Poweramp for 1.2 TL Polks

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c0redumpt Posts: 35

January 2006 edited March 2007 in Vintage Speakers

Gday all,

Im looking at getting a new power amp for my babies

As I'm located in Aus the issue in terms of paying huge premiums for quality gear is undeniable :mad:

Im looking at a high quality aussie made elektra reference 250watt power amp, and have also spotted a pair of bryston 500 watt monoblocs on ebay aus...

Am a bit unsure on whether the extra 250 watts the brystons have would be worth the extra $$

Anyone have any opinions or experience with bryston or elektra brans in poweramps with similar type of speakers??

cheers

Post edited by c0redumpt on March 2007

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ND13 Posts: 7,601

January 2006 edited January 2006
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Stay away from the Brystons with SDAs. You need to have a common ground amp, unless you have the AI interconnect instead of the standard SDA cable. Someone else bought the Bryston monos for their SDAs, recently, and had to replace them with different amps. I have no experience with either of these brands, but just remember that somewhere in the 200 high current wpc is what you need to look for in solid state amps or 50-60 wpc(or more ) if looking into to tube amps(which is what I recommend). Rogue Audio's Titan series amps seem to be pretty nice and the Cronos model is intergrated and should do a nice job with the SDAs. Once I get back on my feet, I'll be putting a nice tube amp on my SDAs and the Rogues are one of the brands I'm intrigued by.

Good luck!!!

"SOME PEOPLE CALL ME MAURICE,
CAUSE I SPEAK OF THE POMPITIOUS OF LOVE"
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gyusher Posts: 77

January 2006 edited January 2006
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ND13 wrote:

You need to have a common ground amp,

Good luck!!!

Do you mean amps like the early Adcom GFA-1 and 1A?? Not the 555 but the prior version that had "Bridged Outputs" I seem to remember it being refered as a "Common Ground" amp but I could be wrong.

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ND13 Posts: 7,601

January 2006 edited January 2006
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gyusher wrote:

Do you mean amps like the early Adcom GFA-1 and 1A?? Not the 555 but the prior version that had "Bridged Outputs" I seem to remember it being refered as a "Common Ground" amp but I could be wrong.

Sorry, but I have no experience with Adcom gear, but there are a bunch of Adcom lovers in the club that can answer your ?.

"SOME PEOPLE CALL ME MAURICE,
CAUSE I SPEAK OF THE POMPITIOUS OF LOVE"
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george daniel Posts: 12,096

January 2006 edited January 2006
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I powered my sda 1c's with adcom, parasound, belles,,carver without any problems

JC approves....he told me so. (F-1 nut)
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gyusher Posts: 77

January 2006 edited January 2006
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george daniel wrote:

I powered my sda 1c's with adcom, parasound, belles,,carver without any problems

The GFA-1 and 1A are a totally different configuration than the 555 and later amps. It was the phrase "Common Ground" that I was wondering about. I can see now that I want one of these speakers. . . just doing my homework first.

I just bought a perfect pair of Monitor 10s and I know I do not want to stop here. What these 10s did do was to put me back on the Polk bandwagon. . .

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c0redumpt Posts: 35

January 2006 edited January 2006
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I love my SDA 1.2 TL's... wanted them since i was a kid and saw them in a hi-fi shop

On the common-ground issue with the bryston monoblocs does anyone know if you can loop the negative terminals on each to create the common ground?? I remember reading on these forums that this works in some cases???

Anyone shed light on this??

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autoconsortium Posts: 64

January 2006 edited January 2006
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I have Lexicon 501 monoblock amps with my SDA SRS speakers. These are really Bryston 7B's with a Lexincon logo on them. Bryston made them for Lexicon. They are 800watts a piece. I hooked the ground terminal from the amps to each other and they work perfectly with my SDA's. People said it wouldn't work...it did and the sound quality is exceptional...FAR better than the two Adcom GFA555's I had. Adcom's are not of the same class as the Bryston amps, by any means. I believe Bryston's are, or are close to Class A amplifiers. The adcom's are not.

Alex Cagann

Polk SDA SRS
Lexicon DC-1 preamp
(2) Lexicon 501 monoblock amps
Parasound CD Transport 1000
Parasound DAC1000
Nakamichi Dragon
Nakamichi RX505
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F1nut Posts: 49,808

January 2006 edited January 2006
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Bryston amps are Class A/B and I agree, better than Adcom.

c0redumpt,

You can always build or have built the AI-1 isolaton transformer cable. There is plenty of info in here on how to do it.

Political Correctness'.........defined

"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."

President of Club Polk

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DarqueKnight Posts: 6,765

April 2006 edited April 2006
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With some of Bryston's amps, like the 4B SST, the ground terminals of both channels can be tied together into a common ground configuration. Some of their amps, like the 14B SST cannot. With the 14B, the negative terminal of each channel is not at ground potential, but is "live" and is an inverted version of the positive terminal.

Just send an email to Bryston and they will confirm if a particular Bryston amp is common ground or can be configured as a common ground.

Proud and loyal citizen of the Digital Domain and Solid State Country!
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puunda Posts: 116

April 2006 edited April 2006
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I'm using my 1.2TL's with a Bryston 4BST - Works fine. Didn't have to do anything special. Guess it's a common ground amp. Just don't like the sound as much as my McIntosh amp. But that's just my taste.

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c0redumpt Posts: 35

March 2007 edited March 2007
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Gday all,

I'm still hunting around for a poweramp for my 1.2 TL's, on ebay here in Aus a phase linear 700b poweramp has popped up which is tempting me as the 350watts of power it possesses im hoping will make my 1.2 TL babies sing a little better

Just trying to obtain some opinions on whether this amp is a good option over my hafler which in comparison only has 200watts @8ohms.

Its been difficult to find documentation for this amp on the web as well, would anyone know if this amp is common ground also?

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snow Posts: 4,329

March 2007 edited March 2007
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c0redumpt wrote:

Gday all,

I'm still hunting around for a poweramp for my 1.2 TL's, on ebay here in Aus a phase linear 700b poweramp has popped up which is tempting me as the 350watts of power it possesses im hoping will make my 1.2 TL babies sing a little better

Just trying to obtain some opinions on whether this amp is a good option over my hafler which in comparison only has 200watts @8ohms.

Its been difficult to find documentation for this amp on the web as well, would anyone know if this amp is common ground also?

You might try here for a little more info on the phase linear amp. http://www.carveraudio.com/phpBB2/index.php.

It seemed to me that the difference in power didnt really affect the sound quality a whole lot after 200 wpc at least on mine. certainly the brystons will sound better than what you currently have but am not real sure its worth the extra $$ if possible try to audtion beg borrow a larger amp from a shop or friend then decide for yourself if it makes a big enough difference to justify the $$ spent before you buy. REGARDS SNOW

Well, I just pulled off the impossible by doing a double-blind comparison all by myself, purely by virtue of the fact that I completely and stupidly forgot what I did last. I guess that getting old does have its advantages after all
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engtaz Posts: 7,652

March 2007 edited March 2007
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snow great advice

engtaz

engtaz

I love how music can brighten up a bad day.
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davidk0512 Posts: 157

March 2007 edited March 2007
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gyusher wrote:

The GFA-1 and 1A are a totally different configuration than the 555 and later amps. It was the phrase "Common Ground" that I was wondering about. I can see now that I want one of these speakers. . . just doing my homework first.

I just bought a perfect pair of Monitor 10s and I know I do not want to stop here. What these 10s did do was to put me back on the Polk bandwagon. . .

I have an Adcom GFA 555 driving SDA 1Bs, it is a common ground amp. I questioned Adcom tech service a while back about this and their response was that any amp that is "bridgeable" must be common ground.

David
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snow Posts: 4,329

March 2007 edited March 2007
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c0redumpt wrote:

Gday all,

I'm still hunting around for a poweramp for my 1.2 TL's, on ebay here in Aus a phase linear 700b poweramp has popped up which is tempting me as the 350watts of power it possesses im hoping will make my 1.2 TL babies sing a little better

Just trying to obtain some opinions on whether this amp is a good option over my hafler which in comparison only has 200watts @8ohms.

Its been difficult to find documentation for this amp on the web as well, would anyone know if this amp is common ground also?

Here is a link that may be able to tell you what you need to know about the phase linear amp. http://hometown.aol.com/PhaseTek/

REGARDS SNOW

Well, I just pulled off the impossible by doing a double-blind comparison all by myself, purely by virtue of the fact that I completely and stupidly forgot what I did last. I guess that getting old does have its advantages after all
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