JansZen

aren't those active?

Hi John, I've got the active Janszen zA2.1A speakers and run them now straight from a modified Oppo 105D which works as a pretty good source and DAC for me. Before I had these I was running the passive zA2.1s with a Naim dac v1 and also tried the Naim 282 preamp / dac. 

Both of these worked Really well with the Janszens, which are quite wonderful speakers.

The quality of the sound and the accuracy and speed gives great definition to the Naim and I'm sure you will be impressed. The only reason I moved away from the Naim with the Janszens was because I wanted DSD (this wasn't available on the Dac v1 then) and because I didn't want to have to stream from my computer when playing music (282 - worked really well but when kids are streaming video the connection wasn't reliable enough).

There was a magical smoothness to the sound with both Naim products that I don't quite get from the Oppo, although the quality of sound is still quite stunning, and these speakers work with rock, pop, classical, jazz... You name it. True hifi and the best speakers I have heard after many decades searching.

You will not be disappointed. And the recent price reduction - while a bit galling for me - makes the speakers that bit more accessible. Oh, final thing... These things will play pretty loud effortlessly in a normal room. If your room is not huge (say 20' x 14') the Janszens are much easier to live with than any dipole and can be placed fairly near walls without ruining the magic. Bass extension is impressive and integration flawless. I cannot recommend them too highly, and David Janszen is a tremendous guy and will look after you very well.

good luck!

Thanks for this very helpful response. When you were running the passive version, what power amp were you using?

Best, John

I tried different amps. I found Bryston amps rated at 120 W each had plenty of poke, and tried pretty standard mid range Marantz AV amp and Denon too that I had at home.

While Janszens aren 't the easiest speakers to drive they're not that hard either and many owners use valve amps rated at 25W per channel to good effect. I prefer the cleaner sound of transistor amps but I would start with whatever you have now and take a view from there. Pretty much any Naim amp will sound great with the Janszens.

In the end I decided to go for the actives because I needed to get better amplification and was going back to stereo from 5.1 systems (that I still use in a different room). This meant I didn't need to worry about amplification. I love the effortless do anything nature of the amps in the active speakers. 

Hope that helps. Good luck with whatever you choose, but I really hope you try the Janszens. Best thing I ever did.