Kinki Studio EX-M1 200wpc Integrated Amplifier

Took delivery of the Kinki EX M1 an hour ago. 

It's staying put in my rack. Everything Sarjan said about it is true, and then some. If every exhibitor in every room in every audio show used this to demonstrate their speakers, cables, sources, whatever, it would all sound great, and all because of this integrated.

Best money I've ever spent. Alvin will probably increase lead times for delivery as demand should go up after more people hear this. 

I'm going to stop now and go back to listening (enjoying) and report back later next week. 👍👍👍

All the best,
Nonoise

Great news, Nonoise. Congratulations!

Regarding a question I posed earlier in the thread, does the gain seem to be either particularly high or particularly low, as judged by what part of the volume control’s range you find yourself using? As I mentioned in my post on 7-8-2018 there seems to be conflicting information regarding gain, none of which seems consistent with a moderate or typical value.

Also, in my post dated 7-7-2018 I had wondered about the possibility of transient intermodulation distortion resulting from what might be incorporation of a lot of feedback in the design. I think a good test for that would be well recorded solo piano music having lots of sharp transients.

Enjoy! Best regards,
-- Al

Hi Al,

Boy oh boy, I am enjoying this. 😄

The only thing I can say is that it takes just one click (about .5db) for me to start to hear something coming out of my speakers. What used to take to get to satisfying levels with my Marantz (-43db), I’m now getting at -20db, or thereabouts, if I’m thinking correctly.

My Marantz has 200 steps with each at .5db (from 100 to 0, or max) and the Kinki has 256 steps, each at .5db (?)(from 0 to 255).

The readout is at 20 and I’m hearing everything. I was perfectly content at 20 and it was only after trying out some jazz that I realized the SPLs were much lower than what I’m accustomed to. Turning up to 30 just made it all the more realistic sounding, along with the SPLs that I’m used to listening at.

Going through my CD collection I’ll make sure to try out some piano and let you know if it sounds good.

All the best,
Nonoise

OK. So if I understand correctly setting the volume control to around 30 on a scale of 0 to 255 seems about right on the recordings you’ve tried so far.

That suggests the gain is fairly high, and means that the sensitivity spec I referred to in my post dated 7-8-2018 is probably inaccurate, with the sensitivity numbers being lower than indicated.

It also means that using the amp as a power amplifier, in conjunction with a separate preamp or other component providing significant gain ahead of it, might be problematical. I had been toying with the idea of using this amp as a backup for my VAC power amp, and/or rotating it with the VAC now and then as a fun experiment or for a change of pace. (Using the Kinki as an integrated amp without a separate preamp would not be appropriate in my system, because I would not want to be without the signal processing and other functionality of the DEQX HDP-5 I use as a preamp).

Thanks again. Best regards,
-- Al