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

Happy to hear positive reviews!  I believe my amp will ship tomorrow so I should have it mid-next week!  I will definitely post my thoughts on how it sounds compared to my Accuphase E-380 integrated.  Will also have a friend bring over a Holo Audio Serene preamp so we will be able to hear the amp through two different preamps, will be using the preamp section of my E-380.  Getting very excited!

I'm gonna try and get my thoughts together and get an opinion posted here in the next couple of days. Had to do extra work, because I was also breaking in a pair of Clayton Shaw Caladan speakers.....and needed to make sure what I was hearing was the CODA and not just the Caladans breaking in.

I received my S5.5 on Wednesday and have about 15 hours on it. I’ll be posting my initial impressions tomorrow. Even at this point it is more than impressive. Can’t stop listening. 
 

Jeff

Just curious, has anyone tried the Coda CB/CP preamp as well as the 07x.  There is a big price difference, is there a significant performance difference?  Looking at the specs it seems the 07x has less noise and more gain on the XLR connections.