After surfing around a bit, it would appear that I am limited to either an integrated amp, or a pre-amp and amp combination. I forgot to mention that I want no less than 150 wpc / 8 ohm…..and/or 250 wpc / 4 ohm. It would also appear that I will be spending in excess of $1000 to get that, provided I buy new gear.
On the top of my wish list so far is Parasound Halo A21 amp and P3 pre-amp. 250 wpc / 8 ohm, and about $2800
Second on the list is Parasound HCA 1500 amp and PHP 850 pre-amp. 205 wpc / 8 ohm, and about $1050
Third on the list is NAD C272 amp and C162 pre-amp. 150 wpc / 8 ohm, and about $1000
Fourth is Rotel 1080 amp and 1090 pre-amp. (have not found an online dealer, so no idea what they cost)
Fifth is the NAD C372 integrated amp. 150 wpc / 8 ohm, and about $900
Whatever I buy will have to be shipped second day air to Alaska. A 50 lb box will run about $100. So that gets tacked onto the above prices.
Are there any other combinations I should be looking at? I looked at Krell, but suspect the cost of their gear will be higher than Halos. So that’s an immediate disqualifier as I don’t think I could choke down $3000 for the Halos, and definitely not more than that. Another consideration is that I am no audiophile-atic that spends much time trying to distinguish finger squeaks on violin strings (so to speak, cause I really don’t know what audiophile-atics like to listen for). I doubt AC/DC or Toby Keith will sound much better with $3000 Halos over $1000 NAD gear. Or will it? Hell I don’t know…..
