Amp for Driving my KEF Q900 ( Emotiva XPA-3 Gen3 /ANTHEM MCA 325 (Open Box) /Marantz MM7055

[Bala]

I am looking for suggestions on the power amp to drive my KEF q900 tower speakers and the center, primarily for Music ( and movies).

The options I am looking at are

Emotiva XPA-3 Gen3
ANTHEM MCA 325 (Openbox)
Marantz MM7055

All under 1500 USD.

I cannot audition as I do not have them locally available. Please help.

 

[TechHDS]

Hey check out Monolith amps they are made by ATi, also Outlaw too. But those you listed are good amps. Just mention the others just to have more options is all. Now of course there is Parasound, Adcom, and than there are the ones you, either have money to burn, or put a second mortgage on your house, Krell, Pass Lab, Macintosh. Which if I had the bucks in a heart beat I would luv one of them high-end amps. Happy Hunting! I have Emotivas XPA-5 1st gen it's about 5 1/2 years old and has performed flawlessly no problems whatsoever, nice dynamics, very neutral sounding amp.

 

[Andrein]

I am looking for suggestions on the power amp to drive my KEF q900 tower speakers and the center, primarily for Music ( and movies).

The options I am looking at are

Emotiva XPA-3 Gen3
ANTHEM MCA 325 (Openbox)
Marantz MM7055

All under 1500 USD.

I cannot audition as I do not have them locally available. Please help.

From these 3 I would take mca 325. Have mca 525 myself, which replaced xpa 5 gen 3 which i had for 2 days only and was not impressed with. Not sure what was wrong with it but noticed a difference in sound comparing to my yamaha and Monolith 5 i had at the time. Monolith is a great amp but I could not get rid of its transformer hum. Marantz is slightly worse spec vice. Mca amps though having huge transformers are absolutely silent. Totally. Even in my house full of dimmers. Though there will be a little pop in speakers when you switch on/off.

 

[PENG]

From these 3 I would take mca 325. Have mca 525 myself, which replaced xpa 5 gen 3 which i had for 2 days only and was not impressed with. Not sure what was wrong with it but noticed a difference in sound comparing to my yamaha and Monolith 5 i had at the time. Monolith is a great amp but I could not get rid of its transformer hum. Marantz is slightly worse spec vice. Mca amps though having huge transformers are absolutely silent. Totally. Even in my house full of dimmers. Though there will be a little pop in speakers when you switch on/off.

I agree the MCA amp is the best among those but in my opinion it's transformer and the power supply as a whole, is actually not "huge" at all relatively speaking (to Outlaw, Monolith, Parasound's etc in the similar price range). It It does appear to be very well designed and optimized for very good output. You know I have the predecessor of the 225, and have no regret, just don't buy in to all those marketing hypes not supported by facts and figures.

To the OP, it is a good idea to consider pro amps too, such as the Crown Audio XLS1502 that is often recommended by AH members.

 

[Andrein]

Sorry

I agree the MCA amp is the best among those but in my opinion it's transformer and the power supply as a whole, is actually not "huge" at all relatively speaking (to Outlaw, Monolith, Parasound etc in the similar price range). It It does appear to be very well designed and optimized for very good output. You know I have the predecessor and love it, nothing against it at all, just stating the facts.

Sorry, absolutely. What i meant really is 'class a/b transformer some of which might suffer from hum'. In terms of size it is about the same as Monolith's transformer as far as I remember.

 

[PENG]

Sorry


Sorry, absolutely. What i meant really is 'class a/b transformer some of which might suffer from hum'. In terms of size it is about the same as Monolith's transformer as far as I remember.

Me too, I was a little harsh, in reacting to professional reviewers who seem to always used adjectives such as huge, massive, over sized terms to describe transformer in just about any power amps they reviewed, making it meaningless. By the way was it you who made the point about the MCA 525's two transformers are now shared between all 5 channels? That to me, is a preferred feature in terms of fully utilizing the total available transformer VA. That could be the reason why they were able to cut back on the storage capacitance and still have excellent dynamic output.

 

[Andrein]

I agree the MCA amp is the best among those but in my opinion it's transformer and the power supply as a whole, is actually not "huge" at all relatively speaking (to Outlaw, Monolith, Parasound's etc in the similar price range). It It does appear to be very well designed and optimized for very good output. You know I have the predecessor of the 225, and have no regret, just don't buy in to all those marketing hypes not supported by facts and figures.

To the OP, it is a good idea to consider pro amps too, such as the Crown Audio XLS1502 that is often recommended by AH members.

Yes it was me. I was researching 'pop in the speakers' issue and comparing what changed in mca 525 comparing to the prevous gen. Btw i almost forgot about those pops. Should not be a real concern for peaple looking for an amp.