Top three vintage power amps, submit your votes

[Puma Cat]

Harman-Kardon Citation 12
Nelson Pass-modified Citation 12
Snell Amplifier circa 1980

 

[needforspeed]

Carver A760x, Or it's younger brother TFM 55. Monster power, Very musical, A ton of headroom, And very good HT amps. Honorable mention, Hafler XL600.

 

[xpert54]

For a Tube amp Its a Sansui AU 111. everything else its Kenwood all the way

 

[Nocturnal]

SAE A501

 

[that70sguy]

Ooh, tough decision, but I'll pick from the list of amp I own.

Yamaha MX-2000
Mcintosh MC2105
Soundcraftsmen A5002

 

[guest109]

Crown Macro Reference- biggest Grand daddy of them all.

 

[titan57nl]

McIntosh MA-2500

 

[musichal]

Audio Research Classic 150 Monoblocks
NAD Monitor Series 2600
Adcom GFA-555

How vintage is vintage?

 

[Aydin]

My top three amps are all integrated... :scratch2:

Sansui AU-505 - The most captivating, instantly enjoyable amp I've heard to date.
Sansui AU-117 - Virtually bullet-proof, bags more power than the conservative rating would lead you to believe, works with just about any speakers IME.
Marantz PM-64 Mk.II - I suppose some people wouldn't consider this "vintage", it's just about the latest Marantz amp I can listen to happily, a bit *too* clean for me, but a very good amp IMHO.

I'd also like to throw in my vote for (possibly) the worst amp ever made: JVC A-K11 uke: Tiny heatsink, regularly cooks itself, sounds nasty below 200Hz...

 

[geiman]

Technics SE-9600 power amp. High current design topography, 110 wRMS, .002 THD&IM
Owned since 1975, sounds the same as the day I bought it.
It has no sound of it's own, that makes it nearly perfect.
Military build quality.

I get two more choices, right?

Threshold CAS-1 An axx-kicking 60 Wpc. amp, First watt philosophy courtesy of Nelson Pass.

Technics SE-9060, a lower powered version of the SE-9600, 60Wpc

 

[geiman]

Threshold

Threshold or any amp designed by Nelson Pass

 

[bystander]

Hey, I hope someone's keeping track of these votes!

McIntosh MC2300 - good enough for Jerry Garcia, good enough for me.

McIntosh MC2105 - simply beautiful.

 

[dBfreak]

McIntosh MC-2300
HK Citation Twelve
Mcintosh 275

 

[Soran]

there is a lot of fine stuff out there. but to be the best it should be:
heavy, elegant, beautifull and good.
i vote for the denon POA-3000, the yamaha MX-10000 and marantz sm-11

 

[bouttree]

God save the KING! Kenwood KA-9100 (year 1976) Im listening to the one I bought over 30 years ago as I type. Sounds great!!!! No problems except for the controls needing cleaned ever once in a while.

 

[tubed]

I can only reference what I've owned throughout my life and happen to be still in daily use. Yamaha M-85, M-60, MX-800 and an integrated that I've seemed to have had forever, a CA-1000. Never a problem with a one...knock on wood.

 

[drjuju]

MAC, Grommes, and Crown

 

[JBLKRAZEE]

Soundcraftsmen, Yamaha , Kenwood

:thmbsp: I can second those picks!

 

[legalalien]

The G.A.S AMPZILLA!!!

 

[ET16]

Early B&K
Forte