The new Coda S5.5 amplifier: It's a "Petite Beast"!


I have in-house the New Coda Technologies S5.5 amplifier for review for Stereo Times website. It will be awhile before I write the review. However, I'm so impressed by the performance of this petite amplifier, it only weights 45 pounds, that I wanted to give a heads up to you GON members if you are in the market for a balanced pure class A amplifier, delivers 50 watts @ 8 Ohms, and can drop 100 Amperes of current on a peak!

The world class build quality of Coda amplifiers is on display with the S5.5, along with the most beautiful purity of tonality, precise sound-staging, complete liquidity offered by pure class A design, and what might be the best top end regarding details, decays, and a natural shimmering without brightness or any edge at all.

The S5.5 uses extremely wide bandwidth output transistors instead of the usual TO3 devices used in most transistor designs. I own the Coda #16, which is great, but the midrange/high end is taken to another level of musical enjoyment with the S5.5. The S5.5 has a sense of speed/aliveness that is exciting to listen to that you experience in live music. The amp is dynamic as hell, has driven with ease any speaker I have tried it with, hence my nickname of the "Petite Beast". Remember, 50 watts pure class A, can drop 100 amperes of current and only weights 45 pounds.

Teajay (Terry London)

johnah5

Does anyone know the damping factor for this amp?  I don't see it listed, but do see 200 listed for the no-8.    I had a Pass X250.8 and XA-30.8 (both listed at 150) and really liked them but didn't find either as good as a few other amps I've owned relative to bass control with the 30.8 being a little loose in the bass at times.  If the 5.5 has solid bass control it definitely looks very appealing for the $.   

Hey ddafoe,

I did a review on the Pass Labs X250.8, excellent amplifier, and the bass control on all the Coda amps, including the S5.5, is much better controlled/dynamic because of the loading of 100 amps of current based on their giant power supply sections.

Teajay 

teajay,

Sorry for being off topic but do you know if there is or will be in the future a Coda S5.5 integrated amp?

@tyray, great point and question. I have a Coda amp and would love to recommend Coda to any of my friends who are in the market for an integrated amp. Unfortunately, none of them can afford the CSiB (definitely not new and probably not used); so, having another option at a lower price point would be good (and smart).

Matching it with a tube preamp in balanced mode could be an issue with some, since the balanced input impedance is only 10k ohms.