Verastarr SSA-64 better than the Cinepro 3K6SEGOLD

My brother, Randall, just purchased the Verastarr SSA-64 from Mike Powell and it is one beautiful amp inside and out. Bravo!

This amp is powerful, musical and transparent. No evidence of it being bright and harsh. It has a warm tube like character.

The SSA-64 is a medium input impedence amp and we set it up with 3 pairs of MIT SHOTGUN MI-330 Medium Impedence one meter RCA cables. The RCA's were attached to the preamp outs of a Yamaha RX-Z9. The speakers utilized in this home theater setup are 2 pairs of Paradigm studio 100's version 3 and matching identical front and rear center channel speakers.

The speakers came to life with the Verastarr SSA-64 amp. All of a sudden, the speakers became much fuller. The bass noticeably deepened when playing music. The high notes were more clear when playing music. This amp rocks. There was a night and day difference between the Verastarr SSA-64 and the Yamaha. The amp section of the RX-Z9 was simply no match for the Verastarr SSA-64.

We also solved the overheating problem of the Yamaha RX-Z9. By using the pre-amp outs of the RX-Z9, the extremely high heat output of the RX-Z9 vanished when we bypassed the internal amps of the Yamaha RX-Z9.

On the other hand, the Verastarr SSA-64 runs cool. To have 400 WPC at 8 ohms for 6 channels running cool to the touch is impressive.

After the Verastarr SSA-64 was hooked up via the MIT MI-330 cabling, we checked for speaker hiss. We could detect none. We checked for system hum and found none. More impressive results.

A direct comparison with a Cinepro 3K6 SEGOLD (I own one) revealed subtle differences. The Verastarr SSA-64 is warmer and more tube like. The Cinepro 3K6 SEGOLD is a tad brighter. This is probably attributable to the upgraded power supply and the upgraded and vastly larger REL-CAPS (6)connected externally to the 3 output boards. The Cinepro had much smaller REL-CAPS attached directly onto the 3 output boards. Both are extremely powerful amps and dynamic headroom is a tossup.

The Verastarr SSA-64 is an incredible solid state amp. It is powerful, musical and transparent. It is a step up from the Cinepro 3K6 SEGOLD.

We were fortunate to be able to purchase one at approximately half the full retail price of $9,995.00