Dartzeel CTH-8550

I agree with Rossman. It is disappointing.

Compared CHT8850 with my Jadis DA88s (speakers are Avalon Ascendant 2) and it was not even close. Dartzeel sounded grey, not involving. Jadis has better sense of liveness and purity of tone. Surprisingly, prefered even bass with DA88s - it was deeper, fuller, but still with nice control. Actually I can't find any aspect where CHT8850 would be better....

It is definitely very bad value for money. In my country Dartzeel costs almost twice as much as Jadis.

It's reviewed in the latest issue (8/09) of Stereophile by Wes Phillips. He loves it, but John Atkinson didn't like the way it measured.

Nyctc7: How much did WP like it? What measurements did JA not like? Just curious.

4425, with a caveat that I can't do the review justice (and therefore, the amp justice), I'll try and hit some highlights. But do check out the magazine rack or see if the review eventually appears on the Stereophile website.

Fantastic build quality--each amp handmade for each customer.

Highly configurable: see the manual, pages 9-15 (you can download the manual on the DarTZeel website)

Very powerful for an integrated, able to drive difficult loads. "It drove the Thiel CS3.7 and YG Anat Reference II Pro speakers as easily as it did the benign Klipsch Palladium 39F"

*Fast
*Dynamic
*Detailed
*Transparent
*Very quiet

The downside: Did not outperform the Boulder 865 integrated amp, which retails for $12,000 vs. the Dartzeel's $20,300.

Measurments: Output impedance quite high, which apparently can cause problems (I'm not an engineer or tech). Channel seperation good but not great. The amp exceeeded its power spec, but distortion levels were "not particularly low," only showing acceptably low distortion into higher impedances. One graph suggests the presence of crossover distortion. JA is disappointed with the way the amp measures.

different people, different feelings...

I listened three weeks intensely with the Dartzeel CTH-8550 and compare it with a lot of different integrated (Pass INT-150, Accuphase E450 / E-550, Luxman LU590AII, Mc 6900, Lindemann 882, Einstein, Sharp SM-SX100, Gryphon Diablo, Ayre AX-7e (IMO very very good for the money), Pathos Logos (my current amp), and some others. I also tried the PASS XP10 and the XA30.5 which were also very good. But IMO the Dartzeel is in its own class. Now I have to save up money...

So if you know a 5.000 $ amp, that sounds like the Dartzeel please let me know!
:-)

Thomas

P.S. My system: Speakers Ayon Eagle, CDP RA Opus 21, Cables from Shunyata