C-J!

Conrad-Johnson CA200.

Can we vote on Howard's next system?

I vote for the ARC Ref 5 SE or CJ ET3 SE (the GAT is NOT worth the price difference Howard) with a Simaudio W-8. Or the reverse: a Sim P-8 with those Octave MRE 130s that are gathering dust on a'gon.

Yeah. Should have accepted Joe / Howard's offers and this would be a moot point. I just thought it was too much for what I had or was planning at the time. Now I'm into it and am ready to devote more resources than originally thought. The MS HR II and the good little NAD, along with some HD and lossless music, coupled with the now broken in Dyn's have really changed how I'm thinking about the need to get everything up at least one more level before settling in for more listening than gear collecting.

Which is a point, given all our various hobbies, endeavors. A couple days ago I calculated how much I spend per hour on aviation in a year, versus listening to music. It was really a wakeup call. The exercise isn't all that valid, once you think about the value and rewards that you receive from one or the other activity, but it showed me that a large proportion of my pleasure time is getting short changed, if you will. In short, my budget for music gear and the music itself just more than doubled from where it was several months ago when I first joined AA. The CA200 at Howard's price point would have been an easy purchase. Darn.

What about the Simaudio I-7 that I think is still for sale in the AA classifieds?

I tend to agree with this. The list of amps Dyns sound "good" with is starting to really grow. I've listened to the Dyns in my system...Special 25s and now C1 Sigs...on 5 different amps in the past year (hell, past 6 months probably...lol); 2 from (David) Belles, 2 from C-J, and even a Wyred4Sound...just for good measure. To a certain extent, they all sounded "good".

So...you've got Belles, C-J, Sim, Naim, Mac; etc, etc. How about Dyns are just damn good. :yes: Now...that being said...there's "good" and there's great. In listening to plenty of amps, here are the 2 characteristics I really tend to look for now...in getting the best out of my C1s: 1) they need to offer good control over the substantial bass, Dyn monitors offer; tight but full. 2) They need to take advantage of the world-class Esotar2 tweeter; extend, but not sound etched or fatiguing.

Again, while most of these amps were successful in sounding "good", obviously some were better than others at accomplishing these traits. I'm currently running C-J at both the pre and power positions. :thumbsup:

Pider...Naim is supposed to be the PRaT champ, and I'm curious about one myself; especially since I discovered that the Naim mystique...about somehow punching wayyy above its weight...is a bit of a misnomer. That, in fact, an IA rated at 50wpc, like the 5i, can actually hit 500wpc peaks into 2ohms!

But another unit that really has me intrigued, on the IA front, is the Rega Elicit. Rega has that reputation for the "British" sound, and PRaT as well (in fact, I've seen it compared to Naim in several reviews). However, it offers a bit more (rated) power, and the price isn't quite as steep (on the used market).

I'm not sure if that's a ringing endorsement or not; but inevitable for most. :D

There ya go...

Naim NDX/282/Supercap/250