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Looks like a slick idea! Mustang guy's also got me to start looking into some semi-pro power amps (Behringer and the like) which look cool as well. I'm starting to understand now how people end up with more amps than speakers. How are the RF-7 IIs, anyway? After hearing what can be done with 6.5" drivers on entry level speakers, one can only imagine what they've done with pairs of 10"!

Depends on the Porsche!

Say, does anyone know much about Adcom? A preamp and power amp from them have just gone up on Craigslist over in DE, and they seem like they might also be worth looking at. https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/ele/5010647789.html Has anyone used their equipment before?

Say, does anyone know much about Adcom? A preamp and power amp from them have just gone up on Craigslist over in DE, and they seem like they might also be worth looking at. https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/ele/5010647789.html Has anyone used their equipment before?

I'm sorry to say that's a bit hot for my budget; it's certainly a fair price though, so I'm sure you'll have good luck moving them. I appreciate the offer, monoblocks are an intention of mine, though perhaps not immediately!

Definitely a tempting prospect! My only concern would be that my price tolerance might not line up with a fair price for them, since I'd also have to budget for a preamp. How are they musically?

I only own one subwoofer: A cheap 10" Polk I bought second-hand. It does well to fill in where my Definitive Tech. monitors bottom out, but I'd never use it with my F-20s. They hit lower and cleaner than the sub does! I'm not against the idea of eventually going sub shopping for the towers, but it's certainly not necessary. Leave it to Klipsch to make floorstanders that are better subs than an actual sub!

Wow, I'm certainly glad I came here instead of continuing to search around on Amazon; I didn't realize there'd be so many great options in my price range. I've contacted the person on Craigslist with the Cambridge (Thanks for finding that, Bill!) and expect to get more pictures from them today. If things work out well, I do think I might move on that one. It seems to make plenty of power for my needs, and since it has a pre-out, I assume it could be used with a power amp at a later date if I find one I like. If that falls through, then it looks like there are tons of other great options out there. I do like the idea of finding dedicated pre/power amps secondhand if I spot a good opportunity. Right now, I'd say my most likely second option will be NAD equipment. A whole lot of it falls into comfortable pricing for me, and testimony seems very, very good. Whatever happens, I'll definitely post the results for the record books. The F20s already sound nice on the budget amp (excusing the occasional harshness for still being fairly new, of course), so I expect they'll be a real delight on something more quality-forward. Thanks for all the help, everybody!

A follow-up test with my 50w seems to confirm that. As loud as could be and it barely got warm! These speakers are a delight, and they're not even properly powered yet. Or broken in. That Cambridge looks quite temping; thanks a bunch for finding it! I just might have to contact the seller. It's about an hour from me, which would definitely be worth the adventure. (And cheaper than having an amp shipped!) If that falls through, I do really like the look of the NAD amps. Between the tempting prices and all the excellent testimony I'm hearing, they seem like a good idea. Josh, do you think it would be cumbersome to add a separate DAC at a later point? I'm not against the idea, but since I already use a separate pair for my computer (Definitive Techs, which is where my cheap 50w amp normally lives) with a cheap DAC, I might not need it right away.

Open box at Best Buy is a great idea, Derrick. I hadn't even considered it! If I'd only thought to post here last week; I was at Best Buy on Friday to get a Pebble watch. (Open-box, ironically.) Bill, would you say that NAD amps are good across the board? I'm reading a lot of favorable reviews that praise their musicality, which is obviously ideal, and I'm finding at least a few of them priced very comfortably for me. Soft-clipping is also a nice feature, given how I intend to listen from time to time. Do you think 40-50w will be good? I might also give chance to Yamaha again, since it seems I'd just bought a product for the wrong market last time. I didn't think there'd be this many promising options; thanks for all the help!

Ah, thank you for the kind welcomes, everybody! I'd hope not to spend too much more than $400 for the time being, but I know myself to be flexible (and impulsive!) if faced with an usually good deal. I've already looked at the Yamaha A-S301BL, Pioneer A-20, Onkyo A-9050, and Marantz PM5004, and might make a move on any of them. I even looked at vintage amps (the Marantz 1060B in particular, since it can sell quite cheaply), though I'm not sure how well I'll do maintaining one when it inevitably becomes necessary. I like the idea of the Marantz the most, though at 35w, I'm not sure if it would be able to play as loudly as I'd like (The Pioneer is also close to this figure). The Onkyo is more powerful at 75w, but reviewers say it's not a very warm-sounding amp, which is of particular concern for horn-loaded speakers. The Yamaha also seems like it should be well-rounded, but I feel a bit jaded after my experience with the last one I'd bought. Of course, that was also a more consumer-oriented receiver, so it's probably more my fault for not vetting the purchase well enough. Thanks for jumping in to help! And I'm from New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. And those are some very enviable setups everybody has!

Ah, thanks for the information! What I'm really intending to hone in on, and perhaps you can help me with the terminology, is something that'll accept line-level sources and power the speakers, and do little else. I've found that searching for integrated amps gets me closer to that than anything else, so that's where I picked up the term. Of course, it would be ideal to micromanage into several components, but on my youthful budget, integrating into one unit sounds like the best way to go. It might be nice to get something that can be bridged so I can get a second one later on to use as makeshift monoblocks, but that's less of a priority than simply having a good amp to begin with.

Hi, everyone! Not long ago, after much anticipation, I bought my first pair of Klipschs; a modest pair of Synergy F-20s. And if I've learned two things, it's that they like a good amp, and that they're a better subwoofer than my subwoofer. So far, I've had two amps on them. One is a 50w no-name (branded as Audiosource, but the hardware is sold under numerous other brands), which sounds reasonable for what it is, and the other is a 100w Yamaha R-S201BL, which was the most disgusting thing I've heard in my life. So my main amp is the Audiosource. Of course, I'd like to step up to a proper integrated amp, and I'm looking at a few from some actual brands (Onkyo, Pioneer, and Marantz) ranging from 35 to 75w. Even though I've been powering my speakers using 50w, I feel it's not a great benchmark to gauge how their 95db handles that much power, since I'm sure the distortion I hear at higher SPL is simply due to the budget electronics doing their job. It's not terrible (I've also used this amp for 89db speakers of a different brand), but I'm not sure if it's really a representation of what one /could/ have for 50 watts. If I'm the type who likes to listen at obscene levels from time to time, how much power should I plan on having for my speakers? Thanks in advance! Update: After much delegation, I got a secondhand Adcom GFA-535 power amp and matching GTP-500 pre. Turned out to be a bit of an adventure; one phone call with the seller lead to me (and a friend, of course) driving an hour out to Delaware at 8PM the same night to demo everything. He ran them with a pair of Monitor Audio Golds, and I certainly liked what I heard, so it seemed like the way to go. Performance is very pleasing on the F-20s. The GFA-535 is specced to do 60w per channel, but Stereophile's review says it's more like 80. Gone is the harshness that had been ordinary on this system before; this amp/preamp pair sound very smooth and detailed together, and seem like a great fit for the Klipschs. Things still sound a bit treble-heavy, but I could listen for much longer (and louder, and cleaner) before my ears had enough of it. I still expect that will smooth out much better in time, since the speakers aren't even close to finishing their 100+ hour break-in window. Even still, I did a fair bit of listening at medium to quite-loud volumes and was happy with it all. Some songs came out of my old equipment sounding too harsh to enjoy, yet with the new gear, I can turn them up to much delight. I tested with a decent spread of music (jazz, pop, vocal, instrumental, p-funk, rock, dubstep) and it all sounded great. The clipping protection/indicator is also a great feature; I only got it to come on once, but that was due to turning the bass up considerably for a dubstep tune. With tone controls off, it didn't indicate clipping once. I definitely owe a lot of thanks to everyone who chimed in to help. I got tremendous insight and spent much less than I thought I'd need to, for more equipment than I thought I'd get. I'm glad I asked!