Guys,
I am interested in hearing your opinions on Monster Amps. I found a deal on a Monster 3250 (250 watts by 3 channels) for only slightly more than the 7500. I realize that I would lose the 2 extra channels, but I'm not too worried about that at this point.

So, discounting the fact that you would lose 2 channels, do you prefer the sound of the 7500 or the 3250?

I haven't found any professional reviews of either amps on the internet...

Thanks guys,
kgt

Yup, that's the model that I'm referring to - haven't seen that ad at ebay, though. Pretty cheap, if it's legit.

In any case, any thoughts on Monster amps such as the 3250?

I'm trying to remember if this is another amp made by ATI. I think I read that on one of the forums.

Is memory the first thing to go?

It's a Marsh design. Made by ?

Well, Monster's one-year warranty isn't quite as appealing as the 7500's five-year warranty. The 7500 is still a bit new to have had a chance for professional reviews to pop up, but its predecessors have consistently been well-liked by reviewers and owners alike. I haven't heard much at all about Monster's amps, though, so it's hard for me to offer much more than that.

I have been able to have both the monster 3250 and the 7500 hooked up in my system and to my ears I prefered the sound of the monster by a slim margin. It seemed to me to have a little better bass and just a little more dynamics. I had the monster first and returned it to give the 7500 a try so as to not have to add an amp to power the rear channels. Don't get me wrong the 7500 is a great amp and would be a great addition to any setup I just liked the Monster a little better and with the prices it can be had at it is a steal. The Monster can be also be purchased with a two year warranty from some authorized dealers but the 5yr warranty from the outlaws is also something that one must be considered.

Heh, the Monster amps are also made by ATI.

Apparently, because of the LCD displays that Noel Lee specified the amps HAD to have, they have problems with noise and are set up in a nonstandard way to resolve the issue.

Because of this, the amps won't pass THX spec, which doesn't sit well with Noel Lee and he has been trying to get THX to change the spec, hah good luck.

Some very interesting information. Blogging: what causes noise with the LCD displays? Can you give us some more information on this and/ or any other issues that you know about? Do you have any links?

I have also been looking at the Monster amp. But, it sort of bothers me when I see something for 1/3 list price. I wonder what is wrong with it and why are they clearing them???

When I had the Monster amp it indeed had the ground loop hum that has also seemed to plague the 7700 and 7500 due to the size of their transformers. A ground loop isolator from parts express fixed my cable grounding problem and I found the Monster as well as the 7500 to have a very low noise floor which in turn makes for excellent dynamics. If there is noise issues due to the LCD display it was not evident in my system.

The related circuitry for the LCD displays apparently causes noise. My info is from a credible source and that's about all I'll say.

I'd say you are better off getting any other ATI OEM'ed amp (or even an ATI).

And no, I don't have a grudge against Monster...probably be getting some of their THX sub pedestals later this year.

Bring 'em to Northern Maine and we'll do it. I'm definitely interested.

I do not doubt blogginitguys info as it would seem he is confident in his source and I am no expert. I think that the Monster does have a slightly higher noise level at .06 compared to the outlaws .03. In my setup I could not detect raised noise levels once my grounding issue was resolved. I have read only a few other post on other forums about the perfomance of this amp and they too were very positive. The only reason I returned mine was the size and space issue this beast presented given that the other channels had to be ran by another 2-4 channel amp or the unused amps of a reciever being use as a preamp. This amp weighed in at 92lbs and was about 21 inches deep. This is just my two cents hope it can help others who are considering this amp

LCD displays have inverters, lighting circuitry, and control circuitry that all lead to noise. Depending on how you do the circuitry you can filter the noise out before it gets into the audio sections of the amp, which it sounds like Monster has.

All: some very interesting information.

I suspect that I will "pass" on the Monster and see what comes out later on in the year. My fronts are Axiom M80s which are 4 ohm speakers. I probably would like to have at least a seperate 2 channel 400-500 watt amp for them (looking for peak power capability not RMS power), using the front preouts of my Onkyo. I think for the center and rears that the Onkyo should have plenty of power.

I think I will also pass on the Monster and order the 7500 in a few weeks.

I agree that there is something unsettling about seeing an amp sell for 66% off retail...

I just wish there were more professional reviews of these amps...

Looks like Costco.com is now selling the Monster amp for $999 also. I believe it was $1,600 a week or two ago...maybe no one was buying them.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11112750&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=

Again, there is something really unsettling about seeing a product being sold at a legitimate store (like Costco) for 1/3 retail price.

I'll be putting my order in for the 7500 in a few weeks...hope it does a good job driving B&W 803S's.

Cheers.

From what I've read, it is a good sounding amp. However, I never liked how it looks and was surprised they would sell something so "bling." That is my guess as to the sales. Or perhaps the Monster name isn't working in this field?

Anyway, I believe they still make money even at this price, because Monster markup is always very high. You can't compare the price it sells at to the MSRP if the MSRP is way out there. You should compare it to the value of product and comparable products.

FM,
Where have you read reviews? Any links?

I haven't been able to find many reviews on this amp. Someone above mentioned that the digital readouts create some sort of 'noise,' and that it was a problem. Personally, I don't mind the appearance - I kind of like the readouts (as long as they don't degrade the sound) and my gear will be enclosed in a cabinet, so I'm not too worried about appearance either...

I just saw the monster amp on costco's website and noticed the price drop. The thing about buying one of these at costco is that it is like having a lifetime warrenty since they will take it back any time if there is a problem or if your just unhappy with it. The bad part is that Monster won't service this amp since costco is not an authorized dealer so you will have to settle for you money back. As I stated in another post I prefered the Monster to the 7500 so this costco development has me thinking about picking one up. Monster does have a very high mark up so I would guess that this amp is just discontinued and they are being closed out thus the greatly reduced price. It would not surprise me if monster was getting out of the amp market since there seemed to be much buzz about these units till they started popping up so cheap. They do have a processer that was supposed to be coming out The DIR2000 that is supposed to feature Dolby Plus and DTS HD as well as HDMI switching and a built in wireless music bridge. This baby is slated to run a very "Monsterous" price of $6'995.

A $7,000 surround processor from Monster? Somehow, I suspect that the crowd that generally buys $7,000 processors would tend to stick with brands like Lexicon, Arcam, and Anthem Statement over Monster - and the traditional "bling" style (pretty good name for it) of Monster's electronics would start to look particulary cheesy in that price range if they retained it for such a product.

I kind of thought that as well but it seems as though Monster has no problems hanging huge price tags on their merchandise. I saw the blip about it in the Jan 06 Sound and Vision. I kind of like the looks of the thing. It has a 7 inch lcd on the front for set up and would seem to have all the features of a next gen processor but at $7000 I cant see anyone running to pick one of these suckers up. Maybe they will be foolish enough to bring this to market and ebay will be flooded with them in two or three years on the cheap like the amps are now.

Marsh in their Asian factory.

The only things I've read are on AVS forum. Realize this is around the size of a 990, maybe bigger, and way heavier.

I checked out the look of the processor. Personally I don't care for it.

Or Marsh overseas?

I'm not a professional, but maybe I can give you a review in a few weeks. I have a Monster 3250 on UPS due in first of the week.

Marsh amps are also made by ATI.

FM, Bugbitten,
Thanks for the replies.

Well, I decided to pull the trigger and ordered one of these from costco.com today. I am still planning on ordering the 7500/990 combo and will do a comparison between the Monster amp and the 7500...I'll keep the one I like better. If I like the Monster, I'll lose the 2 way shipping costs of the 7500 (but save a few hundred as the Monster is cheaper). If I like the 7500, I'll return the Monster to a local costco and lose $80 for the one way shipping.

I couldn't pass up on the $999 deal from costco...felt like I had to at least give it a shot.

I'll keep everyone posted...

Cheers.

You can visit the Marsh Sound website, they have pictures of their Thai factory.

Bugbitten,
Have you hooked up the 3250 yet? What are your impressions?

Mine arrived from Costco, but I won't have my speakers until July.

-kgt

It's here and I have opened the box, then the spring-time honey-dos started. I can't believe I have a new amp in a box and can't get time to hook it up.

I also need a new rack for this amp (heavy and big). I'm thinking about getting a furniture dolly from Lowe's and fitting a rack to it.

Hardware: I have two Monster Power 3250 amps, one for the fronts and one for the rears. They are powering four JBL E90 speakers and a JBL EC35 center speaker. The amps are hooked up to a Yamaha HTR-5990 receiver with two 25 foot component cables. I researched using the component cables before using them and found out the following. Everybody said it would work fine, but I shouldn't use audio RCA cables for video because video uses higher frequencies. The HTPC is hooked up to the Yamaha with a digital coax cable. All music and DVDs are played on the HTPC. I have had the amps for about two months now and have made the following observations.

Movie Sound Quality: Sounds all around better than the amp(s) built into the Yamaha HTR-5990. Any loud action movie scene that require a lot of wattage sound much better. Gun shots, explosions and car crashes sound much more realistic. For example, the shotgun firing in the movie A History Of Violence was impressive.

Music Sound Quality: High quality recordings such as Surfacing by Sarah McLachlan and Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson sound really good. The clarity of Sarah McLachlan's voice is very impressive. Low quality, low bitrate or old mp3s sound just as described.

Problem #1: I experienced the ground loop problem that was discussed in this thread. I fixed it by plugging the amps power cords into the same surge protector that the Yamaha receiver is plugged into.

Problem #2: The right rear rack mounting fin is bent inwards. This made it difficult to remove from the foam packaging and it will make it difficult to mount if I want to in the future. I called monster and they said they would be willing to replace it. I just haven't done it yet because I didn't want to be without a amp when I first received them.

Problem #3: This is the most annoying / disapointing problem with the amps. The three LCDs on the front that are supposed to display the watt usage in real time have two problems. One, they don't seem to work accurately. They barely register when watching movies and listening to music with the receiver volume set at -45 to -25. If I turn the volume to -20 on the yamaha receiver I can get it to register up to 10.0 watts with Janet's Velvet Rope CD. Janet's CD was recorded louder than most of my other CDs. However, I don't normally listen to music that loud. Most of the time the amps display .2 to 3.0 watts. I hooked up my Creative Zen nomad mp3s player directly to one of the amps and turned it all the way up which resulted in 7 to 8 watts being displayed. I called monster support and they suggested hooking up a normal DVD player to my receiver because the line level out on computers isn't as loud as a normal DVD. Laugh, I explained to the the tech that it wouldn't matter because I was using a digital coax conection but he just ignored me. Maybe he doesn't know that digital is simply 0s and 1s. Anyway, I tried a regular DVD using RCA audio connections and got the same results. The tech from the place I bought it suggested turning up the preouts on receiver. I did that and it improved the problem a little; it will now display 0 to 3 watts most of the time instead of just 0. So I am not sure what to do, the amps sound great, which is there main purpose, but much of the time the LCDs display 000.0.

The other problem with the LCDs is they flicker when displaying the wattage at louder levels. My old techniques receiver would do this because it simply didn't have enough power. But these amps are supposedly 250 watts per channel.

It would have been nice to talk to a monster tech who has actually used the amps... I gave up calling monster tech support because it was obvious that they were not familiar with the 3250. Hopefully somebody that actually has a 3250 can share with me how well the LCD wattage meters on their 3250 work. A guy commented on a different thread that he didn't think the meters were all that accurate on the 2 channel 2250 but he did not specify what numbers were being displayed.

I suppose the problem could be that the preout line level from the yamaha isn't loud enough for the monster amp to correctly calculate the wattage. I had a 5790 prior to the 5990 and the sub preout was quieter than normal even when it was turned up all the way. The best buy service center said there was nothing wrong with it so I sold it and bought the 5990. The sub pre-out on the 5990 sounds good without having to turn it up all the way.

I had the Monster amp as I stated before in this thread and thought the same as you that the displays were not working. In reality the power needed for to run efficient speakers in a average size room is much less then I think most people realize. I was running mine with the outlaw 970 and I had to turn mine up to -5 or so to get 10 to 15 watts to appear on the meters. This was with music cds and it was deafing in my 10x15 room. I could not get the meters to show even 1 watt while watching SW Episode 3 until it was so loud I would have sworn I was in the battle. The reason that the displays flicker with higher out put is because these tend to be dynamic moments that require lots of watts quickly which large amps like the monster or the outlaws have in reserve. These peaks last for only an instant so that is why the the numbers seem to flicker due to the fact that the amp is outputing this power for only a split second. I would imagine that your amps and the 5990 are working just fine.

I was thinking something along those lines myself, rdperry. Out of curiousity, what speakers were you using with the Monster?

I am using a set of polk rti100's that have a sensitivity of 91 dbl I think. I sent a pm to a guy on AVS forum and he confirmed that his experience with the displays was similar to mine in that he had to really crank up the volume to get the the readout to show many watts at all.

Consider the sensitivity rating. Usually it means the SPL level at 1 meter from the speaker when driven by 1 Watt of power. So you only need 1 W to get the 91 db SPL, which is pretty loud.

People who are used to the amps with needle or bar meters are likely to be familiar with this. However, I always thought it was going to be a problem using a number display, because the value changes too fast to see it. The same reason they are not that popular in cars, some cars that have them tend to also have a bar graph display too.

Hi Bug,
Any update on the 3250?

Just curious to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,
Kgt

kgt,

I am running Axiom 4 ohm M80s for mains and 2 M3s in parallel, (=4 ohm) for centers.

The 80s are rated:

SPL in Room 1w/1m(dB): 95 dB
SPL Anechoic 1w/1m(dB): 91 dB

As reported above, the readouts show 2 or less most of the time. The most I've seen was high 20s during the Master/Commander gun scene while listening at 88-90 spl. The mains are set to small, btw.

I have yet to see the speakers, amps (Monster and 3 monoblocks), Denon, DVD and TV pull more that 6 amps. The sub is on the same circuit but not on the power center yet.

I am impressed with the amp so far. I hope to get some additional listening this weekend. I hosted an auditon last weekend, so I didn't get a lot of my music and HT time.

The gentleman here was truly impressed with what he heard. Great sound reproduction was his comment. The system was driven to high volume levels with no distortion and the amps never got warm.

More next week.

Doug

Thanks Bug.

Now that you've had the amp up and running for a few weeks, how do you feel about it? How does it compare to your monoblocks?

Cheers.

I haven't had time to write a review. My son will be here this weekend. Hopefully we can get some thoughts down.

I think the Monster may be a little more responsive than the monoblocks. But not much. It may be between my ears.

It take so little power to run my Axioms that the Monster readings hardly move much during casual listening, mostly 000s. During a hard workout, HT, they seem to jump between 0 and 20 watts.

Bug

This MONSTER is really butt ugly!
Pretty sure my wife wouldn't tolerate THAT in the room...
Also, I can't see the point of having 3 channels, maybe to feed the barbecue speaker?
Or you'd have to buy TWO...

I've always heard that the three-channel amp was a result of the move from stereo to 5.1 (folks with a two-channel rig could get a three-channel amp to drive a center and two surrounds), although I've also seen folks use it to power the front soundstage and let a receiver handle the surrounds. The five-channel and seven-channel amps do seem to have largely driven the three-channel to extinction...

Firstly the Monster amp isnt too bad to look at but is too long to fit in the equipment rack, so I hide mine on the floor behind subwoofer. I definitely turned off the stupid power rating lights.

As for 3 vs 7 channels, I think there is also a matter of putting your dollars where the money counts. The front 3 channels carry well over 60% of the music and movie information/load (power wise). It is a marketing ploy from manufactures to sell that you must buy 7 channels of equal amplification.

I sold my Outlaw 770 channel amp and put less money (per channel) into the back 4 speakers and more into the front three. 2 used Parasound HCA-1000A amps for rear 4 channels, amd the Monster MPA 3250 for the front three.

I defintely like the Monster/Parasound setup better than the 770. I did make extensive comparisons on the Parasounds to the Outlaw and found the Parasounds a better match to my speakers. Better bass and highs, mids slightly better on the outlaw. Must wider sound stage in two channel music on the Parasounds! I sold the Outlaw before buying the Monster, but find the monster better in all regards to the Parasounds.

For the $800 price tag on the Monster (new on e-bay w/ 2 years warranty), I have absolutely no regrets making the switch.

I think the idea that you have been batting around that the LCD meters are accurate and that the number of watts being drawn is between 0 and 3 is accurate. when you have an A/AB class amp and the AB comes in after say 8 to 10 watts, it it very rare that the AB will be used at all except for brief moments when there is a particularly high draw on the power. In reality most of the time, particularly with efficient or highly efficient speakers the amp is coasting along with 1-3 watts.

jbler50