Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Outboard amplifier for my HT?

Thanks Chess. I've been doing a bit of reading on the Anthem MCA line. While there was much talk of "break-in", interconnects, etc..., there seemed some consensus regarding the MCA 20 having a detailed, bright, zingy character. Not what I had in mind. I liked the sound of the Halo-powered/Energy Veritas system quite a bit.
What do you think about the Marantz Mark has? PM me if it's bad.

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there seemed some consensus regarding the MCA 20 having a detailed, bright, zingy character. Not what I had in mind.

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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.

How about this Rotel RB-1070.

Or this RB-1080?

Even if you think the Marantz sucks, you can say so right here...I'm man enough to take it. It sounds good to my ears, so nothing you say about it will make me dislike it, or to retract my recommendation. The unit's successor, the MM9360 150xx6 amp is currently selling for $2799.

Mark

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I liked the sound of the Halo-powered/Energy Veritas system quite a bit.

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I had some Veritas 2.2's on my Rotel gear and was in love.

Hey Mark, re-reading my above post - I didn't come across right. Of course you like the Marantz. At the price, w/ the power specs you note, it sounds pretty damn good. I've never heard one. I'm basically beginning my investigation today. When it comes to separates of any type I've only heard a Rotel/B&W set-up and the aforementioned Energy set-up.

What I really want to avoid is any unwanted noise or hum. Does the Marantz or Rotel make a bunch of noise during quiet movie scenes?
The auto-on feature of the Anthem sounds like a good thing; do the Rotel and Marantz have the same feature?
Anywhere to check these manufacturers' power claims?
Thanks guys.

No hum from the marantz that I can detect. It has an auto on feature that basically turns the amp on when it detects a video signal (yes, that's right...you plug a RCA plug attached to the video out terminal of your receiver, dvd player, etc and when it detects this signal, amp turns on). I never use it...I am a power hog and I just leave the amp on all the time...I don't think that this hurts anything. There's also a 12v DC trigger that connects to other so equipped units to turn it on.

Mark

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I am a power hog and I just leave the amp on all the time

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That's great Mark.
Do you have anything else to confess today that will crush my spirit about hopes for an environmentally conscious society?

You guys are killing me today. Guns, electricity, what's next? Abortion issues?

Please disregard the above post. It's an illusion. Chess really didn't just go there...

Oh Peter, don't get me started again.