What are the best GaN Amplifiers available today?


There have been a number of threads discussing the wonder of GaN and some of the individual amplifiers that have caught peoples attention, including those from AGD, Atma-Sphere, Peachtree, LSA, etc. Has anyone done a shootout against two or more GaN amps? If so, which did you prefer, and why? And on what speakers?

Also, of the one you preferred, do you prefer it over every other amplifier you’ve ever heard? If not, what non-GaN amp do you enjoy more?

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You can also buy a cheaper amp and tweak it (void the warranty) and potentially have an amp that sounds a lot better. I have (or had) both great stock amps and tweaked amps. I listen to music a ton of hours each day on both types of amps. 

I already own a Sansui alpha...

It work well out of the box and is not a bad S.S. design at all...

But i "helped it" not because it need it... But because my ears are not yours...And i like experimenting and i could do it anyway...

Our hearing work non linearly , this means that a little well chosen specific  level of " noise" can increase the signals/ noise ratio for MY EARS ... Differently for yours... It is called tweaking for this reason...

Also some design dont need this helping hand, because the amplifier will be immersed in a specific mechanical,electrical and acoustic environment which can be already optimal without need for "help" and each one of our ears structure and internal filters and biases are different...

Audio is the art of trade-off ... There is NO PERFECT DESIGN...There is no perfect environment for all and every component... For example some speakers need some type of room , some amplifier work better with some speakers or dac etc ...

😁

Just buy a certified good quality amp to start with and no need to tweak.

Are there folks here who own GaN based amps that drive difficult loads? A couple of years ago a certain character who used to post here used to complain that Class D amps cannot drive 2 ohm speakers. What are your experiences? Care to share?

I have tried the Voyager 350 GAN and the Peachtree GAN400 with Thiel CS3.7 and Magnepan LRS+. Another poster on this thread has successfully tried the GAN400 with the LRS+ and other Maggies.

In my case, the GAN amps were able to delivery very good sound on these difficult to drive speakers.