely seemed to favor Push Pull design tube amps or hybrids. How big is your listening room? Mine is about 300 SF, although with 2 large openings along one wall. I've had no experience with SET amps, although my PHI 30/30 does fine with the Trentes in there. I thought that SET's were used mainly with single driver speakers, or otherwise high effieciency speakers.

Gary,

I have Offrandes. I have had them running with a Krell fpb 300cx/modwight 9.0 preamp, a pair of Manley snapper mono blocks/modwright, and now a Jeff Rowland Concerto integrated. All different, all good in thier own way.

I bought the Manleys based on Bob neill's info on his website. I loved the fatter bass from the manleys and they certainly are fast and dynamic. I lost some soundstage depth and width I loved with the Krell though.

The krell was rock solid from top to bottom, great dynamics, fast attack and decay. Great soundstage depth and width. The most nuetral of the 3. However the Rowland makes the most beautiful music of the 3.

The Rowland combines the atributes I like the most in the other 2 amps into one great looking, very cool running and easy to operate 250 watt integrated amplifier. It only weighs 35 pounds and doubles output to 500 watts @ 4 ohms which is the impedance of the Offrandes. Bass is very good but not as tight as the krell. It's a little warmer (tubier?) on the bottom like the Manleys which I like. Mids are lush and open. The all important vocals are absolutely stunning. Highs are very detailed but not hyperdetailed. Soundstage width and depth are better than either of the other systems, with very solid placement of insturments and vocals. There is a great feeling of the venue the music was recorded at. The soundstage is behind the speakers completely so you are not in the first row, you are back a little with a sense of space. The speakers completely dissapear on most music. There is great synergy between these two components. Also since my system is in my living room and no TV on the first floor the music is on a lot. The Rowland sounds better from other points in the house besides the sweet spot than my seperates did.

You would have to get a seperate phono stage though.

Just an aside on the Offrandes. I have never looked for speakers since I bought these and I have changed out everything else several times. I love these speakers. I have a Totem lighting sub that I used with a pair of Sttaf speakers. I tried it with the Offrandes and it added nothing but time alignment issues. They are true full range monitors.

I guess I should also add my source components are a tubed Sony/Modwright cdp and a tubed Magna Dynalab 106t tuner with Acoustic Zen speakerwire and interconnects. Power cables are Signal. All plugged into a BPT 3.5 signature power conditioner.

All the best,
Russ

Hey Russ:

You really got me interested in the Concerto when we spoke a while back. I'm really excited about the Offrandes, which should arrive in a week or two. I actually came close to getting a Concerto, but decided to buck the popular opinion, and go in the opposite direction (see Soliver's post earlier). I'm expecting the 25 w.p.c. New Audio Frontiers 845 SE integrated to arrive tomorrow. Since most of my listening is jazz and chamber music late at night, I wanted to try a lower powered SET amp first. There was alot more harmony at home when I ran my VAC PHI 30/30's with the Trentes, than with my Spendor S8e's and Musical Fidelity KW500 integrated. Thanks for the great report. I'll post my impressions of the NAF/Offie combo in a few weeks.

Gary,
After you receive the NAF 845 Integrated, you can tweek with some tube rolling. I especially recommend the Tung-Sol/Chatham rectifier that we use in the demo unit here. Although the RCA rectifier is very good, the T-S is significantly more transparent and detailed.

btw, for others our demo 845 Integrated Special Edition is available with addtl tubes including the Tung-Sol - just contact us if interested.

Jim Ricketts/tmh audio
http://www.tmhaudio.com/NAF.htm

Thanks Jim. I appreciate your generosity in taking the time to speak with me about the NAF 845 Integrated SE recently. I believe that the unit I'm expecting has the Tung-Sol rectifiers. I'll take some NOS RCA 845's if you have em' though!