Solid-State Power Amp Adventures

ATC specs out their products either very honestly or super conservatively. The amps can hit 100w and 300w RMS at the advertised super low distortion. They have competition but none of its cheap.

 

Quick n' Dirty impressions of a couple of amps. Impressions are mostly based on listening to them with Quad Z3 floorstanding speakers (some listening have been done with Raal SR1a's too).

First, some impressions of the Quad's for those who are interested:

Spoiler

The Quad's have a sound signature which I'd describe as slightly bright, perhaps a tad dry on the upper band and slightly warm on the midrange (and lower frequencies) There's plenty of plankton in the treble with a miniscule amount of peakyness - stating this because experience tells me peakyness gets more audible with more revealing amplifiers and in this case it might be relevant. I've detected similar treble in many Mark&Daniel speakers (like in Maximus Monitor and Ruby, especially in the AMT models) but as a whole the Quad's sound more even in the treble and also more coherent between treble and midrange. Timbre overall is pretty good - Quad's have a pleasant texture on the midrange, sounding slighty like good paper cones but slighty more vibrant, if this makes any sense. A feature of glass fiber drivers? Otherwise the overall tone is very British, midrange is slightly dipped or less prominent than you'd find in a "studio neutral" speaker. This yields a sound stage that doesn't really pop out of the speakers, but more like renders between them or maybe even slightly behind them. Tend to work better the louder you play them. B&W-esque, one might say.

Hegel H200:
- Bright sounding amplifier and I'm not talking only about the treble - everything starting from the male vocal range seems to be slightly pronounced or more forward that I'm used to - but in a more broad and even way you might think. As such the brightness is not a completely undesirable quality. There's almost an impeccable sense of clarity and/or purity and perhaps of all the amps I've ever properly tested, Hegel has the airiest sound stage. Switching back to Hegel after auditioning the Moon Neo Ace my two first observations were: 1. Wow, the soundstage really pops out of the speakers! 2. Bass is now much more prominent. So, is this the amp of my dreams? When listening to Hegel more closely, I discovered the clarity comes at the expense of microdetail and pure/natural timbre. Dynamically Hegel is very capable, in both micro and macro realms and from top to bottom. Bass has good heft and speed, though it might sound just a little too round. Ultimately it just doesn't have that much detail to play with. There also a very subtle yet discernible metallic kind of quality to the overall sound in the upper midrange, which robs some naturalness from the presentation, though one could still describe the sound having some liquidness. Very distinct and non-neutral sounding amplifier. This must be the DM CV-2 of the amplifier world, try before buy.

Random observations/thoughts:
- Perfectly capable of driving Raal's, but the presentation is too much in your face (or in this case to be more exact, 'in your head') and the aforementioned shortcomings are (clearly) audible
- Some intermittent transformer hum, might be related to other interference sources on my power grid

SPL Performer S800 power amp (+ Phonitor 2 as pre)
Preface: Having owned the Phonitor 2 for a year and a half, I finally decided to bite the bullet and blindly purchase an s800 power amp for Raal SR1a's hoping it would sound just like the Phonitor 2, but just in power amplifier form. Those of you who don't know how the Phonitor 2/X/E series sounds, read here: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/spl-phonitor-x-e.3574/page-4#post-219127

Okay, to put it bluntly: You get something and lose something. The neutrality associated with the Phonitor series is present on pretty much all fronts. Tone seems pretty even, neutral and certainly not thin sounding. Dynamically everything is okay, s800 doesn't overshoot transients nor sound laid back, but isn't state-of-the art either. Soundstage has adequate depth. Sound doesn't really have any sweetness or 'glow', but s800 still manages to sound non-clinical or mostly non-sterilizing of the upstream components. So, what gives?

Perhaps the first time I came into realization of a shortcoming s800 has was when I was comparing it to the Hegel H200. Hegel has this almost liquidlike quality which in contrast made the s800 sound very slightly sibilant. In defence, this was something I wasn't able to discern that easily in isolation. Whereas Hegel may be described as having slightly glossed over or polished type of sound, there's none of that here. S800 just plainly puts out everything it cans and calls it a day, without putting lipstick on a pig. Perhaps due to this the absolute resolution leaves something to be desired. It might just edge out the Hegel, or this might be my interpretation of the situation due to more neutral type of delivery otherwise. To put it on a scale, we a talking a 'good' level of performance here, instead of excellent (or mediocre). Regardless, the SPL combination gets more listening hours and is still in my equipment rack, when Hegel has already changed ownership. Is S800 worth 3k$+? Audition one and decide for yourself.

Random observations/thoughts:
- Even if there are some shortcomings with the sound, I've managed to live quite long with this one without that much griping

Moon Neo Ace MiND 1 (same dac/amplifier section as in Neo 240i)
My impulse buy, which I thought could replace a Hegel H200 + Bifrost 2 + Bluesound Node 2i stack in my small living room. As the familiar story goes, the one that dreams of an all-in-one solution trumping a set of carefully selected separates soon gets a reality check.

Using the internal MiND streaming solution, for example with Tidal as a source, you get a warmish, slightly laid-back type of sound without that much of air. I'd even dare to say there has been clearly a goal to achieve a certain type of smooth and coherent type of rendering here, as telling this one and something that truly aims to be 'neutral' apart from each other is quite elementary. I do have to admit I still found this configuration slightly dull and lifeless, not really evoking any kind of emotions regardless of the type of music playing, even if I could appreciate some aspects of the chosen tuning. There was also some 'squareness' evident and perhaps the treble was very slightly glarey in some parts, but as a whole it was mostly listenable. In terms of resolution it was surprisingly acceptable. However, in the end it failed to make my foot tap. (BTW: the internal dac is based on ESS ES9010K2M chipset, it seems).

Forgetting the internal streaming solution and DAC, and substituting them with Bifrost 2 and Bluesound Node 2i made things to turn for the better. Although the overall tonal balance stayed mostly the same, Bifrost 2 managed to blow some life into the presantation. There was now some sweetness or 'musicality', if you will, and both micro and macrodynamics took a step up. The squareness went away and what was before a slightly glarey treble is now more smooth and even. Soundstage also gained an additional layer of depth. With Soekris dac2541 as a dac I was actually able to confirm that the Moon Neo Ace is more detailed than the aforementioned SPL s800 power amplifier the upper we proceed on the frequency range. Where it loses though, is the impactfulness on the bottom end and other technicalities, such as dynamics. As an amplifier only this thing is very capable of rendering enjoyable and easy-going sound and I thought for a some time about keeping it. In the end, I decided it would be better to replace it with an all-analogue model from Moon.

Randoms observations/thoughts:
- Was able to drive Raal SR1a's better than I anticipated based on the specifications (50 @8ohm, [email protected]), but sometimes sounded slightly shouty / 'hard' with some bass heavy music
- Overall resolution quite good with a revealing external dac
- As a whole does not represent good value (IMO)

 

@Psalmanazar: What’s your take on the ATC SIA2-150 integrated? Or do you just like ATC’s pro stuff?

 

Never heard it. The pro stuff is brilliant. It’s probably fine.

 

Effortless, explosive, depth,timing,immense power and control....what an amp!

 

So I've picked up a new DAC/Amp combo, the Boulder 866. I've had the Kinki EX-M1 for..2 years now? I still really like the Kinki tbh, it does what it does well really well I feel, though it does have some drawbacks. As does most gear, I suppose.

Anyhow, I'll be putting this through its paces with both the Susvara and AB-1266TC, as well as my speakers. I think I will probably sell the Kinki, and eventually try to get something for my speaker set up, or headphone set up, depending on where the Boulder ends up full time. That remains to be seen.

Just using a topping for D/D conversion currently, as I needed something ASAP from Amazon so I could use the DAC portion. so I will probably look at getting the Matrix XSPDIF2 at some point.

Initial impressions are the DAC is seriously impressive for a built in unit. Normally the built in units seem sorta meh, and like they were a convenience factor after thought. This DAC actually sounds great to me, though I suppose that may be some sort of synergy being made by the same people as the amp section, not sure.

In the small amount of listening I've done thus far, it strikes me as not cold, not warm. Very "neutral" but not sharp and bright as hell sounding. Very dense and solid sonic picture. I'll report back about the sonics in more depth once I have a lot more time on it.

@iFi audio You asked what I would be replacing the Kinki with, this is it

 

Holy moly, that's a big statement amp right there! Kinda weird that it doesn't have direct usb input though. Did you find a Canadian dealer for that?

What do you plan to replace the Topping DDC with?

 

Probably the Matrix XPDIF2? Though they recently released another new XSABRE3, so I'm wondering if XSPDIF2 is on the way out as well. Perhaps not, hard to tell.

The Topping is doing the job for now though. The Boulder does have USB input, but only for USB drives (USB-A input, 4 of them) with music on them. As I like using my computer (laptop) as my source, I couldn't use the USB inputs. Thus, the toppng is working for now. Going into the AES input via an adapter currently, but I'll give the optical a shot too, and see if I prefer one or the other.

 

It's quite the replacement indeed, and most likely a "bit" better than your Kinki