Amplifiers! What do you have? What do you use?

[Ninanina]

It's defo a strange name Jerry..

I thought it looked quite nice though, a bit different than the norm which I like

Not cheap at 3K ish for a name I've never heard of...

If you've not given it a thumbs down so far that sounds good.... enjoy...

[Landloper]

Speaker amplifiers ~ Cyrus 8vs2 & an 8 Power.

Headphone amplifiers ~ Lehmann Linear, Little Dot III, & a Myryad Z40

[Pharos]

Is that new amp coloured Jerry?

[jandl100]

Is that new amp coloured Jerry?

I was hoping it was the version with pink stripes on a purple background.
But sadly it isn't.

Tonally, no, it seems uncoloured so far.
No warmth added or taken away.

One thing that stands out is that it seems to have limitless power. Astonishingly clean when loud and unsplashy dynamics.
Bit baffling with 28wpc.

Only had an hour or so with it, lots more music to try.

[Shovel_Knight]

One thing that stands out is that it seems to have limitless power. Astonishingly clean when loud and unsplashy dynamics.
Bit baffling with 28wpc.

I'm pretty sure this is due to it being powered by an SMPS, which are really quite a bit better than linear PSUs in many respects, despite being somewhat demonised in audiophile circles

[Light Dependant Resistor]

SMPS are fine for non audio uses, for things like lamps, but sadly are more complex , and have ac noise voltage, both of which matter greatly
in audio related circuits.

Linear supplies are more reliable and can be designed with excellent voltage and current regulation, they are presently the
best choice for audio circuits.

[Shovel_Knight]

Well, the amplifier in question (Crayon CFA-1) uses a state of the art medical grade (read: low EMI) SMPS made by Traco. Apparently, it sounds excellent. To achieve similar load regulation in a linear power supply, you would have to spend a lot of money. SMPS are also quieter where it matters (in the audio band). Who cares if there is residual switching noise somewhere around 200 or 400 kHz?

There are many threads on DIY Audio where people suddenly discover that reasonably priced linear PSUs are outperformed by high quality SMPS. Especially when it comes to class A amplifiers which typically have a rather poor PSRR...

It's even true for low-power applications! Something like SilentSwitcher would beat the living cr@p out of pretty much any linear PSU when it comes to noise on the output.

This is also quite an interesting read: https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/app...lies-are-noisy

But to each his own, I guess.

[jandl100]

Well, judging by the quite exceptional (in many ways) sound of the Crayon, it would be foolhardy to dismiss SMPS for high quality audio applications imo.

Maybe you just have to do it right.

[Pharos]

Most technologies mature and eventually are good. CD?

[Intenso]

I'm beginning to unintentionally collect a few amps as well...

WAD KiT6550
WAD KEL84
HLLY Dtamp 90 and matching pre
Yaquin MC 100B