I'm not sure I can easily do that, Gordon. Perhaps a way to give more is this. Jerry decided £60 class T (Tripath) amps were excellent with his MBLs so I went round with my 211s to check it out. Here's the story:
"First off, let me state that I’ve now heard Jerry’s MBLs with a Graaf 5050, the Mini-Ts and my own 211 monos. I now feel I know the MBLs fairly well.
I’ll just make a list of points as and when they crop up into my mind as I’m typing. They are simply honest comments since bending the truth helps no one. They are just what I thought/think. And they apply only to the marriage of the equipment involved.
1) Jerry played a lot of classical music while I was there. I now understand why he likes the MBLs so much – they do classical really, really well. With near field listening and volume levels at around 70 DB, as least as read by my iPhone (), the results are really good with strings. Much of what I heard simply doesn’t require much in the way of bass – so the Mini-Ts don’t get challenged in that department.
2) Do the Mini-Ts have enough power to drive the MBLs? In my book, absolutely not. They simply can’t muster the power to drive the MBLs to levels which I consider appropriate for my listening tastes. However, Jerry is happy enough with what they can manage.
3) We listened to a few tracks via the Mini-Ts before hooking up the 211s. The Mini-Ts didn’t sound like the Graaf of yore in any way, shape or form. They sounded pleasant, with reasonable resolution and very precise with their image placement. Clean overall, with little in the way of obvious colouration. I felt the bass to be lacking with some of the material we played – but not to the point of causing that much concern.
4) The fact is you’d need some pretty poor amps to make the MBLs sound bad, IMHO. They’re just really good speakers.
5) We plugged the 211s in, and got to our fave Eddie Louiss track pretty quickly. Instantly I heard the tape hiss present on this recording that I hadn’t really noticed it via the Mini-Ts. Also, the sound stage became much bigger, and ambient cues far more prevalent. A much more organic feel and for me, at least, that you were that much closer to hearing real kit in a real venue.
6) Turn the volume up via the 211s and it was obvious the MBLs were receiving what they needed – the loudness capability was much higher with the 211s. The bass was more prevalent and better controlled than with the Mini-Ts.
7) Turning to classical music and I felt the string tone was improved. Violins sounded more like real violins and again I felt much more of the feeling of the venue coming through.
8) I couldn’t isolate one area where I felt the Mini-Ts to be superior. This applies to classical, rock and pop – which in truth is all we tried. About the only thing I think you night stand a chance of arguing with me would be the precise etch-a-sketch image placement the Mini-Ts provide. But this could be due to the smaller, less airy soundstage they come up with.
9) Before I wrote this, I did tell Jerry I write up what I thought. Most of the above I said directly to him anyway.
My opinion of the MBLs has actually been raised a bar or two. I felt the 211/MBL combo to be a real success. I’ve not heard those MBLs sound as good as they did today. But then I’ve only heard them once before anyway. Damn fine speakers – especially for classical music lovers. If I shared Jerry’s taste in music, I’d have them over my own refurbed Apogee Duetta Signatures.
MBL 116F – mid-range/top end magic with strings and some decent tube amps, IMHO. But also capable enough in the bass to raise an eyebrow or two.
I hope this post has added some sanity to the Mini-T proceedings. I am in no doubt that these amps will NOT better more expensive/elaborate offerings. But for the money? Pretty damned good. As I said to Jerry before I left, the Mini-Ts produce very pleasant results with the MBLs – basically you could quite easily say “what is wrong with that?” and had you not heard any alternative with these speakers, you’d be a bit pushed to criticise.
If you asked me what I thought which were the better amps given the choice between the Mini-Ts and Behringer A500, I think I’d have to say Behringer A500. Wish I had taken it for a brief spin with the MBLs.
Message for Bob: take an amp with some power down with you – just in case (wink).
BTW: Jerry’s Wadia appears to be a very good CD player. Much better than the Wadia WT2000/X64 or whatever it was I had for a while years ago. Now that was, ahem, shite!"