A quick update. My AGD Audion monoblocks have now been in my system for over a week. They arrived in a very robust plastic flight case and fit/finish of the amps is first rate. The amps are comparatively light so installing them was very straightforward.
On power up the Gantubes glow with red LED’s. I was slightly concerned that this would be too bright but it’s quite subtle and tasteful in my opinion. I like the idea that if there is an upgrade in future I can change the Gantube rather than the whole amp.
The first thing to say is that the amps do benefit slightly from a few days break-in. However, they seem to require no ‘warm-up’ when switched on. My Atma-Sphere S30 needed 30 minutes before the magic happened!. The first impression was that the soundstage has widened and instruments at the back are more defined and easy to follow. But wow! the vocals are super-clear and form a fantastic central image. There’s so much detail that instruments each seem to have their own space. The bass is very tuneful and, again, easier to follow. A really important thing for me is the sound of cymbals and snares being hit and these amps really do bring a ‘live’ quality to their sound.
I had a concern over connecting my REL S812 to the amps as REL warn that ‘most’ Class D amps can overload their input due to floating ground i.e. the -ve terminal is not ground. I started to follow AGD Production on Instagram and was surprised to get an answer to my question within an hour from the designer himself (Alberto Guerra). He confirmed the -ve terminal is ground on this amp so I was able to connect my REL at high level across the speaker terminals.
I think these new Class D type amps are going to change the audio scene over the coming years. Particularly for people like me that don’t have a dedicated listening room, it’s great to have equipment taking up less space (and energy).
