I am looking to upgrade my existing legacy powerbloc 4 class D amp and legacy has their new iv line of class D amps. The power is about the same as the M1200 so I am looking for input on the sound quality differences. I am using the Legacy Calibre speaker which is 4 ohms.
I need a center channel amp also so 3 M1200’s is $9,000 vrs a 3 channel legacy amp is $4,900. FYI the Legacy dealer is giving me a full trade in on my existing amp.
There do not seem to be a lot of reviews out there. I am leaning towards the legacy as it is much cheaper, will be cleaner with less power cords and needing less space and I believe I will be very happy with the sound quality.
I know I can buy the legacy and if not satisfied trade in for the M1200’s and return if not satisfied but I assume both amps will sound great.
I haven’t heard the new Legacy amps so I can’t do any kind of comparing, but there older stuff has always been pretty impressive. Musical with the effortless headroom feel but seemed to be a little shouty for my taste. A decently fair comparison to their older class D amps would be the M700s. Everything equal, I’d take the M700s.
If you’re trying to fit a certain budget, running M1200s for L & R and then 1 M700 for the center would work really well (assuming this is for a HT setup as well). They have very similar gain structures so it’d be easy to integrate everything. We’d be happy to take in the older Powerbloc as trade towards everything.
I have owned a handful of m700s and loved them. I currently use one with my Legacy Marquis XD Center channel :). I have also had the opportunity to hear the IV amps and they are nothing short of amazing. I am planning on running an IV amp with my Legacy Valors when I get them in the system in a couple of of weeks…another Valor owner uses that and loves it…should speak volumes. I have also heard great things about the M1200s as well…good problem to have!
I’m quite late to this party of course, but I thought I’d comment for posterity … I did a similar upgrade from a Legacy Powerbloc4 to an I-V 5 for my home theater, driving B&W CMS2 series speakers.
Impressed by everything about the new unit. Nearly doubling the power (and investing in some thicker Kimber speaker cable to deliver all that heft to the drivers) really made my R and L channel stand mounts open up, and the treble was quite a bit smoother and more delicate than that of the Powerbloc, which was nice because what my tweeters DON’T need is a harsh-sounding class D sound. Obviously. And the thing looks fabulous as well.
Also worth noting perhaps is that my Niagara 3000 power conditioner did noticeably less for the I-V 5 than for the Powerbloc. Better power source/caps, perhaps? Sorry, I’m no electrical engineer. But the I-V 5 sure holds onto power for a long time, as evidenced by the power meter on the front, which doesn’t drop for like 10 sec after cutting the power switch.
That said, I haven’t heard the M1200 … Very curious to hear how they’d compare for 2ch music!