Mike, Fremer's review was the only one that mentioned a lack of bass. In my system the Constellation absolutely "Rocked" !! It really excelled at Rock music better than any other amp.
And before anyone says Rock music always sounds bad, let me tell you that Rock is one of the hardest genres to unravel !! An amp that can break down all the many instruments in Rock or Classical is what I want, it's very complex music. It's too easy for a lesser amp to just blend it all together rather than decipher it all.
As far as the Constellation preamp goes, when I heard it at David's on the S5's, it had tons of slam, even more when run in Balanced instead of Direct. But it sill had plenty no matter which way you ran it.
Well, from what I remember of Fremer's review, his opinion seemed to match mine, of the Constellations. They had bass, lots of it actually. It's just that they were delicate about it. It's not old school, monster amp bass. And that causes a little bit of dissociation, since you're looking at this gorgeous, big amp, expecting prodigious bass, and still it sounds delicate.
That could lead one to believe the amps lack slam, but I found the Constellations very laid back. They were actually the most laid back amps (gear, actually, since I had the preamp as well) I've ever heard! So, they were perfect for rock, specially badly transferred digital like early CDs, or recent, compressed recordings. And while they were laid back, even forgiving, they were also absolutely transparent and resolving, with perfect resolution.
Needless to say, I was very impressed
My only caveat was the preamp, whose ergonomics were not to my liking.
Oh, my impressions were on a Magico Q3, so yeah, Magico/Constellation is one sure way to go!
alexandre
. Was glad to read your earlier comments and look forward to more thoughts. From Mark's point of view you're sitting on a dynamite amp!
anic:
