Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Power amplifiers should be boring. They have a single, well-defined function: Make the input signal large enough to run a loudspeaker so that it makes sound at levels suitable for listening to music. Generally, controls and features are few or none. Peter Walker of Quad famously defined the ideal amplifier as a "straight wire with gain." That's just one feature: gain.

Once upon a time, in the early days of class-D amplification, the very notion that the ELAC (ELectroACoustic) Alchemy DPA-2 Stereo/Mono Power Amplifier ($1495 each) uses a class-D output stage would cause some readers to turn the page (footnote 1). But as class-D amplifiers established their pedigree as bona fide hi-fi components, audiophiles have begun to embrace the notion of a lightweight, cool-running amplifier that will not dramatically increase the electric bill and that, when properly executed, can be quite musical.

Big changes are afoot at Mytek. First up: The Mytek Brooklyn AMP+, the newest version of the compact, class-D Brooklyn AMP. The AMP+ is already in production.

In my 2018 review of the original Brooklyn AMP, I wrote that the class-D amplifier exuded "a consistent sense of truthfulness, striking resolution that was never analytical, spacious soundstages, superb dynamics, and some of the 'blackest' backgrounds I've ever heard...with the right recordings." I continued, "The AMP let me revel in its reproduction of the low end, with zero overhang or bloat, and profoundly impressive retrieval of micro- and macrodetail—but in doing all this, its touch was always light and never surgical."

Talk about a Scarlet Letter. The term class-D amplification, which describes PS Audio's new M1200 monoblocks, exists only because another amplifier innovation had already parked in the "C" space. Soon after appearing in high-performance audio gear, class-D became synonymous with "digital amplification" in part because, like early CDs, many listeners found the sound glary, hard, and unpleasant. Besides, class-D is related to "pulse width modulation" and requires a low-pass filter to block high-frequency pulses—that sure sounds digital. But they're not (see Bruno Putzeys sidebar).

"Oh goody!" thought self, to self: "Another Gryphon component to review." As eloquent and revelatory as that statement may be, there's an even more illuminating backstory.

I had been aware of Denmark-based Gryphon Audio since the advent of the Gryphon Exorcist, a now-discontinued demagnetizer that cost far more than your average break-in CD, but I only began to encounter Gryphon electronics at audio shows a few years ago. While at first they seemed available for review only as a complete package, Jim Austin was able to arrange for me to review the Gryphon Ethos CD player–D/A processor ($39,000).

If I've read it once in mainstream audio magazines, I've read it a hundred times: "The most important component in a system is the loudspeaker, because it is the loudspeaker that makes the sound." Putting aside the obvious illogic of this statement—that without other components in the playback chain, even the perfect loudspeaker can't make a sound—my experience is that it just is not so. Yes, it is true that changing from one loudspeaker to another makes the greatest overt changes in a system's sound.

Canadian audio manufacturer Classé Audio was founded in 1980 by engineer Dave Reich and entrepreneur/audiophile Mike Viglas. The name "Classé" was a pun on the fact that Reich was a firm believer in an amplifier's output stage operating in class-A, where the output devices never turn off (see sidebar). Though the brand was established with the 25Wpc DR-2, the first review of a Classé amplifier to appear in Stereophile, by Larry Greenhill, was of the later DR-3, in December 1985. No fewer than 22 reviews of Classé products are available in our free online archive.