Hello from the EU. I noticed that you debate and talk about many brands, and I have a Yamaha preamplifier question.
Rather interested in the C-5000, has anyone here any recommendations for a powerful and good power amplifier? No, not the 5000 series one, need a bit more ‘juice’ as I believe it’s called.
What speakers? That’ll be perhaps more important than the preamp. And what budget?
I was thinking DALI Epicon 6 or 8, but Focal Sopra might be an idea. Nordost Frey 2 cables perhaps. Budget, not sure. Need to think about that, but matching stuff first.
I’ve actually never heard the Dali speakers or know much about them, but with Focal a BHK power amp might sound nice. I’d be partial to a Luxman m900u or m10x if your budget would stretch that far, but that might be too much amp to pair with a Yammy pre (by that I mean if you were spending that much or going for that level of quality, probably better to get a slightly better preamp). The Krell XD are pretty nice as well or Coda - those are some other good fits in the price range that’d pair synnergy wise with the yammy. For a killer less expensive power amp, Cambridge Edge W. ymmv
edit: and since you’re on this forum and imply that you need a lot of power, there’s the stellar m1200 also if interested in class d hybrid with tube front end.
edit x2: the brand new atmosphere class D monos are a current rage, and I want to hear them but haven’t yet. Extremely high potential from what those who’ve heard are saying, fwiw, but I haven’t heard so ha, there’s that
Forgot about Luxman, a bit hard to get here in Finland but might be able to order from Sweden. Electrocompaniet is another brand I am thinking about if Yamaha is not an option.
BHK is probably very good, but isn’t every finer PS Audio product designed with valves or tubes if you like? A bit scared of those they break and I don’t know of anyone who can get new ones.
I actually own an Electrocompaniet ECI6DX integrated amp, though they are not so widely available here in the US. EC have a very warm house sound, and the power amps are similar. They mostly make mono power amps, but have at least one stereo amp that I’m aware of. These design is old, like 8 or 10 years if I’m not mistaken, so you can probably get a nice deal on them. They might pair nicely with Focal and Yamaha, both of which I’d call neutral to cool. Good luck.
Another Scandinavian brand whose sound signature is very different from EC is Hegel (very neutral house sound), but they’re more associated with integrated amps, although I believe they make one power amp model (H30).
EC is all Norwegian, Hegel is made in China. Nothing wrong with that if everything works. And yes, they have high-end separates at a high-end price. Probably some seriously good products.