Hey firefly627s,
I have talked to Doug about this a couple weeks ago. The S5.5 doubles down into 100 watts class A into 4 ohms.
Teajay
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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Thanks Teajay and glad to hear the S5.5 doubles down to 100 Class A watts into 4 ohm. Interestingly enough, the No. 16 amplifier is reported to deliver the first 100 watts as Class A into 8 ohms or 4 ohms, and above 100 watts, it's Class AB). When I spoke with Doug last week I did get a different answer. Maybe I heard wrong or there was some misinterpretation so I won't go into the details. I don’t know why they (Coda Tech) don’t state it on the Coda site specs or put in print in the manual instead of only stating 50WPC Class A into 8 ohm. Maybe it’s just me but if you can double down to 100WPC into 4ohm Class A, don’t hide it, flaunt it. I know the dealers say 100WPC into 4ohm but it’s ambiguous to me if I don’t see "A" specified, so I was thinking that’s AB. The S5.5 is certainly an outstanding amplifier and quite a value! What are specs anyway? Performance is what matters and the 100 amp current the S5.5 and 16 have are doing the job quite well! Again, thank you! |
@irave I have my S5.5 driving B&W 804 D4s which are at least as difficult a load as your Amatis and the sound is sublime, zero sense of compression or hardening or lack of dynamics. Preamp is a Audio Hungary Qualiton C200. |
@firefly627s Specs do matter to me. I spoke to Doug about getting the S5.5 for my Yamaha NS5000 and he said it may work since it is a 6 Ohm speaker. I told him the 100-watt Benchmark AHB2 does work with it to some OK volume level. However, the amp is almost at 90% volume, and it seems to be pushing it. On my Sanders Magtech amp, the sound was bigger and louder. That amp is 500 | 900 @ 8 | 4. On my CODA #16 it was similar to the Sanders with some sonic differences that I cannot remember now, essentially a Class AB vs A thing. After those comments Doug said the S5.5 would not be a good choice for me. That is how we eventually ended up with the topic of the new CODA SYSTEM 150 coming out next month. I may have a buyer for my Sanders amp and the AHB2 may also go. I will use 2 CODA amps on my 2 systems, but not the S5.5. BTW - I thought the #16 was 50 watts Class A in 4 Ohm. Though that is an old recollection. |
Thank you for your helpful comments as always! Much appreciated! To all from my previous posts, Doug may have been extra conservative with me because I am in a Magnepan LRS+ phase. I really am not a specification person at all and it's odd I even raised this question. I believe it was truly intended to help others on this thread, in case any of us were placing a specification as a key criterion for purchasing the amp, that there were no unintentional or inadvertent oversights, misunderstandings or false presumptions here . There certainly doesn't appear to be any. And would it even matter if there were any? Probably not! The S5.5 is hitting the ball out of the park for everyone, so that has much more practical value to us than specs or what is printed in the manuals. I totally agree with YYZ though that specs are important; however, the bottomline is how a component sounds to each user, in their room with their equipment and their music. Teajay loved the sound these S5.5's were producing and everyone else does too. That says it all! I am not chancing it with Maggies though. Doug steered me back to my CSiB. Enjoy the music! YYZ thanks again for chiming in! Best, joe
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