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Best S/H Integrated Amp for under £200

M

MJSM

Over 60 and barely alive
I am looking for a decent S/H integrated amp for my bog-standard living room (no options there, it is what it is) and trying to find the best I can on a pretty small budget. I'm sure this will have been debated many times before but I'm not changing my front end or speakers so it does then become more specific.

Front end is either : Marantz CD63SE KI with Nos and Valve analog stage mods by Heart in the Hague (bought it like that) or a Teac X2000R reel to reel (on which I record the odd CD/track just for the hell of it). Speakers are a pair of Sonus Faber Concerto (Home) on stands.

I have been looking quite hard recently at Arcam gear Alpha range (A7/A8/A9 etc) Diva range (A65/70/75/80/85 etc) and their FMJ range (not higher than A28 due to budget restraints) and possibly the Delta 290 although I am aware of the input selector issues on the 290 and the Alpha 9. I'm not fixated on Arcam but would like to stay with British made if possible.

My current amp is a Marantz PM-66SE which I bought very cheap as a non-runner, a quick clean up fixed that, so I am looking to improve on that for under £200.

I'm also not adverse to a bit of DIY if the Marantz could be made to outperform the Arcam gear (unlikely ?) as it is pretty much stock from what I could see inside it. Not looking to go crazy here so it would need to be simple stuff with huge impact generally (which doesn't want that ?).
 
What about a rega brio (full width) ?

Being a DIYer you will probably be able to easily fix any issues that come up there.
 
Martyn Miles said:
I know I shall receive negative comments, but an Audiolab 8000A may be worth considering.
Mine has been totally reliable, with a full service about 9 months ago.
It works very well with my Spendor BC1s.
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Is there more than one mark (1, II, III etc) of these ?, they seem to have a wide range of prices and I think I have seen more than one configuration of inputs on the back. The front is a bit bland looking but is could be behind a cupboard door so not a big deal, it's the sound that counts.
 
Never see much love for Cyrus around here, but I have a Cyrus 8VS2, and it's a great amp. The one I have will likely be well over budget looking at sold eBay prices, but there are older versions available well under budget (if you don't mind a shoebox!). And they are UK made (at least older ones in budget will be).
 
If you can get one in good nick for £200, the audiolab is a slam dunk. The later ones are black and reputed to be the best. I had one for 4 years after my Inca tech claymore 2 went south and was very happy with it.
 
Jamie said:
Never see much love for Cyrus around here, but I have a Cyrus 8VS2, and it's a great amp. The one I have will likely be well over budget looking at sold eBay prices, but there are older versions available well under budget (if you don't mind a shoebox!). And they are UK made (at least older ones in budget will be).
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A bit outside my price range realistically, this is a bit of a stand-in system to tide me over until I retrieve all my Naim gear from my place in France next year, I will be making a decision about what I keep after that (it may not be that obvious).
 
I don’t want to sound out of order, but a cheap sub£200 amp to drive Sonus Fabers? Surely they deserve better than that?


A Cyrus must be a good shout, not sure many at £200. How about a Musical Fidelity XA1, that would work
 
I'm not seeing much love for Arcam here either, I must admit to being swayed by the good reviews I have read on Arcam amps and that I was looking at stuff which was around 20 years old. I particularly like the idea of input trim controls and the digital volume controls on the FMJ range.
 
JensenHealey said:
I don’t want to sound out of order, but a cheap sub£200 amp to drive Sonus Fabers? Surely they deserve better than that?


A Cyrus must be a good shout, not sure many at £200. How about a Musical Fidelity XA1, that would work
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No worries, I have some good Naim gear which I have used with the SFs but for now it's not available (I also have some SBL's to go with that), but you would be surprised how good they sound driven by the Marantz :)
 
JensenHealey said:
I don’t want to sound out of order, but a cheap sub£200 amp to drive Sonus Fabers? Surely they deserve better than that?
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87dB and 8r? Sound like a pretty routine load for a standmount. The A60 might be a bit asthmatic with them, but an Audiolab or Cyrus would work fine. Personally, I'd pony up the extra and get a John Farlowe era Exposure integrated, though.
 
david ellwood said:
Arcam haven’t made an amplifier that’s not better than an Audiolab, so definitely worth considering.

Id look out for a :

creek 4140
Ion obelisk
A60
Arcam delta xxx
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So any Arcam amp would outperform the 8000A then ? this is what I need to know realistically, not that I want to write the 8000A off but just need to know where to place it in the hierarchy (that goes for everything obviously). Not keen on the Creek or the A60 in terms of aesthetics and observed control options, only ever seen the Delta 290 listed so far and it has the input switch fault to consider at some point (I have ordered a mil-spec rotary switch just in case I end up with one though).
 
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