Audiophile info request

[dwenius]

Dear Lazyweb,

My Arcam A85 has died for the second time and we've decided to replace rather than repair. So I am in the market for an integrated amplifier, 3-4 input channels, at least 80 watts per channel output into 4 ohms to drive my power hungry Dynaudio Audience 85s. This is just for a 2 channel audio system, not plugged into a tv/home theater; a phono stage would be nice but is not required. Budget is somewhere in the $1-2K range. What hidden gems should I be looking at? I've already looked into the current gear from Rotel (slightly underpowered), NAD (bad quality reviews on the intarweb), Krell (lovely but too expensive), and Marantz (the pm-8003 looks quite nice).

So...what do you recommend?

Comments

[catbear.livejournal.com]

I suggest Alesis for bulletproof stereo amplification on the cheap. Simple stuff, overload protected. You get no switching, though, so you'll need a preamp. I use an RA150 for my studio and it is perfect. (They're designed to be monitor amps, so don't do anything other than amplify cleanly.) You might go with a RA250 for a little extra muscle for your load. You could also get a pair of NHT A-1s, which are also fantastic "all they do is amplify stuff."

You'll need a preamp, though, but there's plenty of room in your budget for one.

FWIW, our theatre systems are 7.1 Yamaha integrated rigs with remote soundfield analysis and correction systems. Very happy with these, even if we do run one of them in stereo only. It's got a digital path so it's not as clean as the units above, but it really does some magic to correct room and speaker quirks.

[askesis.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a better recommendation than another Arcam (sounds like you got a lemon - mine has been bulletproof for a decade). But stay away from the NAD, for sure. I've never heard anything bad about Marantz, but I am very solidly an Arcam kind of girl.

Why don't you solder up something tube-based from some obscure Moog design? Come on, you know you want to.