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Here is a short buyer's guide for amplifiers, both of the vacuum and solid state variety. If your Christmas budget allowed for it, would you buy any of them?
Hi, I don't know about most of them, but I heard the Carver in Denver last fall. OK if you like the conventional sound it makes. It didn't pull me into the music. I actually liked his bigger amps more. Then again at an audio show conditions are seldom good for listening. For serious audio gear, you either need to hear it in person or have someone you know help you out with their thoughts. My experience is that the weakest links in an audio system is not the amps but rather the speakers and if you can solve those issues then many amps will work. With them as I am sure others would likely agree, speaker type and room placement (to include room treatments) are key to good audio while appearance and cost are the factors that usually influence speaker purchases.