New amp choice for my Sierra 2ex

[rifmon]

Hello,

So my Nikko Stereo amp died yesterday 😑. New amp time. I'm looking at either the Schiit Vidor or a Parasound A24+

Anyone have opinion or experience with either? I'm just wondering if twice the cost if the Vidor for the A23+ would be worth it. 🤔

Thanks!

[ne24611]

I have a Vidar running my pair of Lunas in a near-field set-up. I am extremely happy with the combination. Clean, natural sounding, well balanced, and effortless. As always, YMMV. I have no experience with Parasound.

[rifmon]

Thanks! That's reassuring. I never really drive my speakers hard. I sit approx 8 feet back.

I WAS also considering the NAD 268 but that is D class and I think that might not be a good match for the ribbon tweeter.

[curtis]

Hello,

So my Nikko Stereo amp died yesterday . New amp time. I'm looking at either the Schiit Vidor or a Parasound A24+

Anyone have opinion or experience with either? I'm just wondering if twice the cost if the Vidor for the A23+ would be worth it. 樂

Thanks!

I have no personal experience with either, but I have a friend that owns a Parasound pre/amp. He's an Ascend owner and on this forum.

When his Parasound pre/amp needed repair for a second time (OK, that doesn't sound good), they replaced his pre/amp with the newer model at no charge...now that sounds like great customer service.

[rifmon]

Well, thanks for that too! I always approach patronage towards customer service, at least as equal to, product quality.

[rifmon]

A little background; last year I upgraded to a totally professionally recapped, restored Nikko Alpha II and a Beta 20. The performance was great until late last year, I noticed the right speaker was delayed upon start-up. It persevered and gradually occurred more frequently.

In February i called the shop, sent it back (from PA to TX! )

4 months later I was told there's no problem. They sent it back and the problem grew further in frequency until yesterday, when the right channel gave up the ghost with a nice POP on the left channel upon shutting the Amp down. I will not turn this amp back on!

I bought this refurbished amp/pre amp to SAVE money. I really wanted the parasound A23+ and the P6..... Way out of my budget. So instead I bought this set.

The Beta 20 is fine. I paid less but now that I need to have the Alpha II repaired, did I save?

I love old stuff but it's a little out of my league in terms of maintaining it.

While I don't want sped a lot unnecessarily, I don't want to make a similar mistake.

Whichever amp I get, I'll at least temporarily mate it with my fine working recapped Beta 20 pre amp. Maybe I'll upgrade that later 😏[/QUOTE]

[rifmon]

Well, I just bought TWO amps from Safe and Sound with the understanding that whichever I preferred would stay with me and the other will be returned. I never did this before so I'm really looking forward to the audition.


I swerved away from the Schiit only because it would've been a 4 to 6 week wait and I don't think I would've enjoyed the tiny TV speakers that long!

So, I ordered an open box silver, (would've preferred black but oh well...) Parasound A23+ at a $240.00 discount. And I also bought a factory refurbished NAD C 268 which is a Class D Hybrid that gets good reviews.

Thus will be interesting especially since I've never had a Class D in my system.

I realize Dave cautions the use of Class D due to high frequency noise / switching, but I THINK this Hybrid by NAD might be ok in that department.

The Parasound would be approx $600.00 more than the NAD but if I end up preferring it over the NAD that amount won't be a factor.

I'll report back soon!!!

[Pogre]

I wouldn't put too much into it. I'm in the camp of, once you reach a certain level of low distortion, design and build quality the measurable differences between solid state amps are so minute as to be inaudible. Look for good design with sufficient power and I don't think you could tell one from another in a DBT.

Unless we're talking tube amps. Those can vary in sound signatures so subjective preferences can come into play with tubes.

[rifmon]

Well if I hear no difference between the two I'll save some money. Pretty sure the 80 watts per channel will be sufficient. But Class D might present slightly different.

[Pogre]

For a comparison you really should make sure to carefully level match and have a way to do instant switching, and do it double blind. Sighted comparisons are notoriously inaccurate because our biases creep in and will absolutely color your perceptions.

Double blind is really the only way to eliminate bias and get you as close to accurate as possible. The level matching is important too, as even a 1 dB difference in gain structure can color the results. A difference of 1 dB of spl is pretty much imperceptible for humans, but could be enough for amp A to be perceived as clearer or more detailed than amp B.

DBT testing is a pain to set up tho, so you can't blame folks for not doing it more often, but get down to brass tacks it's the most accurate way to test for stuff like this.