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Originally Posted by P1et
Agree with you. I've always lusted after the big Rotels since I was a little kid, and could only ever afford their smaller integrated amps when I was in high school. Picking this up was a real treat. It's massive, and incredibly heavy. Large power supply, and five discrete amps probably are the reason.
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I'm so glad I was able to get my Bryston 6B-ST as a dealer demo in very good condition. The beast weighs in at about 80lbs for a 3 channel amp. Each amp channel is an actual independent amp. They're discrete modules contained in the same chassis. The only thing they share is the power rail from the single power cord feed. Plus their checkout procedure is crazy and all higher end manufacturers should consider doing the same QA check. Each Bryston amp before it leaves the factory goes through a 24 hour full power stress test. If it passes, then they're pretty sure the amp will be good for the rest of its service life. I even got the checkout sheet which showed the measured performance of the amp when it was bench tested. I guess that's why they still have a 20 year warranty on their amps.
There's an online only company called Emotiva which seems to provide very good value or the money. I have two of their XPA-2 amps and these things are also built like tanks.
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Originally Posted by KingOfJericho
I LOVE my B&K amp (it powers my Martin Logan ESLs). I had always heard that Rotel was more on the harsh side compared to the others mentioned but I don't have any real world experience with them. I was always fond of the B&K's simplistic design. I also still fantasize about picking up a Proceed amp but am fearful due to their questionable reliability and expensive repair costs.
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If I recall correctly, Proceed falls under the Harman family of companies. I've also heard of issues with the Proceeds. The amps I've lusted after are from Classe, Krell, Boulder, Audio Research (mmm...tubes....), Mark Levinson to name a few. I remember my first taste of audio bliss when I auditioned some Apogee Stages being driven by a set of mono block Krells. Something about electrostatic speakers and class A amplification.