Naughty idea with my Q7

Originally Posted by Elberoth

Make sure to listen to them first in your system. There an gentelman over at WBF who bought 925s based on looks/specs/manufacturer's reputation, only to sell them 3 weeks later.

The 825/925 amps have similar bandwidth to an average tube amplifier (ie: not impressive). The best high end ss amps achieve generally much wider bandwidth. That said, Rowland do follow a different path like Conrad Johnson, so it comes down to whatever is important to you.

Originally Posted by TOGA

Surprised that 825 cost almost the same as a pair of 725.. Naturally 925 will double that.
825 seems possible for me while 925 seems out of reach..
Hmm the input impedance is quite low for my tube ARC preamp.. Hmm...

Interesting indeed.

I considered the 825 as well. It looks good, though I do have some reservations (see my earlier comments). In regard to impedance matching, specs on the 825 are scarce but one website quoted the input impedance as 40k Ohms (which i'd assume is single ended), meaning in balanced mode the input impedance should be double that (80k Ohms) which if the 40k Ohm figure is correct, is reasonably high and will not force your preamp to have to produce a huge amount of current in order to drive the amp. The ARC's input impedance @120k Ohms (balanced) is actually similar to my Boulder 1010 (100k Ohms balanced) which is fine. The more important spec is your Ref 40's output impedance which is high at 600 ohms (balanced). Ideally, a preamp will have the lowest possible output impedance (as close to zero as possible) and the amp the highest possible input impedance.

[KKF1]

Originally Posted by Bodhisattva

The 825/925 amps have similar bandwidth to an average tube amplifier (ie: not impressive). The best high end ss amps achieve generally much wider bandwidth. That said, Rowland do follow a different path like Conrad Johnson, so it comes down to whatever is important to you.

50kHz upper end and 1000 damping factor are looking pretty puzzling to me...

What is the output device design? Again some sort of class D maybe since specs of both 825 and 925 are very similar to specs of old 312 and 301.

[wizard]

825 and 925 will use I think the Pascal M-Pro2 UMAC Class D module.
Damping factor is 1000 at 20 Hz and 1 kHz, but only 80 at 20 kHz.

[kev313]

Lower down the lines, but I am using the Rowland Aeries DAC direct into the 625 with my Magico V2's and am very pleased.

[Elberoth]

625 is a regular Class A/B:

[kev313]

As is the 725...don't know about 825 or 925.

[Blippy]

825 and 925 are NCore NC1200. The amps are almost all power supply. Aside from the power modules and input boards everything else in both of the chassis is either related to filtering, voltage conversion, or regulation.

Aside from the fact that in the 825 the two modules are sharing a power supply the amps are nearly identical and should share similar sonics.

I HIGHLY recommend auditioning for an extended period of time before purchase. The 925s sound wonderful, but won't be to everyone's liking.

[TOGA]

Today I know the MSRP of 825/925 for the first time.
725/825 are no problem, I can manage to get it. But 925 will take some longer planning time to collect $$$$.
Today dealer demo me other options, which I 've heard about them for a long time. today is my
first time I hear them. I need to take them home for audition in my own system before go any further. They're Gryphon Pandora+ Memphisto ST, and Goldmund Telos500+.
I like MEmphisto+Pandora very much, this could be it. Dealer said it is higher class than JRDG. He said to go above what I have now, I have to go Gryphon, or in other words Memphisto is better than 925. I don't know, but I like the sound, but look at the speakers. .. that played big part to the sound too.
TOGA

[TOGA]

Back to my own system.. I found sound to be much less syrupy.. Less caramel.less romantic especially
The mid band or voices.

I also hear the clipping sound on one disc very clearly ( the bad of this CD).. Which I didnt heard at dealer showroom today.
I put same disc in my other system with Dynaudio Focus 260 as speaker, I didnt hear it as well until I get within 1 foot from tweeter Then I heard that broken sound . I believe resolving capability of my system is quite higher than at dealer showroom today. But of course no where nearly as sweet. Due to low input impedance of Memphisto, If I go for it, Pandora has to replace my ARC Ref40 too.

Toga