Atma-Sphere Class D… Amazing

The Watt Wars of the late 70’s and 80’s is still live and well. People maybe shocked if they measured what they use at listening levels. So far in my room on 86-105 db speakers loudness, control, finesse hasn’t been an issue. For these amps. Not saying at times more power could be used. They can drive hard loads well. Nelson Pass talks about the First Watt. And builds amps to stay in Class A to various Watts then switch to Class AB. Why? He knows that almost all the time those amps will hardly leave if ever Class A. But people can say they have a 400 watt amp that mostly runs under 20 watts. Unless run really hard at High SPL with Lows dipping hard.  I’ve run the Atma-Sphere hard on Manepans at very high SPL with very complex music.  They showed no signs of fatigue or weakness. Next weekend I am going to try them in a larger room driving bigger harder speakers. My room is 30x25. 
 

    But hey if people feel the need for Watts…. Watts it is….  JMHO

Honestly, I think Atma-Sphere jumping into a "Class D', GaN amp is one of the most interesting developments in HiFi in a quite a while.  I've always admired the Atma-Sphere OTL designs, but ended up wanting a slightly different sound so I went with Joule Electra and had a pair of VZN-160s for years.  I also spent a bunch of time listening to David Berning's "OTL" offerings about 20 years ago and actually own a Linear Tube Audio amp now (among others).  

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a Technics g700m2 ($2,699) to play around with and I've honestly a bit stunned by how good it is.  I haven't gotten around to "picking winners" (and probably never will) but the Technics competes with the LTA Z40i and McGary/Backert Labs combo that I have in another room (speakers are Fleetwood Deville's and Volti Rivals).  They all have different strengths, but it's really hard to find fault with any of them. I tried the same experiment with a NAD M33 last year and got rid of the M33 in a couple of months.

I think there is a really good reason that Ralph went with GaN when he decided to take the class D plunge--I suspect it may actually be a game changing, transformative  technology in the audio world.  I've played with the Technics (and love it), and also have  heard the AGD "Tube" GaN amps quite a few times (which is also great).  Looking forward to hearing the Atma-Sphere version at some point, so really interesting to hear the OPs thoughts on his new amps.  I wonder how many manufacturers will be pumping out GaN based amps five years from now?

As you know Atma-Sphere got new Patent on his Unique Class D Circuit. 

williamdc

44 posts

09-07-2022 at 01:43pm 

It would be nice to be able to see photos of the interior of the monoblocks, as @ricevs has requested.

If only to make sure there is not a Purifi module in there. :

pstores,

You deleted my smiley face in your response. :)

follow up question regarding a higher powered class d amp...would this be of much benefit to people running speakers with 90db+ sensitivity and listening below 85db?

Unless the room is enormous, probably not. In the average room that would work quite well. In most rooms at 85dB and speakers like that the amp would be loafing.