I'm stuck on choosing an amp in the £500 range to power two Dali Oberon 5s....
- Yamaha AS801
- Rega Elex-R which is ~ £150 more expensive....
Those are very different amps that do very different things. For example, I believe later you said one of you main sources was a PC. The
Yamaha AS801 has a USB-PC connection for direct connect to a computer for transferring Audio between the two.
The
Yamaha AS801 also has
1xOptical and 1xCoaxial input in addition to the USB-PC. Further it have
Phono-In, Sub-Out, and Tone Controls, plus a pretty healthy
100w/ch at low distortion.
The
Rega amps in general are very
minimalistic. That is, they have a
Source Select and a Volume Control and that is pretty much it -
No DAC, a single set of Speaker Terminals, No Phono. Realistically about 70w/ch to 8 ohms. Note the 90w/ch is to SIX ohms.
But indisputable, the Rega are great sounding amps. But what I am getting at is that very very likely you do not need a generic Amp, you need a specific amp to do a specific job, to connect to a specfic set or Source Devices.
Find the amp that specifically does the JOB that you specifically need done. As mentioned before, you are connecting to a Computer, so having a USB DAC is an advantage.
The
Yamaha AS801 is at the T
OP of Yamaha's Consumer line of product. To go one model up from there is a very massive increase in price.
Quickly checking the
Yamaha AS801 is £679 from the source I checked.
The
Rega Elex-R is about £949 from a different source.
Yamaha always represents High Value in an Amp. But Rega represents very high sound quality.
But as I said, you do not need a generic Amp, you need an Amp to suit your specific needs. Those requirements and needed feature will help guide you to the amp that will best do the job specifically for YOU.
Offering an alternative to consider -
Rotel A14, 80w/ch, Optical, Coaxial, USB-PC DAC, Bluetooth, Phono-In, Pre-Out - £899 -
With Bluetooth aptX streaming capabilities, the Rotel A14 Amplifier will open up your entire music library in stunning high definition.
petertyson.co.uk
The A14 is a high performance, 80-watt per channel integrated amplifier that delivers superb music reproduction and features connections for both analog and digital sources, along with Bluetooth with aptX streaming.
rotel.com
This fall somewhere between the other two suggested.
Steve/bluewizard