led to...
Niles SI-275!
View attachment 44869
Okay so this has to be the most ridiculously good thing going in hifi right now. For $100 plus shipping on ebay I have a high-current amplifier, stable down to
2.7 ohms, with audio-sensing auto turn on and daisy chain RCA output, and over 100 clean w/p/c at 4 ohms!
And it doesn't look out of place in an AV or hifi system, to boot!
So, unfortunately I found out the hard way that the Denon DRA-800h (yeah I bought a 2-channel AVR; I'm
that guy ) doesn't have a true preamp output. Don't even get me started on that "Zone 2" bullsh!t. It is not the same, and you can't make it the same. Ultimately I had to get a 1/4 headphone to stereo RCA cable in order to preamp the Niles.
Bu... oh... damn...
THAT is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Stratus Gold's! Suddenly everything I had read about these speakers came to life. With good amplification behind them they are true beasts.
And even after jamming out to tunes and playing the action scenes from Netflix' "Outside the Wire" at house-shaking levels, the amp wasn't even warm to the touch. Insane.
Probably going to replace the Denon with a Marantz NR1200, which has a true preamp output. That way I get to keep HEOS. I don't like the headphone jack hookup and I wouldn't mind being able to bi-amp the PSB's.