In reply to:
there seemed some consensus regarding the MCA 20 having a detailed, bright, zingy character. Not what I had in mind.
Try reading some different forums.
The 'character' seems to change all the time.
Another reason why all this talk about SS amps sounding so vastly different is bogus, uncontrolled, subjective and biased opinion. No one can decide on the same 'character' a brand has unless they've all read the same review first.
I auditioned the Anthem MCA30, the Parasound A23 along with a very expensive Coda 10.2 and my Onkyo. You could tell that the Onkyo didn't have the same power levels as the other 3 but soundwise, two of us could not hearing any distinctive differences with my $6000 speakers playing in mono mode and switching blind b/w the amps.(Sometimes audiosnobs use the excuse that your speakers were not high end enought to distinguish the differences. You can also insert pre-amp, cables or any other equipment piece for speakers b/c there just HAS to be reason right?)
Apparently my friend who loaned me the Coda said he wouldn't have expected i would hear a difference b/w those 3 amps and gave me some hack kneed explanation for it. Although earlier in the week he was going on about how the Coda needed to be turned on for 2 hours first and then would sound much warmer than the other 2 amps.
Uh, ya right.
I will see if i can dig up some of the mag reviews on the Anthems. Several that i read were not so snooty and reading b/w the lines basically said things like, "these amps are no frills and plain good". The no frills part (their looks are a little blah) is probably what keeps the cost down.
