Hey Guys, Ill weigh in on the difference between Grand Vivace and regular or Audion. The place I noticed it the most was when playing at LOW volume the full spectrum of frequency and dynamic stayed coherent and completely balanced. The Gran Vivace uses a totally different output GaN Tube, the others use the identical tube but Vivace has a larger power supply so you can run it harder for more output and a slight fuller texture in the mid. The Gran vivace is a different animal, as it should be It is the sweet spot if we are comparing world class, we can put this one up against Wavac, Gryphon, DartZeel Etc. remember it has a superior technology to Classes A or AB. Those technologies are drying on the vine, especially now that we have class D at world class level. so the Gran Vivace is like putting Bruce Lee in an amp. Its precise and deals a hell of a punch. Even at low volume your woofers will seize the air in the room. Its super cool to hear the full presentation of music at low volume, I am not accustomed to it. Normally the presentation of the music is not full scale until you get the volume up a bit , not loud but say 78-80 dB. Ill bet I hear full scale at 60 dB with Gran Vivace... in addition to this because I can only play so loud in my room and Audion can play to that limit, but the authority at which Gran Vivace operates is simply stunning. We could rock Scintillas. The Gran Vivace is for your big Wilsons, Magico, the giant Focals Von Schweikert and any of those big as a building speakers. but they still have the finesse to sound beautiful in my listening room for instance...
Hope this helps
By the way the patent is for the layout of a MOSFET, and as Ralph pointed out , It makes it better for anything that uses this MOSFET. That being said it does not mean that a MOSFET designed with audio in mind does not kick ass at everything, and in this instance since Alberto bought the full production run this MOSFET will never be used in anything but audio. So it actually is designed to improve audio performance and it also is exclusive to AGD. So nobody will be able to reproduce Albertos sound no matter how adept they are at copying others work.
And to the one guy who said Walter is bringing GaN on .... You’ve got to know that it means about as much as a Formula 1 team saying we have a Citroen Car running rubber on the wheels just like Ferrari. It absolutely blows my mind that some people can think like this .. Mark Shifter told me he would send me one of these $2500 gems to listen to but no cigar yet and Im not going to ask at this point.Ive got other things to concentrate on , but just like anything all class A is not equal, just like all GaN Class D is not even close to equal. In my experience Ive crushed Merril GaN sound quality with every user that buys AGD. Its unanimous, AGD clearly sounds better. and his amps cost over double Albertos , My observation and opinion is its also nowhere near the chassis custom build quality of Albertos CAST ALUMINUM chassis. Merril uses common aluminum sheet stock, stacked and screwed on in multiple layers to get any thickness, while the Vivace for instance is more than 1 inch thick, solid with no seams. Its a whole different level. Its easy to see where the actual value is, no more of the HiFi BS price level. AGD does not play games he means business. I for one want to see the result if we offer an honest strong value with high performance will audiophiles be able to recognize it and have no hesitation paying retail price, or will they have permanent damage from the way HiFi is normally sold without integrity and fake discounted. I stand against the old way of stroking a customer by high price/ low price selling. its a fake out so when you pay 50% off, its actually the full MSRP manipulated up for purpose of getting people to spend compulsively. I dont support it. So No, other GaN is not the same nor close to Albertos product for that matter...
Happy listening !
OCD HiFi Mikey
