Help buying new amp

Hi,

i need some help choosing a second hand power amp or preferably 2 monoblocks to go with my Musical Fidelity X-Pre V3, i'm in the middle of upgrading my whole system and want to spend about 400 pounds on a power amp.

Im currently bidding on two Audiolab 8000MX's and two Musical fidelity X-A200's.

Any ideas on whether the Audiolabs of the MF's are the better amps or whether anybody can think of anything more suitable?

As well as the MF pre i have a Cambridge Audio Azur 640C, Kef IQ5, Chord Odyssey speaker cable, Nordost SPM interconnect and a Rotel RA-05 amp.

The Rotel is gonna be the first think to go if anybody is interested?

Thanks


Phil

 

personally would go for something like a used Icon valve amp which should be about £400.

A Leak Stereo 20 sounds great if you want to get it serviced first.

Non valve, perhaps Nad Silverline, a big Rotel amp.

Not personally a big Audiolab or MF fan, but each to their own.

 

There is a Meridian on Ebay now

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....m=270186229896&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=017

 

You can get Meridian 205 mono amps for £300-£350, when they come up.

 

i personally like the audiolabs... well the monoblocks anyway.. the amps themselves are very very capable units. But the audiolab preamps are a bit dull, and veiled. A good transparent preamp onto the 8000M's would work well.

Im running my 8000M's into a pair of focal 1007 be's which are pretty brutal about revealing flaws in your system, but the 8000M's cope well and sound clean, smooth and detailed.

 

Many thanks for all the advice, im now keeping my eye on the nice Meridian 556, 2 8000MXs and a sugden Bijou ampmaster, all on fleabay

Anybody got any experience of the above?

There's also a nice looking Leak Strereo 20 on there as well but all these valves and things look a bit scary!

 

I would go for the Leak Stereo 20 myself. Their not that scary. And I doubt if you will lose money on the Leak you probably will on the the others.

 

Yeah, i like the idea of a classic valve amp, but would 10w be enough and are they fairly easy to maintain?

 

A leak is easy to maintain. What Speakers are you using? Where abouts in the UK are you?

 

The Leak isnt tremendously powerful, and needs a passive Pre-amp (inexpensive, but it does).

The components in one you buy are likely to be 30+ years old, so you may find repair bills coming over the years. It's not ''play and forget''.

That's the warning, but if you can live with that I'd personally find it a whole league better in sound quality than most choices available for the £300 ish they go for.

 

Given the rest of your setup I wouldn't be looking at monoblocs and a seperate preamp. Your likely to get a better sound by buying a better quality integrated (valve or solid state).
If you sold the MF preamp and Rotel you should have around £700-800 to spend and that will you buy a really high class 2nd hand integrated which would then also be good enough for when/if you upgrade your CD and speakers.

 

sugden all the way, then you could upgrade to the headmaster later to match it for the pre

 

Hifi addict,

I'm using Kef IQ5's at the mo but upgrading everything bit by bit and i'm based in chester.

 

Hi guys,

gonna sell the MF X-pre and the Rotel and then go for an Icon Stereo 40 i think. Trouble is there arent any used ones so gonna have to bite the bullet and buy a new one.
Selling the MF X-pre v3 for £350 ono if anybody interested?

Phil