When I bought this amp it was going to be for my desk, headphone use first and speaker use second. After reading what a great speaker amp it is I bought a pair of Boston Acoustics CR57. I found them to be completely lacking bass and lifeless with no soundstage. Discouraged, I asked, in this thread, what speakers you all were using. Of course I got some great replies and suddenly I had some awesome choices. After researching, I decided to go with a pair of Paradigm Reference Studio 20v3. Thanks Rocktboy! I hooked them up on my desk and that lasted for about 10 minutes. Way too close to each other and to me, but they sounded good so I moved them out into the room which is L shaped about 20x17. After about 9' of the 17' it juts out 8' to form the L. The floor is carpeted with a couch in the middle of the room about 5' from the back wall. I had not bought stands for them yet and had them sitting on wooden chairs. That was MUCH better! The bass was plentiful and soundstage was HUGE. And the volume.. I could not believe how much I was getting from 13 watts. The soundstage was wide and deep with pinpoint imaging. With the speakers not broken in yet and the amp so far only hooked up to an iPod, I knew this amp had great potential. I then hooked it up to a Pioneer Elite DVD player and this amp really opened up. It's an older player with a great DAC but no bass management at all. Time to get stands because I already knew the amp had graduated from desk status to room status. After mounting them on stands I was blown away by how much better the soundstage became. Voices and instruments were squarely placed in their proper spaces in the room with no smearing. These speakers are bookshelf monitors that sound like they have the soundstage of floorstanders. Fine tuning the speaker placement was easy and precise because of the accuracy of the soundstage, proving that this amp images very well. And the sound. Lush, accurate, dynamic, open detailed textures, great layering and very clean. The speakers are very neutral and voices sound very real. My amp is one the clean ones. I could only hear noise through my Ety ER4 P/S with the volume at around 2 o'clock, way too loud for headphones. Out of my speakers I get nothing. It was time to pick up a new player with bass management. I bought a Denon 1930ci universal player and plugged in an old Klipsch powered sub. Much better DAC and the sub is a welcome addition rounding out the bottom. A sub is needed in a room this size, as I originally placed the speakers in the corners, which helpled with the bass but at the expense of some mid range detail loss. I moved the speakers to about five feet from the side walls and about two feet from the back wall for added depth in the rear. I noticed that I was hearing some resonance from the stands so I filled them with sand to deaden them. Wow that really helped the Paradigms to dissappear. I highly recommend doing that. Lastly, I bi-wired the speakers. HUGE improvement with clarity, openess and solidity of bass. Much cleaner too. There was certain SACDs that I thought sounded kind of harsh, especially in the midrange of electric guitars, until I bi-wired the Paradigms. Not so anymore! That harshness is completly gone. I can't get over the improvement. Bi-wiring is a must. Man this amp sounds good. I bought it from Ken at audiolineout for $330.00. What a great deal! But I'm not done yet. I need a good set of RCAs. Right now I only have a set of Monsters. I'm going to email Ken to see what he thinks about making me up a set of cotton RCAs. The only thing holding me up is, until I get a stereo stand, I won't know how long the cables need to be. I'm also going to upgrade the Denon to what, I don't know yet, mainly for better bass management. Any suggestions would be most welcome. And lastly, I'm going to by a Paradigm sub as the Klipsch does not blend in well with the speakers. I originally purchased this amp for headphone use but ended building a speaker system around it. Is it worth it? Yes, the amp is that good. What a pleasant surprise! I still can't get over how much volume 13 watts in a room this size gives me. This amp is clean and very dynamic with sonic characteristics that don't change even when played very loud. The Paradigms are a great match for this amp. I'm not using any bass or treble controls, nor do I ever feel the need to. I think I'm becoming a purist and I like it. That's how good this amp sounds to my ears. HUGE open and detailed soundstage with pinpoint accuracy. Lush and neutral timbres across the entire frequency range. Highly recommended. Thanks to everyone for there great speaker suggestions.
Bass however seems to be... well just not right. This could be EQ since I had one setup through the reciever. I'll play with more. DAC wise its tons better than the soundcard on my motherboard but its thin. I will probably look into a emu card or that new X-purity card. Will post more later when I get back home.
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