Receivers & Speakers

[KvHagedorn]

Paradigms are good. We sell those as well. Hard sell though when you let people listen to the B&Ws too.

[Jammrock]

Paradigms are good. We sell those as well. Hard sell though when you let people listen to the B&Ws too.

Do you have any of the new 800-series in stock? My local store does, but didn't have any of the diamond dome tweeter models hooked up. Just wondering if the new tweeter design really does a lot of good.

[KvHagedorn]

Heh.. I wish we could afford that. We have a nice surround display going, though. 804s for mains, HTM4 center, SCM rears, and 825 subwoofer, all in rosenut. Running this is an Anthem AVM30/MCA50 preamp/amp setup. It's pretty nice, but I prefer my (old Nautilus) 802s. There may be some refinements in the s-series, but they sound pretty close to the Nautilus to me.

I got a chance to hear (very briefly) the new Diamond 802s at a store in Dallas recently. I really like the leather trim vs the cloth on the Nautilus series, and they sounded pretty sweet. I didn't get a chance to sit there and critique them, though. Dunno if it's really $4000 better. Maybe. I would rather spend the extra money on a better set of amps, personally, but we don't have the choice anymore. That's why I went ahead and got the Nautilus 802s (I liked the Red Cherry finish, too, which is now no longer available.)

[Jammrock]

Yes, the cherry is nice The guy at the store said it costs $1k per tweeter to replace! Ouch! Couldn't have that kind of speaker lying around with kids

How does Anthem compare to Rotel and Classe? I've never heard any Anthem stuff.

[KvHagedorn]

It's comparable to Rotel pricewise, not sure about performance because we have not done any Rotel systems or auditioned the line. They do not have as many skus to pick from as Rotel, so we might be going that route in the future. Classe is way better, but might be a bit less purist now under the Equity umbrella, believe it or not. Whereas most of the old amps doubled down (double power at half impedence) the new ones do not, but are cosmetically slicker.

[Jammrock]

Yeah, I thought it was Rotel level, but not sure. The new Classe stuff is incredible. I love the look of the Delta series, and it sound freak'n awesome, too

http://www.classeaudio.com/delta/index.htm

The pictures do it no justice. Of course ... $3k for a CD player and $3k for the cheapest amp and uh ... a lot out of my price range. Just love the look. Gorgeous... simply elegant and gorgeous.

Jammrock

[KvHagedorn]

I'd like to hear the Classe Omegas paired with an Audio Research Reference3 preamp.

[Jammrock]

I'd like to hear the Classe Omegas paired with an Audio Research Reference3 preamp.

I heard a demo of the Omega line (SACD, Processor, and the biggest mono blocks in the Omega line) on a set of Wilson Audio MAXX speakers. It was DAMN nice (and would have costs well over $100k for the setup ... to just play CDs). Though that was the year that the Omega's first came out and I know they've been overhauled since, after Classe picked up a couple of Mark Levinson engineers.

The engineer bit is why Classe is quickly surpassing everyone else as the premiere solid-state audio/video equipment manufacture

You do need to give the Delta's a listen to though. They are amazing, and still cost less than a moderately priced car for an entire setup

Jammrock