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Atma-Sphere Class D… Amazing

Today I picked up my Atma-Sphere Class D Amps. These aren’t broken in yet. And they are simply amazing. I’ve listen to a lot of High End Class D. Some that cost many times what Atma-Sphere Class D costs. I wasn’t a fan of any of them. But these amps are amazing. I really expected to hate them. So my expectations were low. The Details are of what I’ve never heard from any other amps. They are extremely neutral. To say the realism is is extremely good is a gross understatement. They are so transparent it’s scary. These amps just grab you and suck you into the music. After I live with them some and get them broken in. And do some comparisons to some other high end Amps Solid State, Tubes and Class D’s, also in other systems I’ll do a more comprehensive review. But for now, these are simply amazing amps.. Congrats to Ralph and his team. You guys nailed on these.

 

 

128x128pstores
fundsgon
150 posts
 

@sdl4 

I would also be interested in higher power monoblocks, something in the range of 400 to 500 Watts into 4 Ohms. I want to be able to crack the foundation when the urge arises.

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o_holter
956 posts
 

I hope Atma-sphere are successful with the new class D amps. This is certainly well-deserved. I love my MA-1 amps, and have learned to live with them, using NOS tubes, turn them off after listening, and so on. The best advice I got from Ralph was to match them with optimal speakers. Is this the case with the new class D amps too? Before the MA-1s, I had the huge Krell FPB600, and was told that it could drive "anything". That wasn't quite true, however.

clio09
3,346 posts
 

I love my MA-1 amps, and have learned to live with them, using NOS tubes, turn them off after listening, and so on. The best advice I got from Ralph was to match them with optimal speakers.

I would say that advice applies to any amplifier.

 

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o_holter
956 posts
 

Yes, but I think it is more evident with tube amps than with s-state? The MA-1s can sound ok with 4 ohm (maybe), quite good with 8 ohm, but to know what they are really capable of, you need to go up - my speakers are 16 ohms, staying between 13 and 17 ohms above the bass impedance peaks, with efficiency:  92 dB/1 watt.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,632 posts
 

Are you still planning to build a version with somewhat higher power output?

We started with 100 W into 8 Ohms, 200 into 4 simply because if you really need more power than that your speaker is impractical. The exception seems to be ESLs like the Sound Lab, which are easy to drive in that they don't need an exceptional amount of power, but challenge solid state amps because the bass impedance is so high (30 Ohms).

We would like to make a more powerful amp, but to be noticeably more powerful than what we have already, it would have to be 600-800 Watts at least. This is simply because of the logarithmic character of the ear, which is why deciBels are used to measure sound pressure.

This kind of power won't be possible with the existing module. As always, the challenge will be to keep distortion down and keep it benign.

Yes, but I think it is more evident with tube amps than with s-state?

Yes.

Regardless of the amplifier though,  its distortion will always be higher driving a lower impedance. For this reason, if sound quality is your goal your amplifier investment dollar will be best served by a higher impedance speaker, all other things being equal (which of course they never are...).

However the class D seems to do nicely on lower impedances. Our local dealer likes how they drive the Magnaplanars in his store.

 

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