Experiencing Rowland M925 4-chassis reference amps


My pair (or should I call it my quartet?!) of the new SS Rowland M925 reference mono amps were finally delivered yesterday.... Needless to say, I am excited!

The 430W M925 monoblock amplifier is a hefty affair: The amp is formed by four chassis: two power supply chassis and two audio chassis, amounting to a total weight of 380 Lbs in the four boxes, and 320 Lbs in their birthday suits. Each chassis is double boxed, protected by heavy urethane foam inserts, and then bagged in a heavy cloth sleeve tied with a drawstring.

Each power supply box also contains an accessory carton, featuring a power cord terminated at one end with a 20A IEC connector, a heavy ombilical to carry DC current to the audio chassis, and a skinnier ombelical, which I conjecture carries control signals and may have an additional grounding line. A baggie contains 3 1-inch spherical delrin footers that can be screwed into the divets at the bottom of the SMPS chassis if if you do not use 3rd party spikes/footers. A smaller baggie contains 4 smaller delrin beads... They fit into the dimples milled into the top of each the power supply chassis, and are used to keep top and lower chassy from touching when the two are stacked.

I am using Nordost Titanium Sort Kones instead of factory-provided footers. Each power supply chassis stands on top of 3 divet-centered Kones. The whole thing sits on top of 1.5 inch thick granite slabs, which have been patiently waiting in place for the M925 amps since 2011.

The audio chassis are even heavier... They will get into place in the next few days, one way or another. Rowland recommends the stacking be a two-person job.

In order to break-in both output terminal in each unit, I will connect each amp to my Vienna Die Muzik with a form of shotgun wiring: Aural Symphonics Chrono and Cardas Golden Ref for the time being. The Aural Symphonics speaker wire connects to the single 5-way binding post of the Muzik speaker with bananas; the Cardas Golden Ref connects to the same posts with spades... I have already tested the configuration using other mono amps... Works flawlessly. Of course, I have no idea if M925s benefit from shotgun wiring... This will be part of the discovery fun!

The amps will be fed by the Criterion linestage through Aural Symphonics Chrono B2 XLR ICs.

Power cords will be Aural Symphonics Magic Gem and Ultra Cube XXV, plugged into a dedicated 20A circuit served by Furutech outlets.

According to Jeff Rowland, breaking may be excruciatingly long, because of the oversized input transformers and power supply. I suspect that the process may extend well into the summer months... I will log my periodic observations on this thread.

For sake of completion, here are the amps specs as far as I know them:

Monoblock Power Amplifier OUTPUT POWER: 430 watts @ 8 ohms/850 watts @ 4 ohms
Monoblock Power supply: 2400 W regulated DC SMPS per channel, with Active Power Factor Correction (PFC).
FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 5 Hz - 50 kHz
INPUT IMPEDANCE: 40k ohms
THD + NOISE: 0.004%, 20 Hz- 20 kHz
OVERALL GAIN: Switchable 26/32 dB
Combined AMPLIFIER chassis & POWER SUPPLY chassis WEIGHT: 160.4 lb / 73 kg (per channel)
TOTAL DIMENSIONS (H/W/D): 16.5" x 15.5" x 16.25" (per channel) 419mm x 394mm x 413mm

Saluti, Guido
guidocorona
Hahaha David... You may have a point! To put things into perspective, we are talking here about a very young Tania D'Althann, probably in her late teens or early twenties, on a work with melodic embelishments which are devilishly difficult to render with precision... I do not fault D'Althann for the minor issues... Nor of course the M925 for evidencing them. My only beef is with the recording engineer who took undue liberties with his console, and monkeied around with the reverb pot, just to enhance what D'althann was already masterful on her very own.

If I remember correctly, the CD is copyrighted 1982, but might have been recorded as early as 1978, perhaps a time where recording engineering flights of fancy would be masked by most sound reproduction equipment.

It is interesting that the engineer appears to have lavished his disruptive attentions on D'Althann, because the voice of countertenor Giuseppe Zambon, who uses the same approximate voice range for his selections, is unaffected, and always sounds completely natural.

On a happier note, at approximately 120 hours, the sweetening of the residual steeliness is detectable only in traces, while the singer's image has continued to solidify.

Saluti, G.

i have a related problem with my system, in that very beautifully-recorded cd's (like some Pentatone sacds, Channel Classics, and some others) put an alarming number of OTHER cds, both redbook AND hi-rez, in a very distant 2nd category of sound quality. This dichotomy of "very good" versus "eh" recorded music must not guide my hand as i decide what pieces i want to listen to, and yet- clearly there are a great deal of better recordings being produced today. You just have to be extremely picky when filling your shopping "cart".
It can make the difference between 6/10 sound and 9/10 music.
At 150 hours of operation plus 50 hours on low level standby – The undue ringing (I cannot call it steeliness any longer) is barely detectable on a couple
of notes only…. E.g. The closing note of the motet…. Images are continuing the fleshing-out process, and traces of acoustics from the recording venue (a
small Church in Venice( is starting to emerge. The portatif organ used for accompaniment is impressively crisp and deep…. The overall effect is starting
to be musically immersive and “rather wonderful” (quoted words of my better half, who tends to be merciless when commenting about the sound of my system).

On an non auditory matter, the amps take 12 to 24 hours to stabilize thermically, and so become warm to the touch…. During hot days they feel rather
toasty, if not as much as M725 or M625. Temperature seems completely uniform on each chassis... But power supply chassis are noticeably warmer than audio
chassis.

Saluti, Guido
A non-musical tidbit....

* Unlike M725 and M625, which have a mild propensity to emitting audible rasberries -- of a very high-end cultivar of course -- through the speakers, whenever power is cycled on/off, M925 are extremely quiet. When the front-mounted momentary contact switch is operated to turn the amps to full power, I can hear only the internal "Klump" from a relay switch, folloed after a second or two by an almost inaudible "tick" from the speakers. When the power button is operate again to place the amps back on standby, there is no noise at all from the speakers or from the amps.

Saluti, G.