Hello Ingvar....I have a question...
Thirdly:
To sum it all up - the SST 14B (serial number later than 000 505) is (in my opinion, from my experience) the best
amplifier I've ever seen and heard! A true reference for what "transparent amplifier performance" is.
Before hearing the SST 14B , what then would you say was the "best amplifier I've ever seen and heard" ? Just as a point of reference....thanks ! 
Chris
Hi Ingvar,
I too would be very interested in your answer to this.
Well, I've heard many hundreds of amplifiers over the years, and my answer might surprise many, at least anyone who believes that performance is allways proportional to the prize of the amp...
Before I say anything else, I'd like to point out that I put no subjective preference into the answer to your question - there are a lot of amplifiers (some of them very expensive) offering quite a substantial amount of coloration out there. Some of them sounds awful, while others might sound VERY nice - subjectively! At least on "not to complicated" programme material.
The latter may be a superb choice for some, but not for me. I'm not driven by a "wish for a maximized experience", but rather by my curiosity for the recordings/the music. So, my choice is always the
transparent amplifier (or transparent any other part of the audio chain) and not the one with the most "beautiful sound".
I do not judge however, and think that any choice that makes the person doing it, happy - is a good choice!
I'm saying all this because I think it is good to be clear over the perspective from which my opinion is formed.
One more thing before I reel off the examples - I believe that even seen from a pure "transparency perspective", there are TWO disparate parameters that must be considered, and kept apart - transparency and power. Sometimes power is not very important, maybe you are using very efficient loudspeakers and/of do not play very loud? For other circumstances transparency is not enough - you need a lot of power to prevent the amplifier to go into clipping. It all depends, so I will mention the output power separately.
No 2: The second best power amplifier I've ever come across is very expensive (~300 000 SEK). It is the Supreme mono blocks, offering ~250 W per ch. in 8 ohms (much more in lower impedance).
No 3: The third best is the very small Sentec PA9, offering only about 60 W per channel in 8 ohms, and performs best in 8 ohm loads, or at least loads never going below 3 ohms.
No 4: The most bang for the bucks, you'll get with the NAD 208 (was sold for 10 000 SEK in Sweden). It was very impressive in the F/E-listening, and in practical use it delivers >600 W in 8 ohms and >1000 W i 4 ohms. However, since it is working in Class G, it is performing best sound quality wise if it is not forced to switch reels - thus limiting the power output to 280 W in 8 ohms when "super high quality is wanted". To make this amplifier perform close to perfect - it must also be slightly modified, giving it a better extention in the bass.
Also a warning is at place regarding this amplifier: The reliability is not impressive.
The electronic design itself is good but the way they were put together... An extra problem with it is, that some of the ways in which this amplifier breaks, will not make it stop working altogether, but will just make it sound significantly crappier!
Coming across one "semi broken" NAD 208 will give you the impression that the amplifier sucks - but really, it's just broken NAD208's that sucks.
When it works, it is a pearl
, though an ugly one. Really ugly!
No 5: An amplifier that is a sort of a "little brother" to the Bryston SST 14B behavior vice, is the Rotel 1090. It exhibits higher distorsion, lower output power (450 W at clipping 8 ohms - though it can be bridged, since it is not internally bridged...), uglier packing (in my eyes), not as good bandwidth, but - a lower prize tag. But still it performs very well, and its colorations are (thought the SST 14B has only a fraction of it, from the lab analyses) close to the threshold of hearing.
And here comes the sad part - non of the above mentioned amplifiers are in production any longer.
Besides these mentioned amplifiers, I have been impressed many times by how well many low prized (and very little spoken off) amplifiers perform (both integrated, receivers and home cinema amps!). Even if non have matched the above mentioned amplifiers, a lot of them actually outperforms many "super high end" amps!
The HiFi-world is a strange one...
Best regards, Ingvar
