I have followed Phil Ward's excellent reviews and in-depth analyses of speakers, and was struck by his thoughts on passive speakers/crossovers in the latest "Why I Love' column.

There are some great deals on KEF LS50 passive speakers, (not the Mk II Versions) at present) and I am wondering what forum members would recommend for power amps. In fact I think Phil has some passive LS 50s so his thoughts would be very valuable, please!

Nothing vintage, thanks, as I have a few Quad amps which I have rebuilt: 303, 405, etc..

A Bryston 2.5b or 3.0b looks good. Why not an active LS50? Well, Mrs J and I are moving soon and there will be space for some biggish speakers, Spendor or B&W. (I still use my BC1s almost daily). So I will need a very good power amplifier.

A quick note: I have mixed/edited/tracked on headphones since the early 70s and cannot change to doing this with speakers. These speakers are for playback and general, not 'monitor', use.

P.S. I started very young! (early 70s).

Have you got a spare non-working Quad lying around? If so, you could do what I did and remove the insides and fit some Hypex modules. It cost me around £250 for 2 Ucd180 power amp modules and a power supply.

You can also buy complete Hypex based power amps from people like Nord

https://www.nordacoustics.co.uk/product ... -in-silver

This is the bottom of their Hypex range - you can spend more if you want.

Thank you James, and I do apologise for the delay in replying.

My Quad 405 MkI, which I have 'upgraded' to a Mk2.5 is still going well. But I shall look for a non-working 405 to convert to Hypex - a great winter project!

Thanks again.

It doesn't have to be a Quad - although I found I could mount the modules without the need to drill too many more holes. I had also toyed with the idea of buying a really cheap power amp from somewhere (Thomann were selling some at around £60 a while ago), gutting it and then mounting the Hypex modules. However the Quad was suffering from a noisy transformer and one of the amp modules was becoming noisy so I went with repurposing the case and some of the connectors from the Quad but replacing the input connectors with TRS jacks.

I've used Metcase for both audio and RF projects before, great quality, moderately expensive. https://www.metcase.co.uk/en

In fact I have been thinking about building a power amp into a similar Metcase that my Self designed, Elektor published, pre-amplifier, is built into. I think all the Hypex amps are Class D, looking at their website. I have experience of using Class C at RF, though.