After acquiring my CLX's I moved from a Plinius SA_250 to Mcintosh 501's and initially enjoyed the perceived increase in resolving power. Subsequently I added 2 descenti subs and the clx crossovers and found something lacking. There was a bit of a brittle sound on the one hand and a lack of substance or drive on the other. I p[layed around with different cables and the output taps, but something eluded my expectations.
I then tried the Classe CA-600's in place of the 501's and everything settled down with a more airy top end, more substance in the mids, focused soundstaging (depth) and slightly better control in the bass panel bass (but that was marginal) and not the main area of improvement. I toyed with the idea of Mac 601's, but never tried them and settled on the Classe monoblocks instead.
Most interestingly, with the CA-600's and the CLX's, the small differences in my preamps (CP-600, C1000T, First Sound) are much more discernable than before and it helped me a lot decide which I preferred in the system.
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