Steve Deckert
|
Hah, interesting topic...
First off, the TORII's ability to have grunt like you hear from the solid state is completely speaker dependent. Part of the grunt you're describing comes from higher damping factors found in the solid state amp designs. The TORII is designed to have intercourse with the speakers and as a result has an intensionally lower damping factor making speaker selection somewhat critical. If you had a Zen Mystery Amp or a TORII JR, both Ultra-linear, you would have tighter bass leaving the only real variable being power. In that case, the ZMA is going to be best choice. My guess is that it would well have more crunch and meat than the Kenwood... seriously.
Moving on to solid state amps, I have to say that so far the only solid state amps I could enjoy for any real length of time are Nelson Passes First Watt designs... go figure. I'm just not a solid state guy anymore, at least where power amps are concerned. That said there is one exception beside Nelson's amps.... my EICO.
Growing up and in High School I already had the audio bug pretty bad. My Dad was a Presbyterian minister, I grew up with a 500 year old German Pipe organ which I agreed to take piano lessons to be able to play... we visited a lot of people. Basically got dragged into the homes of every family that attended and as a result got exposed to a lot of different stereo gear. At the time, with Sansui, Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony, and others, the best sounding electronics I heard was from Harmon Kardon.
When I decided to buy a receiver in 1976, I went to a stereo shop in the mall with one of those cool back rooms with all the stereo gear on shelves wrapping the room from floor to ceiling, speakers everywhere and a turntable in the center of the room with the switchboard that let you send the signal to any amp and any speaker in the room... fun stuff at the time.
I couldn't stand my best friends Pioneer receiver which somehow only played KISS albums on a pair of Altec speakers upstairs and a pair of Pioneer speakers downstairs... Nothing else I heard was much better. Everything sounding rounded and colored to me except one Harmon Kardon dual mono receiver. The sound was stuck in my head. I entered the back room of the stereo shop and felt the rush of 360 degree stereo gear complete with the funny little elf looking guy in the corner. He asked me what I wanted to hear, and I mater of factually told him I want something that sounds fast and clean like the Harmon Kardon, not like this Pioneer shit that feels like it's got diarrhea. He laughed and knew exactly what I was talking about. He let me hear the various stuff in the room and when it became obvious I wasn't going to buy any of it.. he said to meet him back here in one week, same time. He will bring a unit from home that sounds better than any of this crap, and sell it to me for $20.
A week later I showed up with $20. I walked in and here was this tiny little receiver with the entire tuner section ripped out of it, and the case was missing, the name on the front was EICO model 3770. (just try to find one...)
He fired it up and instantly it was the sound I was hunting for, better even. The leading edges and decay were perfect. I was so firkin excited when I got to my car in the parking lot I nearly backed into the light pole.
Turns out this was a very simple Class A1 circuit using Motorola Hard Shell transistors in place of tubes. It was essentially a tube amp using coupling caps but instead of tubes used the best transistors. Anyway, the circuit is old... old old old, if not the first and holy crap is it good. I listened to this amp from 1976 to 1986 with a pair of Bose 301 loudspeaker which had no crossover except for a single coupling cap on the paper cone tweeter. The sound from this combo was in a class by itself. I have a soft spot for it.
Interesting a couple years ago I was missing it, wanting to hear what it really did sound like again and actually found one on ebay so I bought it. Only one channel works and some evening when I'm in the right mood, I'll recap the entire amp and put it into service. Nevertheless, I listened to the channel that worked and it sounded nearly exactly like an SE84C Zen Triode Amp. That gave me pause... for a bit... and then I of course dove into the circuit to understand how this is possible and realized that it IS the solid state amp circuit that nothing else can top. So if I were to ever do anything solid state, it would be an audiophile version of this EICO circuit of about 18 watts.
Steve
|