MC8207 vs MC257

[AnimeMusic]

I did a lot of searching but didn’t see a direct comparison between these two amps. I did find a lot of comparisons between the older MC207 and MC8207 with the general conclusion that the sound was the same except that the 8207 doesn’t get as hot but doesn’t have the normal meters or RCA inputs (or sadly the ability to turn off the lights that it does have).

How does the 8207 hold up to the newer 257? It looks like the 257 has an even nicer meter than the 207, can power the front stage up to 250w per channel, and has a huge increase in dynamic headroom. On the negative side, it doesn’t appear to improve on the 200w of the 8207 when all channels are powered, and it has a worse Signal to Noise ratio. Two other differences are that you can turn off the 257’s lights but not the 8207’s, and the 257 weighs 12 pounds more.

Has anybody compared these two directly? The delta in MSRP (>50%) is pretty hefty for aesthetics if they aren’t audible. No place around me has both amps to try. They’d be used for center and surrounds for me.