[rauer]

Hello. My audio equipment will be soon facing a reorganising of some sort due to getting a new house. I might end up using my Prehead's preamp and a new (preferably used) poweramp to run my B&W Nautilus 805 speakers (low freq boost by my Velodyne SPL-1200 subwoofer). If you're not familiar with the Prehead, it's a high quality solid state preamp/headphone amp by Meier-Audio (this link is to the newer version mk. II, I have the original one).

Any recommendations which poweramp to get? The system will be placed in a middle sized (whatever that means to everybody) room. The listening volumes are mostly rather moderate, but every now and then I could have the need to cause an audio-induced earthquake. The source material is probably 50/50 redbook CDs and movie DVDs (in two channel only in this case). The source will likely be my humble harman/kardon DVD25 with Wolfson DACs. Many may consider it the weakest link but I have no upgrade plans soon. The poweramp should cost less than 1000 € but preferably something like 500 € used. I'm tempted by the Meier-Audio Corda Poweramps but very few seem to have heard them. And while they probably would sound great with music, I'm not so sure about movies.

Any recommendations? What would you think about a Rotel RB 1070?
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[alexs2]

Originally Posted by rauer

Hello. My audio equipment will be soon facing a reorganising of some sort due to getting a new house. I might end up using my Prehead's preamp and a new (preferably used) poweramp to run my B&W Nautilus 805 speakers (low freq boost by my Velodyne SPL-1200 subwoofer). If you're not familiar with the Prehead, it's a high quality solid state preamp/headphone amp by Meier-Audio (this link is to the newer version mk. II, I have the original one).

Any recommendations which poweramp to get? The system will be placed in a middle sized (whatever that means to everybody) room. The listening volumes are mostly rather moderate, but every now and then I could have the need to cause an audio-induced earthquake. The source material is probably 50/50 redbook CDs and movie DVDs (in two channel only in this case). The source will likely be my humble harman/kardon DVD25 with Wolfson DACs. Many may consider it the weakest link but I have no upgrade plans soon. The poweramp should cost less than 1000 € but preferably something like 500 € used. I'm tempted by the Meier-Audio Corda Poweramps but very few seem to have heard them. And while they probably would sound great with music, I'm not so sure about movies.

Any recommendations? What would you think about a Rotel RB 1070?
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For good cheap power,the Rotel would take some beating,and will come in well under your budget,but won't be the best in terms of sound quality.
However,improving substantially on that will probably land you over budget,although the lower priced Parasounds would probably make the price.

[rauer]

Thanks. It's beginning to look like it's either a Rotel or some old more exotic amp.

[Reano]

I've got the 805 and I use the Headmaster by sugden as the preamp, the amps I have are the musical fidelity XA-200 and although the musical fidelity are big the 805 sound almost as good as my RS1 Grado headphones (definately better presence, real). Thats 200 Watts to the MF and they sound fantastic. Look at some of the Musical fidelity power amps on ebay (where I got mine) and you will get in your price range for sure.

[rauer]

Reano, another amp to take a look at. Thanks.