AGD Tempo in the house
It is very interesting to spend time with amps. You go to shows or even go to someone's house and listen to and amp and because it isn't on your gear and in your environment, it sounds good but it is insanely difficult to judge vs other gear.
So AGD is a brand I had been flirting with and finally a customer asked for a demo so I put in my order and a few days later the Tempo arrived. I dropped in into my system and all I can say is WOW. It has all the grunt required to drive my Vivids. Is warm and sweet with an extremely wide sound stage.
Even fresh out of the flight case, (no box here) it didn't sound digital at all. This sounds closer to Class A to me than Class D. I have not heard a different GaN at this point but I am fascinated by this and how good it sounds compared to other Class Ds and even Class ABs.
The other surprising part is this unit is about 1/3 the size of a normal component. I know I am a hair late to the game with GaN but damn, is it ever too late to celebrate a product.
knowing ralph and his excellent reputation for quality of product and sound, i would agree that ralph’s new gan amp should be considered and compared against alberto’s tempo/audions alberto does provide an in home trial period, he is based out of los angeles, ships fast, very responsive am sure ralph will chime in with his policy in this regard, once he is ramped up and shipping his gan amps |
Another amp in this price range to consider is the Kinki EX-B7. These 250 watt mono blocks are used by Srajen at 6 moons as his reference.....and he has heard the AGD Gran Vivace amps. These amps are $3500 a pair and are made super well. 2.5 meg bandwidth.....all the input and output stages mounted on one board with input and output jacks directly soldered to that board.....very tweak. Check this out: https://www.kinki-studio.com/ex-b7
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As promised, one-week report on the AGD Tempo. It's either been in standby or fully turned on for the week. By the end of day 2 I noticed a deepening of the already good soundstage, but other than that there hasn't been much change. I'm guessing that this is one product where you don't have to wait 200 hours or 500 hours to hear it at its best. In the previous post I mentioned definition and resolution. Over the week a third term came to me: clarity. The Tempo is a precise instrument. It's the most revealing amplifier I've had in the system, yet at the same time it successfully walks that tightrope of never sounding cold, or harsh, or unwelcoming. It will depend on individuals' benchmarks as to whether they will find it sweet or not; for me, it's really middle of the road. It's a reviewer's cliche, but the amp inserted into the system revealed more about the engineering of recordings than ever before. Well-recorded music sounded great, while--yes--it could also show up shortcomings. I listened to two CDs by an interesting 17C composer, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, and the contrast was striking. On one, the small group of musicians was located well beyond the front wall, and arrayed in an appropriate arc. On the other, the slightly larger group was spread from speaker to speaker, but with little depth. It's been well behaved, entirely silent (except when called upon to produce music) and only getting very slightly warm to the touch. Highly recommended. |
