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wich power amp?

H

hpm-1000

Member
I am looking for a very powerful amp to drive my magnepan tympani 4. Anyone experienced with any of this? I can get any of them for more or less the same price but i wonder what would fit the tympani better. what kind of sound signature have emotiva, adcom and meridian??

Emotiva xpa-2
Adcom GFA-555
Meridian 557

thank you!
 
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I tried an Adcom GFA-555 II on my Tympani 1Ds and it wasn't a great marriage. The Adcom didn't seem any more powerful than the 80wpc Luxman M-12, and it sounded worse. I had better luck with a pair of B&K monoblocks. A pair of Luxman M-120As worked well too, I don't remember if I ever tried just one, but I think one would probably work well too.
A lot of folks suggest bi-amping the Tympani, and I did find that worked better on mine, so you may want to keep your eyes open for a good pair of stereo amps, maybe in the 80-150wpc range... I think a pair of Meitner Meliors maybe? A friend used a couple of Tandberg amps on his IIBs, and that sounded very good.
I don't have any experience with either of the other amps you are looking at, so I'm of no help there.
 
I was reading the original "Stereophool" review of the IVa speakers and the reviewer only used a BEL2002 amp to drive them with. It is only a 100watt/channel amp. And then he had the ignorance to complain that they were not as dynamic as he would have liked them to be. Well.....duh. That would be like showing up at a dragstrip with a Dragster powered by a Ford Falcon engine.
Funny though, the guy that I sold my IVa's to last year called last night and is moved from NY back down South and is going to sell his speakers. After hearing the Magnepan booth at the CES show this January, I'm going to have him bring them back to my house so that I can hear them this time with lots of watts on them. I now have an amp that puts out 750 watts per channel into a 4 ohm load, and I'm anxious to hear them come alive.

I have owned the Adcom you mentioned and they just don't have any balls/dynamics, just one of the most lifeless amps I've owned so far.

Tympani's need as much power as you can afford.
 
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I use an Adcom 5500 and I couldn't be happier. Very powerful, very transparent. If your speakers really take that much power then the Adcom 5800 might be a better fit, but I haven't tried it myself so YMMV.
 
Adcom's do not have speaker protection so they will need to have a comprehensive recap restoration before you can have confidence in them. Or, use at your own risk. They will take out drivers.
 
hobie1dog said:
That would be like showing up at a dragstrip with a Dragster powered by a Ford Falcon engine.
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Not to be too argumentative but the factory Ford Falcon '62, '63 and 64 AF/X were a ripple in the force. Definitly to be reckoned with :D


And to the OP, the Emotiva XPA-2 (300wpc @ 8 ohm and 500wpc @4 ohm) amp seems very clean and definitive using a Tandberg 3008a. A wee bright using their USP-1
 
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SoCal Sam said:
Adcom's do not have speaker protection so they will need to have a comprehensive recap restoration before you can have confidence in them. Or, use at your own risk. They will take out drivers.
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Are you saying these amps have no speaker relays that prevent switch on/off surges and DC components during sustained clipping or catastrophic failure? Or are you saying the R/C time constants associated with the relay protection are all wrong?
 
Those Adcoms have no speaker protection relays whatsoever. They don't have any bandwidth limiting either.
 
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