To Jeff Fritz,
I was kind of surprised to see that you left out the Classé CA-M600 mono amps and CP-800 preamp-processor from your list of what you would buy. Have you had a chance to hear those products and you are not a fan?
Here's an off-the-wall question for you: my friend has a pair of TAD CR1s and he is going bonkers trying to find the right amps for them (too much listener fatigue at the moment, I guess, due to the high frequencies). Any recommendations?
Thanks,
Mike Bovaird
The Classé products are very impressive, and I have heard nothing but good things about the CA-M600 mono amplifiers (and CP-800 for that matter). In fact, had I thought of them at the time that I wrote my article I very well might have included them.
My "What I'd Buy" articles are not meant to be anywhere near comprehensive, though. There are tons of worthy products out there -- particularly electronics -- that I have simply not heard. The components that I listed are literally what I would buy at various price points if I were shopping today. These recommendations are based on my own experiences and those of our writing staff as detailed in the reviews that appear on the various SoundStage! Network sites. The omission of Classé is by no means an indictment on the quality of those products.
As to your friend and his CR1s, there is at least one obvious candidate that I would be tempted to try and that is TAD's own M2500. There may be some synergy there based on the fact that both products were developed by the same company and no doubt used together during testing and internal evaluation. Other brands that come to mind are of course the ones I mention in my "What I'd Buy: Power Amplifiers" article. . . . Jeff Fritz
