Starkrimson Ultra ----- orchardaudio.com/zeospantera?nocache=1 Facebook Meetup ---- facebook.com/events/963788628758856 On June 22nd in Rockaway NJ, I will try to be there! Support me here, thanks. ⚔ SubscribeStar -- www.SubscribeStar.com/Zeos 🥇 Patreon -- www.Patreon.com/Zeos
Thank you very much for your time and effort in doing this review. Note that the DIY kit includes everything including the enclosure. You only need the tools and solder to assemble it.
JUST A NOTE:: I put a kill-a-watt on this amp. I haven't seen it draw more than 35 watts TOTAL, FROM THE WALL! while playing music, loudly, on my speakers. It also idles at 25 watts.
The GFCI problem isn't the amperage it's that while charging the caps it's drawing more current from the hot line than is returned in the neutral line so the GFCI declares a fault and trips. Early gen compact fluorescent bulbs used to do the same thing when turned on because the gas in the tube needed to be energized to plasma before becoming electrically conductive. The solution is for Orchard to build it with a graceful startup process that doesn't charge those caps all at once so fast. If it did that over 10 or 20 seconds it probably wouldn't trip the GFCI.
For people saying I could build that. Yes you can and Orchard is awesome because they sell these amp boards and everything you would need to DIY your own amp. Wish more audio companies were like this!
I went with the 150W Premium Monoblocks, I have them right next to speakers so I can use REALLY short Cables. My Nola speakers are 90db sensitive, 150watts is way more than I need! Either way after hearing them at Leo's studio I am quite happy with my purchase. Leo is awesome! BTW the OST to A Fist Full of Dollars is a sound to behold!
I can't wait to see the new ones completed and in the wild.. I LOVE my Premium Mono.. They are worth the $$ for the upgrade. ... Nice to see more details on how these function in the space.
I put together a DIY kit of the DMC Ultra about a month ago and have been burning in my ears to the sound since. I'm not going to wax lyrical, my simple summary is that I'm not going to be spending anything else on amplifiers anymore. Comparison to other amps through Dynaudio Confidence C4 there a definite improvement when I can hear a difference. For movies it has great soundstage but otherwise don't notice an obvious improvement.
8:45 - This suggests the amp could really do with a small board with in-rush current limiting. It shouldn't affect the sound at all. It's just some power resistors that limit the current when you first plug in the mains. After a few seconds, a chonky relay would bypass those resistors, kind of like how some AV receivers do it. (most of the in-rush current is from charging the main smoothing caps after the rectifiers.)
btw, Zeos, if you're reading this - I got the DIY AVR working recently. ;) Including the HDMI board (mostly), Stereo, Pro-Logic, Atmos, DTS-X decoding, etc. (and the old-people DD 5.1 and DTS formats.) I only have five of the TPA3255 amp modules atm, as that was the minimum quantity for the PCBway build. So a max of ten channels, which is still enough for my 5.1.4 setup. It's sounding pretty great already, I could essentially replace my Anthem MRX-720 + mini amp with it. I'm now working on improving the internals for the next prototype, cutting down on the number of cables going from the Volume/Pre-out board to the amp modules etc. I need to build some of the new DAC boards soon. I currently only have one 8-channel DAC board built, which is using the old ES9018 chip. The new DAC board(s) will use the ES9038Pro chip(s). It's all fully differential / balanced, from the DAC boards through the volume control ICs, and to the amps / Pre-outs. (Pre-outs are on DB25 connectors, so would need breakout cables for XLRs.) I could add SPDIF/AES outputs to a future version, and maybe do just a processor, with no amps in. The SMPS is rated at 1500 Watts continuous, so it should in theory be able to drive a lot of the amp modules near full-power. Not that I have much material that can test ten speakers to a full 150 Watts without damaging both the speakers and my eardrums. lol
Hi Zeos! In my opinion, you have not fully described an extremely accurate amp. Now, I don’t mean to sully your good, honest review. But please hear me out: it sounds VERY different from higher-impedance, higher IMD amps (i.e. nearly all of them). It is *vastly* more dynamic, with much clearer imaging and much greater apparent extension at frequency extremes. Proof? I bet you heard those improvements in the *first five seconds* or less! Cheers and thanks for listening!😊
Of note, the Starkrimson Ultra Stereo Amps offer 3db more of "Real-World" short term Peak Power (8 ohm=500 wpc, 4 ohm=1,000 wpc) that comes into play with Music Reproduction Dynamics! In 46 years as an audiophile, I know of no one who listens to their audio systems using sine waves or pink noise!! 😉
The other GaN company you referenced is AGD. They put the GaN (gAn) in a tube as you said. But they make their GaN amp circits themselves as they felt the commercial GaN tech wasn't audio quality. Does Orchard build his own GaN amps or does he buy it from a source?
Does this amp have a ground wire? If the electrical leakage is excessive, the GFCI will trip even when the current is well below the 15 amp limit of a typical US residential electrical outlet. This is a US electrical safety code issue. If the amp was built to meet European standards where RF emissions is a concern, it will have RF filters that send the excessive RF to ground, which normally increases electrical leakage. This can cause problems with GFCI’s. The other possibility is the amp really does have an electrical fault- hopefully not.
Yes it has a ground and it is properly grounded. The issue Zeos ran into is the inrush current when the amplifier first turns on and charges all of the capacitor banks.
I did notice it and I think I fixed it. I added some bluetac and foam around the mic hole. Same as on the Review desk Pocket 2. So 3 of these reviews in the queue and then it will switch. Not as noticeable on speakers.
The Peachtree amps run very hot and, according to one source, they did not design that GaN module themselves. My understanding is that the Peachtree is not currently competitive.
@@DigitalGrease wh3n you look at Peachtrees pricing compared to what Z is selling for 2 channel versions it's competitive . Perhaps not so much if you go for the diy kit but that is a very small nitch market. Most will want complete amps and don't want to mess with lethal voltages and currents building z amplifier. As far as this specific amp teach, no one person or company holds the rights and more people or companies could build them in the fututure. Haven't heard the issues with Peachtrees amps. Perhaps some owners should chime in with their experiences with them?
Could probably get away with the majority of video game soundtracks out there. Not all recordings of them online might be found in hi fidelity but you can certainly use them.
@@OrchardAudio There is not a single serious hi fi company that claims peak power. They will always claim RMS values. Remember PMPO? I remember PMPO. We´re heading that way again, with these pseudo high end companies. It´s sad to watch...
@@mindtraveller100 I am not claiming it. Just said that the amplifier is capable of peak power that is double RMS power. Also note my amplifiers are not rated at 10% or even 1% distortion like many companies rate theirs. In this respect the rating is very conservative. You can see the full details on the website.
@@OrchardAudio I know that there are a lot of companies today rating their power with 1% or even 10% THD. They are all part of the problem i mentioned early. You don´t do that, i give you that, but you promote your amp as a 500 wpc amp, and you should promote it as a 250 wpc, because traditionally good hi fi companies, they all rate their amps as measured at 8 ohms, not 4 ohms. Rating it at 4 ohms is what cheap Chinese companies do, to make their power look more impressive than it is. I believe you are not one of those companies.
There are enough BIG hifi speakers running 4Ω loads that they can use the 500 RMS.. if it is 8Ω that 500 is peak. And the distortions are probably still super low.
You really need a woman to get in the basement and help you make it look anything like the dismal, depressing, yet thrilling Tech Prison Vibe you've got going on. Unfinished concrete walls and speakers? Yikes.
I love the unfinished WGAF nature of the space. I feel like I can relax and just let things happen down there. Also the concrete does WAY better than you would think for speakers. The 10" of insulated ceiling fiberglass is probably also helping.
Starkrimson Ultra ----- orchardaudio.com/zeospantera?nocache=1
Facebook Meetup ---- facebook.com/events/963788628758856
On June 22nd in Rockaway NJ, I will try to be there!
Support me here, thanks.
⚔ SubscribeStar -- www.SubscribeStar.com/Zeos
🥇 Patreon -- www.Patreon.com/Zeos
Thank you very much for your time and effort in doing this review.
Note that the DIY kit includes everything including the enclosure. You only need the tools and solder to assemble it.
Wow. That is awesome!
JUST A NOTE:: I put a kill-a-watt on this amp. I haven't seen it draw more than 35 watts TOTAL, FROM THE WALL! while playing music, loudly, on my speakers. It also idles at 25 watts.
25 watts idling is a lot!! Are you sure???????
@@net_news If you turn the front switch off it shows 0, but yeah just sitting its at 25. Then pumping its AS HIGH AS 35.. Average like 29
@@ZReviews got it!! Thanks Z!
The GFCI problem isn't the amperage it's that while charging the caps it's drawing more current from the hot line than is returned in the neutral line so the GFCI declares a fault and trips. Early gen compact fluorescent bulbs used to do the same thing when turned on because the gas in the tube needed to be energized to plasma before becoming electrically conductive. The solution is for Orchard to build it with a graceful startup process that doesn't charge those caps all at once so fast. If it did that over 10 or 20 seconds it probably wouldn't trip the GFCI.
For people saying I could build that. Yes you can and Orchard is awesome because they sell these amp boards and everything you would need to DIY your own amp. Wish more audio companies were like this!
I went with the 150W Premium Monoblocks, I have them right next to speakers so I can use REALLY short Cables. My Nola speakers are 90db sensitive, 150watts is way more than I need! Either way after hearing them at Leo's studio I am quite happy with my purchase. Leo is awesome! BTW the OST to A Fist Full of Dollars is a sound to behold!
Which Nola speakers?
@@MadLadsAnonymous Champ S3s
Hopefully your sump pump has battery backup and/or your sump pit gravity drains with all of those electronics down there. I learned the hard way.
Should be a gravity drain. I don't have to worry about weather, its more paranoia about the pipes.
A toast to your continuing success Zoe's. Cheers!
I can't wait to see the new ones completed and in the wild.. I LOVE my Premium Mono.. They are worth the $$ for the upgrade.
... Nice to see more details on how these function in the space.
I own their streamer & super happy with it! thanks for the review!
Im going to try and take the streamer to the UK for CanJam London. Its amazing at powering headphones.
I put together a DIY kit of the DMC Ultra about a month ago and have been burning in my ears to the sound since. I'm not going to wax lyrical, my simple summary is that I'm not going to be spending anything else on amplifiers anymore.
Comparison to other amps through Dynaudio Confidence C4 there a definite improvement when I can hear a difference. For movies it has great soundstage but otherwise don't notice an obvious improvement.
I love your reviews and how you word everything perfectly 😄
"The Biggest, The Baddest"... I'm interested.....Four Diamonds, oh well.
The $2600 unit is basically the same. one less power supply. Same power.
Audiophiles when a amplifier just amplifies a signal:
Technics flagship amp is GaN, peachtree do a weird digital only GaN, that steampunk hifi rose amp is GaN. It's starting to get a bit more mainstream.
Cool to know.
Emotional Unicorn is a great term!
8:45 - This suggests the amp could really do with a small board with in-rush current limiting.
It shouldn't affect the sound at all.
It's just some power resistors that limit the current when you first plug in the mains.
After a few seconds, a chonky relay would bypass those resistors, kind of like how some AV receivers do it.
(most of the in-rush current is from charging the main smoothing caps after the rectifiers.)
btw, Zeos, if you're reading this - I got the DIY AVR working recently. ;)
Including the HDMI board (mostly), Stereo, Pro-Logic, Atmos, DTS-X decoding, etc.
(and the old-people DD 5.1 and DTS formats.)
I only have five of the TPA3255 amp modules atm, as that was the minimum quantity for the PCBway build.
So a max of ten channels, which is still enough for my 5.1.4 setup.
It's sounding pretty great already, I could essentially replace my Anthem MRX-720 + mini amp with it.
I'm now working on improving the internals for the next prototype, cutting down on the number of cables going from the Volume/Pre-out board to the amp modules etc.
I need to build some of the new DAC boards soon.
I currently only have one 8-channel DAC board built, which is using the old ES9018 chip.
The new DAC board(s) will use the ES9038Pro chip(s).
It's all fully differential / balanced, from the DAC boards through the volume control ICs, and to the amps / Pre-outs.
(Pre-outs are on DB25 connectors, so would need breakout cables for XLRs.)
I could add SPDIF/AES outputs to a future version, and maybe do just a processor, with no amps in.
The SMPS is rated at 1500 Watts continuous, so it should in theory be able to drive a lot of the amp modules near full-power.
Not that I have much material that can test ten speakers to a full 150 Watts without damaging both the speakers and my eardrums. lol
Hi Zeos! In my opinion, you have not fully described an extremely accurate amp. Now, I don’t mean to sully your good, honest review. But please hear me out: it sounds VERY different from higher-impedance, higher IMD amps (i.e. nearly all of them). It is *vastly* more dynamic, with much clearer imaging and much greater apparent extension at frequency extremes. Proof? I bet you heard those improvements in the *first five seconds* or less! Cheers and thanks for listening!😊
Of note, the Starkrimson Ultra Stereo Amps offer 3db more of "Real-World" short term Peak Power (8 ohm=500 wpc, 4 ohm=1,000 wpc) that comes into play with Music Reproduction Dynamics! In 46 years as an audiophile, I know of no one who listens to their audio systems using sine waves or pink noise!! 😉
True Sound of the Source ! 😮😊
Finally Insides !!!!
Insides always, I wanna judge.
Would be a great amp for passive studio monitors
The other GaN company you referenced is AGD. They put the GaN (gAn) in a tube as you said. But they make their GaN amp circits themselves as they felt the commercial GaN tech wasn't audio quality. Does Orchard build his own GaN amps or does he buy it from a source?
Builds his own.
I have my own proprietary desing. You can see the website for the details.
How would you compare this to the Benchmark AHB2? Being around the same price.
Can you test the AiyimaA70? There are very few videos and I haven't made up my mind to place an order yet.
Can you do a comparison between this amp and their monoblock ultras Lps? I was wondering if there’s any significant difference
heard the music and my first thought was: "starfox 64?"
Does this amp have a ground wire? If the electrical leakage is excessive, the GFCI will trip even when the current is well below the 15 amp limit of a typical US residential electrical outlet. This is a US electrical safety code issue. If the amp was built to meet European standards where RF emissions is a concern, it will have RF filters that send the excessive RF to ground, which normally increases electrical leakage. This can cause problems with GFCI’s. The other possibility is the amp really does have an electrical fault- hopefully not.
Yes it has a ground and it is properly grounded. The issue Zeos ran into is the inrush current when the amplifier first turns on and charges all of the capacitor banks.
@@OrchardAudio Ah yes… something an enterprising Electrical Engineer can solve.🤓
So are the speakers finally yours or was this recorded with the temporary ones? :D
Yeah they actually sold the Blue-Black ones.
There is something slightly wrong with the audio or mic in this. High pitch rattling in the left channel, at the moment you speak.
I did notice it and I think I fixed it. I added some bluetac and foam around the mic hole. Same as on the Review desk Pocket 2. So 3 of these reviews in the queue and then it will switch. Not as noticeable on speakers.
I believe Peachtree has GAIN amplifiers for a few years now. So not exactly new.
The Peachtree amps run very hot and, according to one source, they did not design that GaN module themselves. My understanding is that the Peachtree is not currently competitive.
@@DigitalGrease wh3n you look at Peachtrees pricing compared to what Z is selling for 2 channel versions it's competitive . Perhaps not so much if you go for the diy kit but that is a very small nitch market. Most will want complete amps and don't want to mess with lethal voltages and currents building z amplifier. As far as this specific amp teach, no one person or company holds the rights and more people or companies could build them in the fututure. Haven't heard the issues with Peachtrees amps. Perhaps some owners should chime in with their experiences with them?
The Platamons are looking straight in the room, no toe-in?
0 toe and FAR apart is how I run them. Perfect imaging across the whole room.
Could probably get away with the majority of video game soundtracks out there. Not all recordings of them online might be found in hi fidelity but you can certainly use them.
If they don't match Content ID and later on someone adds them. It could throw a bunch of problems my way.
Oh, the claimed 500 wpc are measured into 4 ohms, not 8 ohms? I´m out...
Note the values are RMS. So the amplifier will deliver 500W peak into 8ohm.
@@OrchardAudio There is not a single serious hi fi company that claims peak power. They will always claim RMS values.
Remember PMPO? I remember PMPO. We´re heading that way again, with these pseudo high end companies. It´s sad to watch...
@@mindtraveller100 I am not claiming it. Just said that the amplifier is capable of peak power that is double RMS power. Also note my amplifiers are not rated at 10% or even 1% distortion like many companies rate theirs. In this respect the rating is very conservative. You can see the full details on the website.
@@OrchardAudio I know that there are a lot of companies today rating their power with 1% or even 10% THD. They are all part of the problem i mentioned early. You don´t do that, i give you that, but you promote your amp as a 500 wpc amp, and you should promote it as a 250 wpc, because traditionally good hi fi companies, they all rate their amps as measured at 8 ohms, not 4 ohms. Rating it at 4 ohms is what cheap Chinese companies do, to make their power look more impressive than it is. I believe you are not one of those companies.
There are enough BIG hifi speakers running 4Ω loads that they can use the 500 RMS.. if it is 8Ω that 500 is peak. And the distortions are probably still super low.
i'm packing 6400watts tbh no cap
You really need a woman to get in the basement and help you make it look anything like the dismal, depressing, yet thrilling Tech Prison Vibe you've got going on. Unfinished concrete walls and speakers? Yikes.
I love the unfinished WGAF nature of the space. I feel like I can relax and just let things happen down there. Also the concrete does WAY better than you would think for speakers. The 10" of insulated ceiling fiberglass is probably also helping.
Why do you use such cheap powercords?
Cause it doesn't matter
First