2 x Topping LA 90 D for Thiel CS3.6

[pollock0424]

Currently, I am running my Thiel CS3.6 speakers with externally bridged 2 x Yamaha M80 amplifiers (bridged as suggested in the user manual). These dinosaurs have been recapped and have served me well for the last year, one of the amps had an issue in the left channel and suddenly it went into protection, diagnosed part of the problem as a blown PNP and I'm working on determining the cause for it.

Anyways, I love these M80s and they are rated for 250 watts into 8 ohms and 340watts into 4 ohms and are dynamically rated for 2 ohms as well. In my situation I'm bridging so basically these numbers double. That's a stupid amount of power I know!

I like it bridged because bass is tight, I mean insane amount of control for mostly 2 ohm load. Using in stereo mode bass control is acceptable, you wouldn't think that it is sloppy if you hadn't heard the bridged combo.

I am looking at 2x Benchmark ahb2 but that will cost 7.5kUSD. I have a loaner M80 from a friend and I'm back to bridging and we're also working on fixing the other amp. I'm thinking getting a modern power amp, will Topping LA90D fill the shoes of M80s?

If you want to see the impedance profile of Thiel CS3.6 here it is and you can also see it on stereophile measurements for the Thiel CS3.6 review.

My preamplifier is miniDSP SHD.

 

[ahofer]

I had those speakers for 24 years. Used an Adcom 5802. They needed every bit of it. Also heated the house.

(still have the amp if anyone’s interested)

 

[Hatto]

Why would you need 2 line level signals separately?

 

[pollock0424]

@Hatto

Preamplifier, C80 has true and inverted outputs for each of the channels. If you are bridging then, you'd take the true left preamp out signal into left input of a power amp and inverted left preamp out signal into right channel and the speakers will be connected on the positive terminals of the left and right channels.

If you have preamp with balanced outputs then one can always split the signal into inverted and non inverted RCAs.

BTW, the left channel used to be "weaker" meaning the meter used to show that something funky is going on...even when I used to use M80 in stereo mode.