Audiophile info request
Sep. 3rd, 2009 12:25 pmDear 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?
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?