Anybody else waiting for GaN and Purify to have a baby?

i have a fw f6 here as well as a belles sa30 both outstanding medium wattage class a amps... will get around to trying those as well as the carver against this little mini 5 gan box...  been doing more comparisons among dacs this long weekend, will come back to amps a bit later

reporting back on the mini gan 5

top-line -- for 750 bucks it is very very good... but not close (and with very different voicing) to the agd audions in overall performance, i would say perhaps 60-70% of the way there to the really superb agd’s

i have not yet compared to the full bevy of ss and tube amps i have on hand, but so far i have let the mini 5 run in for 48 hours and listened to it for 3 days exclusively, enjoyed it a lot, then i made a swap, changing in the agd audions, then went back and forth a few times to confirm what i was hearing

(reminder - source is chord hugo tt2 w m scaler in amp mode, straight into the amps’ xlr inputs, driving spendor sp100r2 speakers, i know 9 grand worth of dac front end, into 10 grand plus speakers, but this allows for a clear comparison/revelation of sonic deltas) - the spendors are not a difficult load but are very revealing throughout the range - i do not have ’torture test speakers’ needing gobs of current into low impedance at troubling phase angles... on purpose, i might add :)

the mini 5 is a superbly clear amp, you can hear the speed, the openness, ultra low distortion, the excellent image it throws, wide and fairly deep, locates instruments quite well, nice timbral purity and excellent bass control - the treble is especially clean and impressive, it is clean without stridency - no typical class ab type of hardness, minimal grain here, very impressive in this regard - it is also very dynamic, the black background allow notes to hang in the air, and leading edges are exceptionally clean and expansion of loudness in music happens effortlessly

the build quality is what i would call good, well conceived budget gear... solid case, not too resonant, decent feet, plugs and binding posts are what you would expect at this price level, solid choices made here... on/off button feels fine, is positive -- the only thing that feels notably ’cheapie’ is the plastic jumper plugs on the back that allow for choice of input gain (a nice feature!)... they kinda stick out some from the back panel and can be broken or hit if not careful

now... swap in the agd’s...

immediately you get a sense of a different voicing and ’a tier above’ kind of sound... the agds are clear, but also notably rich and ’full fat’ while the mini 5 is leaner -- more a tasty ’ice-milk’ than luscious haagen daz through the midrange and midbass... one hears the agd’s are ’luxurious’ where the mini is crisp, cheerful and clear with more prominent, forward (but very clean) lower treble ...thus a more ’solid state’ presentation from the mini 5 whereas the agd’s are quite tube-like (in the best possible way) from highs through mid bass - the agd’s have more of a sense of relaxedness/ease, effortlessness, richness to the music - both are built on a very solid tuneful powerful (when called for) bass foundation... in terms of imaging, the agd’s have a magic where the music is saturated in tone but the image is deep and location and specificity is also superb... once again, it is a ’no tradeoffs’ kind of sound - you get everything that tubes give (sweetness, density/body, holography, tonal truth) but with effortless speed, and inner light and deep powerful ’no excuses’, ’best of solid state’ quality of bass

another way to describe the mini 5 is it is a fairly miraculous 750 dollar amp with a sound that would qualify as outstanding mid-to-upper middle tier solid state (think mccormack dna or belles class ab) type of sound, sibilance very well controlled, excellent spatial capabilities (more wide than deep), transparent nuanced, if a slightly lean midrange, and great bass

whereas the agd’s are a true ’highest order’, you-can-have-everything-you-hoped-for kind of amp - what so many of us has sought and pursued, best of tubes and solid state, at the same time, nothing sacrificed (except 7500 bucks hahaha)

what i will do now is compare the mini 5 to some others such as the nuprime ida-8, w4s st series ice power amp, belles sa-30 class a, arc 100.2 (old stalwart and fave)...

@soix

short answer yes... it is crystal clear now... very nice... just trying to judge its various subtler characteristics in comparison to my references

@rh67

i think we who have spent much time with tube amps, and in particular super sweet single ended low powered ones, have ears that to some degree have been conditioned to tube-borne 2nd order harmonic distortion, which gives a special sense of warmth, fleshiness and body to the music... super clean solid state, even the really top stuff that is not hampered by odd order harmonic and im distortion (heard as hardness, harshness and stridency) amplify the music with the ’sweetening’ even order distortions to varying degrees... so i understand what you are saying as you term ’the missing link’ -- to some degree when we get really top ss amps, we may need to relearn how to listen and appreciate well recorded music is presented with almost no distortion at all...

upgrades are part of the game, part of the continuing development... same with cars, cameras, what have you... at least in audio we don't have strictly articulated model years that prod producers to introduce new stuff , engineering improvements, ad nauseum each year...

part of my curiosity already having the agd audions and hearing their lovely sound and greatly respecting their capability is to understand the gan technology better, in different applications - clearly agd has tried to make their gear higher end, more unique, clever and romantic packaging, w top flight materials and workmanship indicating a more elite, luxury positioning -- so in contrast, i think it's educational for me to hear when another enterpreneur tries to do a much much lower dollar product, single chassis stereo minimalist case, ’nothing but the essentials’ approach with the same basic gan technology, and see if the sound quality can compare reomotely, or favorably - of course i would expect it to not be quite as good as the 10x price audions, but is it 20-30-50-70-80 percent of the way there?

initial reactions to the mini 5 are quite positive btw... still listening, swapping, assessing, will report findings in about a week or so i would hope

@soix 

in the front or the back? 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆

mini 5 received today, plugged into system, at first it sounded pretty chalky, but the sound is taking shape after about an hour in... will let it burn in for 24 h and revisit

btw - system is bluesound node rca dig out into doge 7 tube dac into XXX amp into Spendor SP100 R2 - streaming qobuz hires - might swap in chord m scaler/hugo tt2 at some point for max transparency, removing any tube beautification

planning compare this baby gan with recently acquired agd audion, and longtime reference amps hegel h20, ss arc 100.2 and tubed arc ref75 running kt120’s, all accept balanced-in direct from dac, w/o linestage

its a 15 day trial so i won’t get into swapping speakers or sources much, just keep those relatively constant

@mikepowellaudio

By the way, my apology if you are one of my customers and I dont recognize your AudioGon Moniker.

i am

Its interesting also jjss49 how the "Big Bucks" is the entry amp and best value in the AGD line, the Audion. Its a pair of monobloc amps with audio grade power cords in a pelican flight case for only $7500. and this amp competes with some of the greatest designs the globe has to offer , so that’s not Big Bucks comparatively,

my purchase of the set of agd’s was the single largest dollar spend on a single item i have made in my 35 years playing with audio gear (not by much, but still...) ... so it is ’big bucks’ to me... i am hardly short on money or choices of where to spend it, it is just that i’ve spent a lifetime earning my money, so i try to spend it wisely (and otherwise support charities and causes i care about)

while i certainly have a lot of hifi equipment i have fun playing with, for me, spending 30k on an amp is grossly unwise, and unnecessary, to achieve outstanding sound - i've been at this since my late teens in college, and sometimes, i am prepared to open my wallet to see what is on offer as the market for gear progresses and innovates (and as the hype often ensues)

as with other things in life that has gotten me to this point, i trust my own ability to decide, select, compare and assess

@soix 

ok got it... i will report back with impressions of the $750 gan mini 5

@soix --- what gan amps have you personally tried? and what are your thoughts so far

i coughed up the big $ and bought a set of agd audions... they are spectacularly good...

then on the low end, just for fun, i just ordered a mini gan 5 from tom at class d audio in corona ca... for $750 w 15 day money back trial i figured it is worth hearing what a gan amp just 10% of cost of the other might sound like... we shall see...