Starke Sound


Good evening Audiogon Community !

I’ve been looking into this company’s 4-channel AD.430 to power the rear and center speakers of my MCH music set up.   Alternatively,  I could swap my current Emotiva XPA DR-2 GEN 3 to the rear and have the  Starke handle front right, left and center duty.

Does anyone have direct experience with their Class D amps ?   The few reviews I’ve come across are very positive.   Personally, I’m kind of concerned that after two email inquiries through their website, I have not received a reply to a very basic inquiry.   I was ready to pull the trigger and place through their website, but the lack of response is causing me to pause.

Looking forward to your comments
ppaquin01

Sorry about the troubles with the Starke. I realized after my post this thread was started last year. 
 

Boomerbillone sure talked this amp up. Maybe he was affiliated with them.

I bit the bullet and pulled the trigémellaire on the AD4.320.  It seemed to have the right mix of power and price.   

My experience with Starke and the amp was a mixed bag.  After getting a very good deal (a good discount slight below Black Friday special), I was surprised with higher than expected duites because of an error on the commercial invoice listing the regular price.  After initially blaming UPS, they acknowledge their error and offered a reduction on a future purchasing.

In use, I found the amp generated a hum - a situation that I had never encountered with any other power or integrated used in the same set up.  I solved the problem by adding a Hum X to the connections.

Soundwise I was not overly impressed.  I found that the jump in quality was far from the reviewers alluded to.  Overall, it lacked the humpf of XPA-2 DR and felt the sound to be under-whelming.

Months passed and I stumbled upon the ASR reviews.   Wished I had before.

 

Is this the site you’re looking at the AD430? I don’t see it. I remember back when boomerbillone was talking about it that it was there. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough.

 

https://www.starkesound.com/detail.html?id=43

Member boomerbillone has experience with the Starke amp. He sent me a message a while back I can share with you if you’d like. Don’t know if he still posts here much but he definitely liked the amp.

Thanks for your reply.  Glad you got a quick response from Starke Sound and hope you enjoy your new amp.   Let us know how that goes! I reached out through the contact page - will try calling.   With the COVID situation, businesses have plenty of challenges and responses times may suffer.

I’ll look up the home trial po;icy - not sure if applicable to sales to Canada where I live.   I’ll definitively look for boomerbillone’s post.
That’s surprising. When I recently contacted them, they replied the same day - on a weekend no less. In subsequent followup email, I got a personal reply from the founder/owner himself. That said, a recent followup inquiry has not yet been answered - although it was over this past weekend. Given their very liberal 30 day in home trial (shipping both ways! - that clinched it for me), I figured it was just best to pull the trigger at the sale price of $999 and try it. Just finished buying.

That all said, I was influenced by a very glowing post (and PM) by boomerbillone. Look for it/them.