Lots of choices out there to try. I’m an Accuphase owner (and a fan) and it sounds like he plans to audition different amps to see if they meet his needs
Pass, CODA could be added to the demo list, plenty of power and high bias class A
That being said, Accuphase amps are extremely well built, beautiful (to my eyes 
) my P-4200 is rated at 90wpc and measures 152wpc, is bridgeable down to 4 ohms and can drive 2 ohm loads for periods
Best,
-John
Can’t go wrong with Accuphase; they’ve been making first class audio components for decades. Their Class A amps are as good as it gets. And as beautiful.
With what speakers?
Harbeth speakers are largely indifferent to different types of amplifiers, but they do get better with more power and if @adriaan is planning on spending an insane amount of money on amplification, it would seem to make sense to get an amplifier that can drive them to their true potential.
Art Dudley used to review Harbeth for Stereophile and used amplifiers up to 45w. The reason being he was a lifelong user of Quad ESL, latterly the 2805, for which 45w is more than enough and ESL do not do bass anything like Harbeth M40. I own two pairs of Harbeth and when I looked at his review of my main speakers and saw the amplifiers he used I didn’t bother reading it.
I just looked at two European reviews of the M40, one used Pass Labs mono blocks and the other used the top end Series 7 Soulution system. That makes more sense to me.
I have no doubt that M40.2 can sound good with certain types of music with a 50w amp, but it seems a shame knowing they can do a lot more.
I thought the speakers determined the amplifier, not the other way round?
No, if you get the right amp all speakers will sound their best. My BHK 300 are a case in point.
The A-48 may or may not be the right Accuphase for his Harbeth’s. Size & type of listening room (live, dead, somewhere in between) & listening levels will all factor in. Under the right conditions, the A-48 may be fine. Assume he’s going to audition this amp with these speakers before he buys. If he needs a bigger amp, can’t go wrong with Accuphase.
Very nice! Love the kimber! Are those Ascent or Palladian power cables?
Thank you! My entire system is listed under my profile. Click on my picture and expand the description for complete details.
I saw your profile but you only list that they are PK10 with Rhodium watt gate plugs. You didn’t list if they were ascent or palladians. Was interested to know.
Not if (like Art Dudley did) you use electrostatic speakers. 300w mon9blocks would be a serious risk to the speakers. When I was recently using ESL I set my system to limit power output to about 70w.
A full list of the amplifiers used by a Harbeth since the 1970s was recently listed here.
https://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/threads/the-almost-definitive-list.79858/
So the M40.2 would have been designed using Quad 405/2 or 606, more recently a Hegel 380. The Quad are 140w current dumping amplifiers that can be bought for about £500 ($650). The Hegel is 180w.
There are 4 amplifiers listed as 60w or less, all with negative comments.
Indeed the last times I heard the Harbeth‘s very good was at the 2 last High End shows, driven by Magnum Dynalab MD-309 with 2x225Watt @8 Ohm!
Knowing this combo sounds really good, I’m (just theoretically) anyway a bit curious about using such high powered amps to then destroy the power within an inefficient crossover. Just from theory I think higher efficient concepts (active or passive) should be able to perform better.
Lower efficient speakers are not always the best choice, but amps usually sound better if they don’t have to waste their budget in wattage.
Beautiful system! How did you decide on your sub placement, long stories welcome?
Chas
Food for thought. I would never have heard of Soulution had I not gone to a dealer and heard some of their kit at a demo.
Ascent technically.
Thank you! My subs were placed in their current location partly due to necessity, partly based on Paradigm’s placement instructions and partly based on REL placement recommendations I have read. Used Paradigm’s DSP program as well.
Very nice! Thanks!
