Hey grk,
Forget the diagram. When I face the S5.5 head-on the left channel is on the left and the right channel is on the right, like every other amplifier I have in-house (five).
Teajay
The new Coda S5.5 amplifier: It's a "Petite Beast"!
I have in-house the New Coda Technologies S5.5 amplifier for review for Stereo Times website. It will be awhile before I write the review. However, I'm so impressed by the performance of this petite amplifier, it only weights 45 pounds, that I wanted to give a heads up to you GON members if you are in the market for a balanced pure class A amplifier, delivers 50 watts @ 8 Ohms, and can drop 100 Amperes of current on a peak!
The world class build quality of Coda amplifiers is on display with the S5.5, along with the most beautiful purity of tonality, precise sound-staging, complete liquidity offered by pure class A design, and what might be the best top end regarding details, decays, and a natural shimmering without brightness or any edge at all.
The S5.5 uses extremely wide bandwidth output transistors instead of the usual TO3 devices used in most transistor designs. I own the Coda #16, which is great, but the midrange/high end is taken to another level of musical enjoyment with the S5.5. The S5.5 has a sense of speed/aliveness that is exciting to listen to that you experience in live music. The amp is dynamic as hell, has driven with ease any speaker I have tried it with, hence my nickname of the "Petite Beast". Remember, 50 watts pure class A, can drop 100 amperes of current and only weights 45 pounds.
Teajay (Terry London)
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@speedthrills I live in Sacramento and Coda is a 15-minute drive from my house. I bought my amp directly from Doug Dale and was fortunate to have a long talk with him recently and I asked some of the questions you were asking. Many magazine review sites are pay to play and require money or require you to be an advertiser. Doug doesn't feel they need to do this. Much of their business comes from overseas and Asia. Doug is in poor health and according to him that is the reason he never brings their equipment to any of the shows such as Axpona. I'm fortunate to be close to him which makes changing versions on my #8 easy. I have a version #1 now but am considering buying some Magnepan 3.7i/x soon and may have him bump up the power with the #2. So far Doug has been very responsive to my question. Great company. |
Thanks and in general I can mostly agree with the explanations of not wanting to advertise or pay etc. BUT the reality is that there are plenty of reviews on products that don't advertise and even more that see value in going to a couple fo the big industry events in order to get some exposure and buzz, even if they have to partner / share a room with other vendors. It just makes good business sense. For those who buy/sell/upgrade regularly it can be a stretch to invest 15k in a brand that even if superlative has no reviews from the mainstream reviewers and little or no industry presence in terms of shows. When it comes time for reselling this may or may not become an impediment on either how long it takes to resell the item or how much of a discount is required to get it sold. Perhaps Coda is different based on word of mouth and resales are fast and at top dollar, people who own them seem to love them! |
@speedthrills yup I think reselling CODA amps might not be as easy as McIntosh, I imagine the circle of CODA buyers and sellers is somewhat self-contained but then also self-sustaining. I’ve owned 3, all were rock solid amps. The S5.5 is $6.5K new, the only other amp I’ve heard in my system that’s of similar price/build quality/warranty/sonics is a Pass XA25. And that thing runs HOT. There isn’t a lot out there you can buy new that’s of similar quality (unless you like Class D, which I haven’t had success with), personally I’d love to hear from others which amps they’ve owned and felt were of a similar price/quality ratio. |
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