Vantage and b&k amp

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dontblink

Guest
Hello

I need some advice on amps for my Martin Logan
Vantage speakers I am buying.

I am thinking of getting 3 B&K reference 200.1 II
monoblocks for my front M/L Vantage and Theater or
Stage center.

The cost for these amps is about $3700. I have been
wondering if there are better amps for the M/L in this
price range.

Am I low on my amp budget? I want something clean and
detailed and I don’t want to short change the Vantage.

I have a GFA 555 Adcom that I was planning on using
for my rear channels or maybe using my Yamaha receiver
for the rear speakers and use the Adcom to Bi amp the
Vantage fronts. What do you think is the best way to
go?

Thanks for any help
Tracy
 
dontblink said:
Hello

I need some advice on amps for my Martin Logan
Vantage speakers I am buying.

I am thinking of getting 3 B&K reference 200.1 II
monoblocks for my front M/L Vantage and Theater or
Stage center.

The cost for these amps is about $3700. I have been
wondering if there are better amps for the M/L in this
price range.

Am I low on my amp budget? I want something clean and
detailed and I don’t want to short change the Vantage.

I have a GFA 555 Adcom that I was planning on using
for my rear channels or maybe using my Yamaha receiver
for the rear speakers and use the Adcom to Bi amp the
Vantage fronts. What do you think is the best way to
go?

Thanks for any help
Tracy
Hola Tracy. Welcome to the club. As you do know, the Vantages are woofer powered with 200 Watts/ea. So. here depends a lot of your liking. Some of us, like me as an example, I like warmer sound as the tube sound. Others, like my dear friend Dan, likes SS. You don´t have to spend a lot of money. Just trust your ears, and choose the one that you like most. The good thing regarding this new ML model is its sensitivity, it is rated 92dBs/watt, so you can use low power amps in the range of 50 W/channel with no problem. Hope this can help, happy listening, happy holydays. The Adcom will do fine at rear with no problem.
Pura vida,
Roberto.
 
roberto said:
Hola Tracy. Welcome to the club. As you do know, the Vantages are woofer powered with 200 Watts/ea. So. here depends a lot of your liking. Some of us, like me as an example, I like warmer sound as the tube sound. Others, like my dear friend Dan, likes SS. You don´t have to spend a lot of money. Just trust your ears, and choose the one that you like most.
Not all SS Amps, but I really love the sound of the Plinius line of SS amps. :D Especially the SA-REF and SA-102.

But Roberto is right, as usual, you will need to try to listen to each amp with the Vantage and find the sound you like. There are some people here who like the B&K amps, and some who don't. Each amp has its own sonic character no matter if it is SS or Tube - so again if possible try to listen or audition as many as you can and find the one your like in the range you can afford.

If you have $4k or so to spend...you have a lot of options available to you for amplification.

Dan
 
Last edited:
for that price range, i would consider the anthem p5 statement amp. i heard it and it is very very good. all 5 channels are rated at 500w @ 4 ohms and the design of the amp is similar to a mono design for each of the channels. you will need 2 power cords for this amp and 2 20 amp circuits. if i had to do it all over again, i would get this as it is a very good piece of gear. cheers!!!
 
Thanks so much for your advice everyone. It means allot, and I appreciate the time you gave me.

I am from a small town in Washington State and its tough auditioning equipment.

I went to Seattle a few weekends back and spent 2 days listening to speakers, and my favorites were the M/L Vantage and the Maganapan’s. The last time I bought speakers it took me months to find the ones I wanted but this time it was obvious that Electrostatics were by far my favorites. So I trimmed my list very fast.

I like my music and movies loud but clean open and detailed like most ppl I guess.
The M/L’s were running on high power and high dollar Macintosh amps and they sounded wonderful.

The salesman ( who I trusted) suggested the B&K’s for there power and affordability, I didn’t have a chance to listen to them with the M/L’s.

He also said that I need high current amps to get the M/L’s to perform well at the sound levels I like.

I know they sell Krell and he told me to call and he will try to set the M/L’s up with any amp I want to listen to if they have it of course. I will defiantly try the “Anthem p5 statement” and the “Plinius” amps..



Thanks again for everyone’s help and I will let you know how it turns out..

Tracy
 
dontblink said:
Thanks so much for your advice everyone. It means allot, and I appreciate the time you gave me.

I am from a small town in Washington State and its tough auditioning equipment.

I went to Seattle a few weekends back and spent 2 days listening to speakers, and my favorites were the M/L Vantage and the Maganapan’s. The last time I bought speakers it took me months to find the ones I wanted but this time it was obvious that Electrostatics were by far my favorites. So I trimmed my list very fast.

I like my music and movies loud but clean open and detailed like most ppl I guess.
The M/L’s were running on high power and high dollar Macintosh amps and they sounded wonderful.

The salesman ( who I trusted) suggested the B&K’s for there power and affordability, I didn’t have a chance to listen to them with the M/L’s.

He also said that I need high current amps to get the M/L’s to perform well at the sound levels I like.

I know they sell Krell and he told me to call and he will try to set the M/L’s up with any amp I want to listen to if they have it of course. I will defiantly try the “Anthem p5 statement” and the “Plinius” amps..



Thanks again for everyone’s help and I will let you know how it turns out..

Tracy
Hola Tracy. Perhaps I´m too exited with the new ML products, ant these are Summits and Vantage. Many of us have not carry out the sensitivity of them. You don´t need big power amps to drive them, only to be capable to work stable with low impedance load. Most of high end power amps, SS or Tubes can do it with no problem. If you start to read reviews of amps back over 20 years, you will find that always the most singing amps are low powered. And these are good news for us, because now we able to use them, and in the other models of ML we could not, due to lack high sensitivity of them. 92dBs means that now with 50 W/channel you can produce a lot of clean sound preasure in your room, usally ML were 87dBs! In other words, try them and listen this yourself and choose the one that you like most at your affordable tag price!!! Remember, trust your ears!!! Happy listening,
Pura vida,
Roberto.
 

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