In a word yes...Coda is very refined with high resolution and will definitely lay bare the sound quality of cables.
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)
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sim__audio_nerd, Congrats! You are in for a lot of musical pleasure. I would not call the Coda amps as sensitive, but revealing to the quality of power cords and wires you run in your system. The footers that the S5.5 comes with are first rate. I have experimented with isolation devices and heard no differences compared to the standard Coda footers. Teajay |
I recently tried 3 different speaker cables with the CODA #16 | Holo Serene preamp | Yamaha NS5000 speaker.
I also tried a Benchmark AHB2 on the same system and tried the same cables as above (except WyWire Diamond) plus the following:
All of these cables had issues, fatigue, lack of clarity, except the Audience FrontRow. I was not 100% happy with the #16 previously because the AHB2 was better in some ways, such as clarity. However, after using the FrontRow the #16 really became more detailed and cleaner sounding. Closer to the AHB2 in that regard. So, in my experience the speaker cables matter a lot for the CODA #16, When I had the CODA #8, I used very short Audience FrontRow cables for a headphone setup and those cables also made a huge improvement. BTW - CODA No. 16 Amplifier (100w Class A) For Sale - US Audio Mart |
- 418 posts total