I recently picked up a great pair of goldi's for a great price. I'm currently driving them with an emotiva basx a300. They sound great when I crank it up, but at lower volumes they seem to lack a little. I've read on here that they really like high current power. Is there a good 200-250 wpc high current amp that I could get for around $400 that would make these sing at both low and high volumes? I have a far from ideal listening area (semi-finished basement) and have experimented with placement, etc. I currently have the speakers about 18" from the wall and that seems to help a little, but I think a little more power will bring out their full potential. I've been looking at adcom GPA-555's--there are a couple available locally in my price range, and carver tfm22's on the auction site. Some opinions seem to be that the carvers are unreliable and expensive to get repaired. Any opinions or other recommendations? Thanks in advance, Scott
Amp recommendations for psb stratus goldi's
- Thread starter farr out
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vonclod
Super Member
They are nice speakers, I had the regular Golds, they do like some power/current, go for an amp that doubles down at 4ohm's ideally. I ran them with a few different amps, they did make my Yamaha amp(B1) clip(was running some real bottom end heavy music pretty loud). Had good results with a simularly spec'd amp as the Adcom..a Technics SE-A3.
There is a cl ad near me, the guy has a carver av-64 cathedral amp and a carver m200t amp that he really wants to deal on. The cathedral amp is a 3/4 channel amp, kinda weird, don't think it could be configured for 2 channel and even then I don't think it's more powerful than my emotiva. The 200 is only 120 wpc. I'll keep looking I guess.
I'd give B&K a look-see as well. They put out some stellar 200wpc iron during the 80s, 90s, and 00's until they finally went tits up. Excellent build quality and readily available replacement parts. With a ton of MOSFET output trannies (up to 10 per channel), they tend to run a bit warm, so factor that into your decision. Good luck.
There's a nice looking original owner unit out of Illinois listed on the bay (open bidding, unfortunately, ending Friday): B & K Reference 200.2 Amplifier (2 Channel). Good luck with whichever way you go.
P.S. Looks like your speakers go below 4ohms in the lower range. Not a problem for the B&K units.
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62vauxhall
Super Member
In the early 1990's a customer was shopping for Stratus Gold's but I could not provide them. He bought those elsewhere but returned to buy amplification from me. He wanted two NAD 2600's which I delivered that night to his home - he literally lived around the corner from me. I bridged them to mono and we listened for maybe an hour. That combo sounded pretty damn good.
Another perspective on B&K models (you might want to look at the 5-channel unit) as well as NAD and Rotel. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/b-k-200-2-s2-2
I had Stratus Golds, ... should have kept them as they are some of the best sounding speakers for the money.
They are happy with a lot of current. I believe that the Gold i has smaller magnets (woofers and mids), but I don't know if the power ratings change from my original Golds however I was unhappy with how they performed on a single 2-channel amp. Originally I ran them bi-amped on PS 250s, later I sold those and ran them from various vintage receivers (going through a monster silver-face phase) and never got the impact that they had on the PS Audio amps. Eventually I hooked them up to a pair of ADCOM GFA-535IIs that I was retiring from my surround system (again bi-amped), and they sounded as good IMO as they did with the PS Audio amps. However, when I ran them at my preferred higher listening level, they ran HOT. Never ran them into clipping, never had a thermal shutdown/light, but running those 4ohm speakers (according to reviews when new they dipped below 2ohms at crossover) was pretty much the limit of the 535II which was built for current / 4ohm.
I would suggest a pair of 545s, not that expensive, or if you like the Carver sound a pair of TFM-25 would be amazing also, either one not that expensive. A mini-DSP for the crossover and you're golden!
Something about those speakers that really comes alive when bi-amped, nothing two-channel (even my big Crown) sounded as lively. Paul did a great job of tuning the crossover points and designing to them but there's no "free lunch" in a 4th-order crossover, power hungry and lots of phase distortion.
They are happy with a lot of current. I believe that the Gold i has smaller magnets (woofers and mids), but I don't know if the power ratings change from my original Golds however I was unhappy with how they performed on a single 2-channel amp. Originally I ran them bi-amped on PS 250s, later I sold those and ran them from various vintage receivers (going through a monster silver-face phase) and never got the impact that they had on the PS Audio amps. Eventually I hooked them up to a pair of ADCOM GFA-535IIs that I was retiring from my surround system (again bi-amped), and they sounded as good IMO as they did with the PS Audio amps. However, when I ran them at my preferred higher listening level, they ran HOT. Never ran them into clipping, never had a thermal shutdown/light, but running those 4ohm speakers (according to reviews when new they dipped below 2ohms at crossover) was pretty much the limit of the 535II which was built for current / 4ohm.
I would suggest a pair of 545s, not that expensive, or if you like the Carver sound a pair of TFM-25 would be amazing also, either one not that expensive. A mini-DSP for the crossover and you're golden!
Something about those speakers that really comes alive when bi-amped, nothing two-channel (even my big Crown) sounded as lively. Paul did a great job of tuning the crossover points and designing to them but there's no "free lunch" in a 4th-order crossover, power hungry and lots of phase distortion.
I checked out the stratus. Looks like it might be a lateral move from my emotiva amp. It's also 150 wpc and doubles at 4 ohm.
You are correct.
You can Y-out from your source (preamp) to drive both amps full-range, which will work, but using a DSP to split your music output into HF/LF before the amps is the preferred method.
Either way (in my experience/opinion) you will find the PSBs will respond well to separate amps and the ADCOMs are dual-mono designs so you end up with the equivalent to four separate amplifiers.
Yup. Owned one. Boutique brand but unremarkable in every other way.
True, there is no speaker protection relay, and that is to some a concern, ... Don't kill the machine and it won't kill your speakers, or fuse the speakers if you wish (IIRC the ADCOM manual has fusing recommendations).
