鶹
Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on November 24, 2023I went into this with low expectations. I have B&W 685 speakers and years ago made a very satisfying upgrade from a Yamaha Natural Sound receiver to a Cambridge Audio Azur. Lately I have only been using two channels and I had a great sounding class D amp in a car once so I decided to pick this up on a sweet 鶹 warehouse deal.
I am shocked at how good this thing sounds. I can't say for certain that it sounds better than the Azur but it's not noticably worse and it's 10x cheaper and 90% smaller, lighter and cooler. I have tested with my usual selection of high res audio and some casual film watching and this is definitely going to work for me.
I'll try to remember to update this review after I have spent more time listening. I do intend to disassemble and consider modifying the heat sink as recommended by another reviewer.
Update: with the default 32V power supply I was impressed but the lows were muddy and the channel separation was poor, both of which I attributed to being underpowered for my speakers. After upgrading to the 48V 5A GaN PSU these issues have improved. I have not found any info on how the tone controls work but they seem to be boost-only--neutral when they are fully counter-clockwise. My general impression is that this is as good sounding a class D amplifier as the Azur is for class AB. They are subtly different but I think that's just the type of amp tech that I am hearing. This class D (and the other I had years ago) sound really crisp and responsive to me, lacking some warm fuziness of the class AB. Not sure which I prefer but it's really awesome how small this thing is and I have no itching desire to reinstall the massive class AB. Also not highly motivated to try and hack the hardware anymore. Maybe later.
