ML Vista - Amp advice

Hi all,

Well, the 'hard-to-drive' Martin Logans' seem to be in the news!

I have a pair of recently acquired Vistas and have to admit that I'm struggling to get it clear in my mind as to what sort of power amp is best suited to driving these beautiful speakers!

Martin Logan offer this :
We recommend an amplifier with 100 to 200 watts per channel for most applications. Probably less would be adequate for our smaller hybrids or when used in home theater where a subwoofer is employed. Our hybrid designs will perform well with either a tube or transistorized amplifier, and will reveal the sonic character of either type. However, it is important that the amplifier be stable operating into varying impedance loads: an ideally stable amplifier will typically be able to deliver nearly twice its rated wattage into 4 Ohms and should again increase into 2 Ohms.

On the one hand then, it seems that solid state, with plenty of power and the ability to deliver that power into a very low impedance is required. Amps capable of feeding down to a possible 1.2ohms at 20Khz appear to be rarer than hens teeth and those that have the required published specs are way out of my £2000-ish budget range!

On the other hand I understand that valve amps do not have such an issue with the low impedance problem but struggle to provide enough power.

Confused I am!!

I have tried a Bel Canto S300, which provides a quoted 300w into a minimum 4ohm load, and my impressions of the amp were that some clipping/distortion was occuring in the higher frequencies. Not horrible 'oh my god', more of a 'ooh, what was that?' So, despite plenty of power the feeling of something being 'not quite right' has left me wary of using the amp at all. Any experience, advice, recommendations will be very gratefully received!

 

I've recently been through the same process, having lost the DPA I was using to power my Martin Logans. I've ended up with a big Krell - lots of power, lots of current and a doubling of output wattage into a halving of speaker impedence, which I also noted seemed to be important but I have no idea why.

other brands I looked at included McIntosh (mc 252 may be in budget used) and Boulder.

maybe some others on here will have a better insight - I'm a little out of my depth!