Anyone hear the Class D Audio Mini GaN 5 amp yet?
For you measurement folks, looks like ASR just gave this amp a bad review: https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/premium-audio-mini-gan-5-review-stereo-amplif... |
Checked out that review thread. Not a place I’ll be frequenting. Ugh! With a few more evenings of listening time, a few more observations. Bass and dynamics are really superb. Both those elements got slightly better with playing time. I find this amp quite reveling and true to recording quality. What I find strange is that lead voice tracks often appear too far back in the sound stage and certain instruments like a piano, lack a bit of the weight expected from a good class A/B SS amp. I moved the gain from mid to low with no discernable difference is sound quality. Nothing that cranking up the volume could not address. No problems whatsoever mechanically (on/off, warm-up time, disconnecting and reconnecting cables, etc.). This amp does a lot of thing really well. Nipping at the heals of good Class A/B. I would not say it surpasses it. But does kick the crap out of previous Class D I’ve used. |
I'm rather surprised and a bit confused. I have an Esoteric F-05 driving Egglestonworks 9se speakers, Pontus II dac, Spacedeck table with a high end Van Den Hul cartridge. I had heard some mid range clang if you will at moderate to high volumes for which I had to adjust tone controls on the Esoteric quite dramatically. I became concerned maybe they weren't getting enough wattage from the Esoteric. I wanted to see what some additional wattage would do, and wanted to do it as an experiment as cheaply as possible. In my system after 1 day of break in the soundstage expanded (although vocals rather fixed centrally, depth variable was impressive), clarity improved, and for what it's worth stopped needing to use my tone controls. Maybe a touch thinner but all other parameters improved. I really couldn't believe my ears so had multiple friends with great ears listened. The all voted for the 5. Guess I'll keep it. Dang.
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@maw8c Congrats! Once the amp is fully burned in and you’re acclimated to it you might consider talking to Ric Schultz at Electronic Visionary Systems about mods he’s developed for your amp. He upgrades/reworks key parts that can bring these amps to an even higher level of performance for relatively small cost for the improvement you get. There’s more info on his website if you might be interested at some point. I was seriously considering the GaN5 as well as I’m sure once modded it could be a pretty special amp on the relative cheap, but I decided to have my McCormack amp upgraded instead and although I know it’ll be a great amp I still wonder if I made the right choice. Anyway, enjoy the new amp and if you would please report back with your thoughts as the amp settles in. |
I'll cut to the chase: some of the most musical amps I've heard in over 40 years in this wonderful pursuit. My tube amps, which are high quality all, have been silent since I started using the Class D Audio MiniGan 5's (mono's and XLR). You can follow the detailed thread on the Audio Circle Spatial Audio page. But, with Spatial Audio Sapphire M3's, these MiniGans are absolutely astounding. In example, I own 100 lb., 50 watt, Class A, Psvane 845 mono's (tubed with Linlai's Elite series tubes). Some of the finest 845 amps ever. For my musical taste, the MiniGans, weighing 5 lbs., 300 watts, out-perform the Psvanes. Upstairs, on Merlins, the MiniGans, again, to my musical taste, out-perform Manley Neo-Classic 300B's, Granite Audio 864 SR's, Hartung OTL's (all mono's). Extraordinary development. Revolution? Seems to me.... |
