a very open and clean amp bass is solid and music is detailed. what can i say please check it out its just awsome.

If you've been following the saga of my upgrades in the other component areas, you'll know I nearly bought a Rotel 991, their new amp. Not after I heard the Aragon 8002. When my wife listened to it, she said "this sounds like the twenty year-old scotch you spend way too much money on." And she was right. The Aragon has a tremendous sense of finesse and power. Grace under pressure, I call it. Listen to an undemanding signal and it just chugs along with a smooth mid-range and detailed, but not in yr face, highs. But when some difficult bass or cresendo sneaks up on it--BAM--the power of the dual-mono unit is right there to do the job. No way to fluster this amp! Build quality is amazing, if Nelson Pass is right, weight (at least in power amps) means quality, ie, deep power reserves. Well, we're talkin' fifty pounds here. Everything about this amp looks up toward the 8008, the only area the Rotel beat it was the pacing; but the Aragon has it in spades in the midrange. I love the way it's filled out the bottom end on my Aerius. For the first time I really sense the potential of these speakers. Great valus for da moolah!!!

Have had this amp for some time now. Purchased along with a 28K preamp, a Parasound Tuner, and an Acurus A150 for remote room amplification. Sound, after break-in period, is great. Detail is excellent, Mid's are there - sometimes just a little too there depending upon MUSIC. Bass is detailed and smooth. I am driving Legacy Classics (Bi-wired)with this amp and there is just no stopping it. My walls will rattle and ears will distort before this amp shows any hint of giving up. (Which it never has yet). Would buy it again in a heartbeat. Decided on the 8002 vs. the 8008 due to financial considerations. Have heard the 8008 and don't know the difference (other than wattage) between the two. Have not been able to A/B them as of yet though. Don't know if I would spend the extra $ for the 8008, but the thought of an 8008x3 for my center(Legarc Silver screen) and fronts (Classics) combined with the 8002 for the Rears makes me salivate. I Heard a lot of amps before choosing this one. IMHO best amp for the Buck in its or the next couple of price classes.

I use an 8002 with an Aragon 24K preamp, Luxman/Grado for analog and a Marantz CD-63SE for digital. The 8002 drives a pair of AR Classic 26's. It replaced an Adcom 555 II and will very likely be my solid state amp for a long time. I haven't heard anything which truly "blows it away".The sound is very clean and kind of smooth (though not tube-like at all), there is a hint of brightness at the top end (common to bi-polar amps) but it often seems more related to the actual recording. It has all the well controlled bass I could want, the midrange is a little on the forward side but not a lot (again, more related to the recording than the amp). Dynamics are excellent, the AR's are not efficient but the 8002 drives them very well, low level listening remains highly detailed and enjoyable.

I recently auditioned and purchased the Aragon 8002 amp (due to budgetlimitations the 8008st was not considered) and Aragon 28K remote pre-
amp. The Classe' CA100/CP35 combo was also tested.


Classe':
My speakers are Martin Logan CLSIIA's which are well known for being
very difficult loads for a lot of amps. The Classe' was auditioned first.
The CA100 was not capable of driving the speakers beyond 1/2 volume
without immediately shutting down! The sound was totally lifeless.
As it turns out, the Classe' cannot drive highly capacitive loads.
Classe' does admit to the problem with accustats, but was unaware of
the CLSIIA's having the same problem. End of test!
---- Don't use a CA100 with CLSIIA's. It won't work!!----
(The CLSIIZ might work with this amp)


Aragon:
The 8002/28K turned out to be an excellent match for these speakers!
Dynamics and clarity are outstanding for an amp/preamp in this price
range. One of the big weaknesses of the CLSIIA's is lack of base exten-
sion. The 8002 really made a difference! The music now has more power
in the low end. The mids and highs are extremly detailed and clean.
The sound is very open, dynamic and unrestrained.


I highly recommend this amp/preamp for use with the CLSIIAs.

Recently, I decided that I have saved enough money to upgrade my system. The first thing that comes to my mind is the power amplifier. I took several amps and preamps home for one week of auditioning. The speaker that I have is the Martin Logan Aerius i, which is very well known for its low impedance (1.7 Ohms at its lowest). I have try all these amps and pre amps combo, and this is what I found 1) Classe CAP 150: This integrated amp is very well built. The front plate is made of thick aluminum material which gives us the impression of quality. The sound quality is very good. It has very good control of the bass. It is very detail and dynamic. In my opinion, this is a very good amp (4 stars).
2) Krell KAV300: This amp looks really good. The sound quality is excelence. It does everything that the Classe does. The bass is very well control much better than the Classe in this aspect. If I have the money, this amp should be my choice of amp to drive the ML.
3) Aragon 8002 and 28K pre amp: I admits that this combo looks the best of all the amp and pre amp that I have tested. However, the sound quality is not that great. The high and the mid range seems to be a bit compress. It does not sound open and dynamic. It has very good bass control, it is even better than the KRELL in this aspect. Personally, I do not think that this amp is very well match for the ML. This is very strange. I have audition the Aragon 4004 with the ML SL3, and this combo sounds really good.It may be the interconnect wire or speaker wire that I am using is not a good match for the Aragon. The cables that I am using might be too much capacity at high frequency. This combines with the low impedance of the ML at 20KHz might not be that good for the 8002.
4) Acurus 260 and RTL11: This combo sounds very good. It is a bit less open as compare to the KRELL or the Classe. However, it has very good bass control. Overall, it sounds very good for the price. It is one of my top three to consider for the ML. This is very strange if you think about it. The Aragon and the Acurus are built by the same people, and the Aragon supposes to be better. 5) Sim audio 2001 MKII and 3050: This combo sounds very good. The bass is not very tight. I call the dealer, they suggest me to use another pair of interconnect. I will pick it up next week and give it a try. Other than that, the mid and high is very good. It sounds very smooth and dynamic. I will try the Moon series next week.
Consider the cost and the sound quality for the unit that I have, I would give it a rating of 3 stars. Given the fact that the unit I have tried is a demo unit. It might be deffective, and the interconnect might not be a good match for the amp, I would give it a rating of 4 so that others might not be put off by not giving this amp a good consideration.