GaN amps: Peachtree or LSA Voyager?

@markmuse wrote:


"I would be more inclined to pay attention to what you have to say if you were not so negative and condescending. You might actually have a useful contribution, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting past your attitude."

You mean like this:

Now get back into your cage unless you have something useful to contribute.

Pot, meet kettle.

Best of luck to you.

So calling people "snake oil saleman shilling their fraudulent claims" is not rude and insulting? Those that actually listen know you are the shill here......here to promote your perception that "measurements rule". You don’t get any money for your stating your opinion.....but you get to make others wrong and therefore get to beat on your chest. The behavior is quite immature. ......However, you are not your behavior. As your mother and your father I love you with all my heart as you are divine, worthy, deserving the best and full of beauty. However, your actions do not reflect the truth about you.......as a good parent would say.....I love you, I cherish you....I adore you......but that behavior is not loving.....so, GO TO YOUR ROOM.......and when you come out.....don’t do that again.....it is bad behavior......and you are better....yes, way better than that.

Stating measurements is fine.....but thinking you know something about how something sounds by stating them is nonsense......and thinking that everyone is like you and bases all their purchases on measurements...is equally nonsense. We HAVE EARS. We believe what we hear. I have a new product.....a speaker rf filter (I call it the Music Purifier....because that is what it does.......lowers audible distortion and noise). It is a filter you put on the speaker terminals that filters the sound WAY above 100K......way away from the audio band. It is measureable.....you can put it on a scope and see the frequency where it starts to roll off......it is science....in that sense. However, why would filtering your speaker wire at such a high frequency have anything to do with how your system sounds? Who cares!!!?!!! Does it lower audible noise and distortion....yes, it does. How do you know?....you simply put it on and listen......if you do not get any sonic benefit you send it back for a full refund and I will even pay you the return shipping cost.....so not one cent lost to try it.

Kuirbo is now rolling his eyes....saying "There he goes again....the snake oil saleman is shilling his fradualent claim wares"......to the unsuspecting and gullible masses (you know those with "expectation bias".....who will "think" the product does what I say and keep it).

He he...what a game we play

This game will always be here on this plane of existence.....people will argue and state that their side is the right side and the other side are the infidels...or heathens or devils or snake oil saleman or whatever. We all have brains....we all have a heart. When you use common sense and trust your senses....you will know what things actually improve your sound and which do not. Can you trust your ability to hear? I wish you all self trust......and mostly.....self love.

So calling people "snake oil saleman shilling their fraudulent claims" is not rude and insulting? Those that actually listen know you are the shill here......here to promote your perception that "measurements rule". You don’t get any money for your stating your opinion.....but you get to make others wrong and therefore get to beat on your chest.

All you do here is advertise and promote your wares which you have never been able to support with any accepted science. It’s all nothing but subjective opinion at best, praying on the ignorance and insecurity of others. You push your own subjective opinions on others with your constant spiel about "improving" the sound any new product you think you can make money off of, yet by your own admission these "improvements" aren’t anything you can substantiate by any objective means. This is the definition of snake oil.

No, I have not and have never said measurements are the be all and end all, but what I have said is that an amp that measures poorly isn’t a good amplifier by definition. Unlike you, dear guru, I don’t try and tell people what sounds "better" while I put a piece of foil on their head and remove their money from their wallet. There is no better, only different. As I said, if people don’t enjoy an amplifier that is designed to produce a larger signal than it is fed, they can add their own distortion with dsp for a lot less than what you charge and tune the output to their tastes, not yours.

And here you are shilling your newest "product" yet again, proving my point that all you do is push your snake oil in what is suppose to be a non-commercial forum. You have no shame.

Oh, and calling people frauds and shills is not rude if it’s the truth. Enjoy your shoes Cinderella.

I send you big kisses and hugs........some day you will stop saying the same thing over and over......some day you will actually listen to things and then decide what sounds best.....Someday.....does come....hopefully soon for you... Until that day.....you will not be as happy as you can be......For "being right" is not a happy state of being.........Would you rather be right or loving?  I love you.  

I do actually listen to things, as I have said all along. I just refuse to follow you and the lemmings over the cliff every time you declare some new magic scam. I don't need you to tell me what sounds better and neither does anyone else.

I am quite happy, except when I see the never ending bs being heaped on people here about your magical "improvements".

I am interested in @ricevs new mod. His Voyager mod was great, substantial to my ears over stock. 

I love this thread!

@kuribo 

First, there are quite a lot of happy Ric customers OVER MANY YEARS.  Your insistence on bashing him (with no real proof, I might add) only serves to make YOU less credible. And since you have yet to say that you had an extensive listening experience to either of these amps, you're just a blowhard, and likely jealous of Ric's ability. 

@tweak1 Well said.

@kuribo 

My audio experience is quiet extensive, going back some 30 years before I was a partner in Audio Tweakers in the early 2000s.

I own a Ric Schultz EVS 1200, which I highly praised for well over a year, having previously owned W4S, Emerald Physics 100.2SEs, Audio Alchemy DPA-1, PS Audio M700s, and a Voyager 350 GaN amp, which has been my favorite amp in my system now for ~ 1.5 years. I hear no reason to replace it

MIKE DROP

My audio experience is quiet extensive, going back some 30 years before I was a partner in Audio Tweakers in the early 2000s.

@tweak1 I don’t have a dog in this fight but if I can offer some advice? I’ve found personally that testifying to however many years of experience I have really amounts to nothing. That isn’t how you develop cred. Also, in this particular case @kuribo has a point that isn’t being addressed by the attacks on him.

Its a simple fact that if you are a designer, you have to have measurements to confirm the authenticity of your work. I imagine a lot of people expect that our OTLs are a pretty tweaky amp, after all they have only one gain stage, are fully balanced and differential, are all-triode, class A(2) with a direct-coupled output and no feedback. That’s a mouthful and I expect that many people imagine us sculpting the sound (voicing) with certain exotic components, special wire and so on.

But we don’t do that- we rely on the measurements; if the amp fails that there is no reason to listen to it. We don’t tweak it for sound, we tweak it (if that is even the right expression) for measurable performance. More often than not, that likely involves changing a resistor value to fix an operating point of a tube...

Producing our class D amp would have been impossible without the measurements and of course the underlying math!

So for @ricevs to really address kuribo’s arguments, producing the measurable improvement in performance is how to do it. Failing that, using the argument that the ear hears more than we can measure (which is a false argument now, though probably true 30 years ago; like those that strive in so many different fields we audiophiles tend to live our lives based on tradition and what we learned long ago rather than using up-to-date knowledge) really isn’t going to wash! Why? If it sounds ’better’, why does it do so? Is it lower in higher ordered harmonic distortion? Perhaps less phase shift? Not knowing the answer is really a terrible thing!

Put another way, if you cause your hand to move and actually make the measurements that will answer that question (and one valid excuse might be that the test equipment needed to do so is a bit expensive) you should be able to sort out why it sounds ’better’, and now you have a concrete argument for the skeptics.

As an example some decades ago I found that the power cord could have a dramatic effect on one of our amplifiers. That really bothered me since I didn’t know why. Since it affect the sound of the amp that provided an access- so I measured the power and distortion based on the one variable of two alternate power cords, one ordinary one and one that was more ’exotic’ (edit: rather than measure the cords themselves...). A difference in power, distortion and also output impedance were all measurable. The difference in power was not slight either! It turns out that like all other electronic parts, power cords obey Ohm’s Law and the voltage drop across them was the culprit. Yet how often have we seen dissent over power cords on this forum alone??

I hope you see where this goes- there are a lot of ’objectivists’ that claim a power cord can’t possibly make a difference- but I can now challenge them because I’ve made the measurements and they haven’t (which is a bit ironic...)!

As an owner of a GAN amp I will say that everyone has different experiences and the sound we look for can be different.

Here is another review on a GAN amp.

The new Rose integrated is also coming out with 4 GAN amps inside.

@atmasphere 

While I admire all you've done in this industry, I never needed to see measurements (nor would I understand them anyway) to validate, or not, my ability to hear whether something improves my listening experience, be they power cords/interconnects, going from rca kit to all dif balanced systems, dedicated lines, isolation/vibration devices, connection treatments, and in each of these examples  some/many are snake oil and others revelations

I recently acquired the LSA Voyager amp. I tend to prefer tube amps but my current Line Magnetic LM518 gets pretty hot so I like to use something else in the summer. I also wanted to try something different with my system and was curious to hear a GaN FET amp. My current system is a Denafrips Terminator DAC --> Audio GD HE XLR1 tube pre --> amp --> Cube Nenuphar Mini speakers. The speakers are single driver crossover-less that tend to prefer low damped, no negative feedback designs. They sound amazing with the LM518 and I also have a 1.5 wpc 45 tube amp that also sounds amazing. I really don't need a lot of power but I've curious to try the GaN FET. I also have some standmount speakers that aren't so efficient so I figured I could use this amp with those as well.

I received the amp a couple of weeks ago and briefly hooked it up to make sure it was working. My impressions are only after listening for a couple of hours, but so far I am impressed. I've listened to class D before and I always felt like I was hearing all of the pieces of the song, but not the music. Just never felt engaged. This amp had me engaged. It was dead quiet, detailed, and dynamic. I will spend more time listening to it soon. I was having trouble with my dual REL subs and realized the connection method to a class D amp is different for the subs, so I went back to the LM518 until I'm ready to hook the subs up using the Voyager. Once I get more time I'll post my thoughts, but so far this is the best class D I've heard.

Also, I haven't heard the Peachtree but I am a fan of their products. The Nova was my first 2-channel integrated and my "gateway drug" into this hobby. I've had 3 of their integrateds and even have their Deepblue speaker. The only reason I didn't try their amp is I found a great deal on a used Voyager. I heard the amp modules are pretty much the same in the Peachtree and Voyager. Not saying they're the same but I'm guessing the amps sound pretty similar. IMO the Peachtree looks better and if I had my amp out in the open I'd prefer that amp, but mine's in a cabinet so it didn't matter to me.

@atmasphere 

I see and understand your point. As a designer/manufacturer you have to be involved with measurement. And the quality of your work speaks for itself.

Tweak1's point is also a good one. As a consumer with little to no background in electronics, most of the displayed specs for any piece of gear are simply beyond my understanding. Yes, I could undertake to educate myself, but I simply have no interest in that aspect of it. So while it might put me at a disadvantage in purchasing new gear, I gather whatever info I can from various sources (I'm the OP) but ultimately it is my ears/perception of the piece in my system that will decide if it stays. 

Rick can speak for himself, but I suspect he falls somewhere in the middle. I doubt very much if he has access to the kind of testing equipment you use.

 @tweak1 

My audio experience is quiet extensive, going back some 30 years before I was a partner in Audio Tweakers in the early 2000s.
 

If you understood why your subjective opinions and experiences mean nothing to anyone outside of yourself perhaps you wouldn't post this logical fallacy called an appeal to authority, in this case your own.

Read carefully what @atmasphere has written.

Sure, you can trust your own ears, and ignore the measurements and science, that's fine for you. The problem is there is no reason for me nor anyone else to trust your ears.

Like it or not, an amplifier is defined asa device that increases the amplitude of a signal as high in fidelity as possible. We can use science to evaluate its performance as an amplifier. Some people want a wire with gain. Others prefer sweet distortion. To each his own. When an amplifier fails in a gross way to achieve it's design objective due to variable frequency response with load, it's not a good amplifier. It may make you happy, but it's not a good amplifier by definition.

As to the tweaks that can't be measured or substantiated in any scientific or objective way, they are fraud, pure and simple. If you and others want to shell out money and support the charlatans who are all too happy to take your money, please feel free to continue to prove PT Barnum correct, as so many others have.

KooKoo-ibo

you should read the crap you wrote in your own response as well as Ralph's

but I know you won't figure it out, so no further response from me

KooKoo-ibo

you should read the crap you wrote in your own response as well as Ralph’s but I know you won’t figure it out, so no further response from me.

When you have no logical argument to make and can’t support your position with facts or reason, the best thing to do is to just shut up and go away. At least you understand that.

I am a scientist, a bit too far from audio engineering though. I have no time and also no desire to get deep enough into audio engineering science.  Nevertheless, this is a challenging field for me, because of my passion to music. Regardless of all the speculations and above debates, not being able to verify the arguments of each of you, my intuition inclines me towards @kuribo and ​​​​@atmasphere judgment. In fact, my current homework is to clarify for myself, which class D amp would be a best choice for me, or if it rather would be better to wait for a while until some clarity will come. I already tried a number class D amps helped me to learne something, and would like to find even better paths towards the same direction. 

@niodari




There are three ways to go about your search: you can take the educated approach and learn a bit about the different tech used by the different class d amp designers/manufactures and try to understand why and how, and listen to several that spark your interest or impress you with their objective performance; you can be rationale and ignore all the tech and numbers and just listen to several until you find one you like, or you can play craps and spend time on audio forums collecting opinions from random people (many with ulterior motives and little knowledge) and hope that a random opinion agrees with your own tastes and preferences and that said amp has a synergy with your other components and room- maybe you somehow hit the jackpot. Personally, I have never had much luck gambling.

Best of luck to you.



 

@kuribo , if you were going to buy now a class D amp, which one(s) would you choose? Or, do you think that much better class D designs may appear in near future, and hence would you rather wait until then? 

Do you want to experience a more realistic sound?  If the answer is yes......then you need to listen......numbers can tell you something....but not much.

I have been modding and manufacturing and assembling products since the late 70s.......what I found out almost right away.....is, that everything makes a difference.  You cannot measure the differences in wire, resistors, jacks......and tons and tons of other stuff.......but you can tell how they sound different and which one is preferred.......this is the basis of everything I do.  My latest product can be measured because it is a real filter......but WHY it affects the audio band when it is operating so far out of it?  I don't care.....and MOST that want better sound don't care......they want better sound.....and this is exactly what I give people......Try, yes try to find a negative word about me or my products or services on this or any other forum during the entire history of the internet (customer comments)......go on....try......don't think you will find a single one......but maybe I am wrong.....maybe there is one.  IF EVERYONE likes the sonic results of what I do....then I would say I do a great service to those people.....and for very, very little money......sounds like a WIN/WIN to me.

So who are these people that Kuribo is trying to protect from the big bad wolf here?  Is everyone of my customers duped and hypnotized by me that they say nice things?  Are they all deaf?  Are they all sheep?.....being led to slaughter......No, they are happy people with better sound after installing my products......Are people smart enough to know which product sounds best to them?......yes, you are....you are smart......Don't listen to me....don't listen to anyone......listen and decide for yourself.....you will KNOW.....you have the power!

I think the modded VTV Purifi, the LSA, the Peachtree, the Orchard Ultra and the Benchmark amps are the five best solid state amps at $3k and less......Which is the best?  Who knows?.....only those that A/B fully burned in amps in their own system....So, who is going to buy all five and burn them in and listen and let everyone know your findings?.....anyone?......nope.....it never will happen.  People are not that inquisitive........So, you scientists will lean towards the ones that measure best....Benchmark, Purifi and Orchard......and you subjectivists will be all confused.....he he........just the way it is.....But most people would be happy with any of them.

What is so cool is that all these amps are great......it is a great time to be alive for audio.....as the lower price range is getting so frickin good that these super expensive boxes seem more and more silly.

There are many top notch Class D amps out there these days at very affordable price points ( I run 5 different Class D amps in my home at present), however it is still an evolving technology. Like any popular mainstream new technology, the longer one waits, the more good choices there will be. Or, if you need a new amp now or just want to sample the waters of what the latest and greatest technologies out there now have to offer, just take the plunge now. Nothing to lose if you play the cards right.

This topic is like 10 other topics on Audiogon. No one disputes that we all differ in what we like. The issue in this topic and every other one like it is that some people make claims that "something" is audible but never prove beyond their personal account that it is audible. I have enjoyed Atmasphere’s posts over the last few weeks as he is clear and concise and relates specific outcomes for things we hear to how his or similar products operate. To me that indicates someone who understand what they are doing and understands the problem and solution. I have not seen him advocate "what is right", only what the result will be.

@kuribo perhaps you are advocating too hard that an amplifier must be technically perfect. Alternates to perfect can sound better to some. However, I understand also your general frustration.

@ricevs it is good to have positive customer feedback and especially if that is the primary feedback. However, while I was cramming on "how to run a business" before we sold out to the highest bidder, I remember reading in a strategic marketing book how businesses can stagnate because they think they are producing the "right things", but in reality, their customer base is exclusively those already predisposed to "what they are selling". Meanwhile, they miss the vast majority of the larger market who has no interest in what they are selling.

I clicked on the topic purely out of "academic" interest in GaN, but I can’t say this topic convinced me it is anything worth my dollars at this point.

Tweak1's point is also a good one. As a consumer with little to no background in electronics, most of the displayed specs for any piece of gear are simply beyond my understanding.

While I admire all you've done in this industry, I never needed to see measurements (nor would I understand them anyway) to validate, or not, my ability to hear whether something improves my listening experience, be they power cords/interconnects, going from rca kit to all dif balanced systems, dedicated lines, isolation/vibration devices, connection treatments, and in each of these examples  some/many are snake oil and others revelations

I'm fine with the listening experience. But when you are in it as a business having repeatable proof that your wares do what you say is a bit different!

@kuribo , if you were going to buy now a class D amp, which one(s) would you choose? Or, do you think that much better class D designs may appear in near future, and hence would you rather wait until then? 
 

How are you defining "better"? At this stage, the performance of several class d amps is excellent with distortion beyond the limits of human hearing. In addition to the technical excellence, several of these amps get rave reviews from a broad spectrum of reviewers and end users. I would look into Purifi and Orchard, see the reviews in Audio Express. Both are state of the art design, have extremely low distortion, and have a wide following. Unlike the Peachtree and LSA amps, they are not load dependent and will perform as advertised with any typical speaker load. Check them out.

By the way, I have owned Tripath, Spectron, Hypex (UCD and Ncore class d amps) and Purifi over the years and have followed the tech from these companies and many others over the years. Not that my opinion should matter, but I am familiar with the players and the products.

I'm fine with the listening experience. But when you are in it as a business having repeatable proof that your wares do what you say is a bit different!

Good to see someone here with a sense of business ethics.

@kuribo perhaps you are advocating too hard that an amplifier must be technically perfect. Alternates to perfect can sound better to some. However, I understand also your general frustration.

Where have I advocated for technical perfection? Where have I said that some people can't like whatever they want?

There is no such thing as technical perfection, but there is good and bad design practice, as well as outdated tech.

Everyone has and is entitled to their own opinions. When people start claiming they know what is better or best for others, then the bs meter starts ringing. Especially when they offer you better or best with a price attached and tell you it's not measurable and has no scientific basis, just "trust them"...

 

The only rational and real debate that can take place is on the objective facts: performance, design, execution, etc.

Intelligent people don't debate subjective opinions.

This appears to advocate objective excellence as the only path while eschewing any validity to subjective opinions. Perhaps in the framework of this discussion that is a valid argument, however, when considering components with larger (measurably significant differences), it would be absolutely necessary to debate or at least discuss subjective opinions as that would be necessary to correlate objective changes to subjective impressions.

@kuribo , if you were going to buy now a class D amp, which one(s) would you choose? Or, do you think that much better class D designs may appear in near future, and hence would you rather wait until then? 

Current products by Purifi and Orchard are beyond the limits of human hearing as far as distortion is concerned. The limiting device in the playback chain is not the amp, it's the speakers and the room. I would advise looking into Purifi and Orchard with state of the art tech and performance and then turn my attention to other links in the play back chain.

You can't go wrong trying out the AGD amps but you may end up with the Gran Vivace!!!!!!!

it would be absolutely necessary to debate or at least discuss subjective opinions as that would be necessary to correlate objective changes to subjective impressions.


 

There is a mountain of scholarly research dedicated to the effort to correlate subjective opinions with certain audio objective measurements. The short answer is in certain instances general correlations have been found but these have little predictive power on a personal basis. In other words, you might find that 70% of those surveyed prefer x but does that mean you or I will prefer x? Not with any certainty. Ultimately, it's always a personal decision and no one can tell you what you will prefer with any certainty.

One Trick Pony!

@kuribo thanks for the answer. 

@ricevs i sincerely --love-- your posts. do you also build amplifiers? 

I may end up with buying the Voyager, for a very simple reason that it is on promo. Sometimes difficult decisions come out easy. The life if full of contradictions. God helps us to take final (correct) decisions. 

@niodari

I would buy the Peachtree GaN400.. This thread has gone sideways once again. Too many gasbags...

My reference is Purifi, but after about 10 days with the Peachtree, I’m really impressed. Can’t go wrong with the LSA or Peachtree at <$2k. No need to spend the higher $$$ on the other current options.

My front end is the Rose 150B, so I’ll be buying the RA180. I love the look and don’t care what anyone says...

I’ll move the GaN400 to another room and pair it with the Minidsp SHD.

and don’t care what anyone says...

But we should care what you say...??

Can’t go wrong with the LSA or Peachtree at <$2k.

Sure. Did you mean <$3K?

@niodari Have you checked out thoroughly the terms of purchase of the LSA unit?  ASAIK, Underwood operates a no-return policy.

No, in fact i didn't know that. I din't pay yet, I will ask.

Still, perhaps the sale is worth of risk? 

@niodari 


God won't fix the load dependent frequency response.

@kuribo , let's look at this more philosophically. God determines our destiny. He arranged  this sale at this moment, a kind of a hint. We cannot have always what is the best. In my life, i have missed much more important things. Sometimes we have to experience a worse to see that there exist better, all is relevant. At this stage, perhaps, i am not ready/do not deserve "the best", perhaps i need to "suffer" a bit more with an imperfect class d sound. Between us, i am curious how this load dependent frequency response will behave. 

God won't fix righteous ego obsession.  You have to stop......yourself.  When you truly love others.....then you respect all opinons......for they are you.....you are them.  Love unites.....ego separates.  Love = happiness......ego = unhappiness.

I suggest the Orchard Audio GaN amplifier that measured very well,  better than Peachtree and LSA Voyager .

@ricevs i have already noted that i love your posts. And I am liking them now even more. You gave a most difficult task - to stop ego. If I am too weak to do so, at least i can admire your belief. 

...And look at the last post suggesting again Orchard Audio GaN amp, once I am to order the Voyager (am I taking a correct decision?) . I have no idea how either of the two amps sound, and I don't completely trust measurements (the nature is more complex than classical (non-quantum) physics can describe). Distortion is no good but perhaps is unavoidable for more complete and realistic sound reproduction? 

How these two amps sound is more important for me, and i don't have that information. And one is on sale, the others are not. 

Can’t go wrong with the LSA or Peachtree at <$2k.

Sure. Did you mean <$3K?

nope.   You can find both for less than $2K

I bought the Benchmark AHB2 amplifier. Don't know yet when I will receive it. My thinking is there is a return period; it is well regarded so if I decide to sell after the return period I should have no trouble; I had their LA-4 pre for a while and it was a very good piece; I am hoping my tube preamp will keep the sound from being dry. 

Thanks everyone for your opinion.

It has nothing to do with ego, the amp is what it is and the load dependent frequency response is a simple fact.

When people come here asking for information I take them at their word that they are looking for factual data. Clearly some don't want that. That's fine.

I have no self interest in this choice. I am not trying to sell anything.

If you believe audio is a religion, you have found your savior. Perhaps he can perform a miracle and turn your poorly designed amp into something magnificent. Just remember: Jesus never charged for his miracles.

Best of luck.

nope.   You can find both for less than $2K

@mbolek , this sounds good. did you mean used, otherwise,  do you have an idea where?