Quote Originally Posted by LICORNE View Post
Favorite is Mcintosh. So expensive. Try to lift one .Go on their site and click bottom left Less Paul testimony on Mcintosh and Altec speakers.
I have some McIntosh amps as well. They are what I call PRETTY sounding. I had for a time an MC-2125 on six JBL 2395,s with 2441 drivers, female vocals were so sweet and sounded like a they were spotlighted, very smooth and soft. But, Mc is definitely, IMO, not as dynamic, or punchy sounding as you call it as a Crown. I will agree that Crown is not really a HI FI sound, and yet, Crown amps do something that to my ears is just musically right. Now on tweeters, a good Mc is amazing with todays digital recordings. But Crown for horns and woofers is my personal favorite.

I have tried many newer amps, Bryston, McKormack, and these amps are considered hi fi, and I will say that the Brystons are one of the MOST resolving amps I have ever used. You will hear the most minute details in recordings, Bryston is SUPER CLEAN, makes GREAT bass, too. The McKormack is a MOSFET design, also very good sounding. Makes nice mids and highs.

Right now I am trying a couple of HALO A-23 by PARASOUND for my tweeters, and an A-21 for my horns also an attractively priced amp brand, discrete JFET input stage, MOSFET driver stage, bi-polar outputs, BIG power supplies with toroidal transformers. These are good, to my ears I am liking them alot. Clean, resolving, well balanced with lots of GREAT muscle under the hood for a GOOD price.

The HALO amps really dig out the micro details in music, is nice and dynamic sounding, yet not overly solid statey sounding either. The MOSFETS do their job well.

But my low end is Crown powered, this is what works for me!