Now coming to Capt. Rajesh's (CP) amp here are my views. Please bear in mind these are purely my personal views.
CR brought in his amp daintily mounted on a wooden board. We placed the amplifier on a small stool, and placed CP's Marantz 6003 on another stool nearby. We connected the 6003 to the amp using ICs made by Viren Bakshi. The amp has very small aperture for speaker wires, and we could only connect the speaker cables that CR got.
I requested CR to keep the volume low as the Audire's upper limit is about 12 watts.
CR played a few albums of his and the music did sound nice. We then played the Joy Of Life from Kenny G's Breathless. Though the music was nice and the saxophone was sharp and timely, something was missing. Maybe the 'lushness' I heard when I played the same album with a Cayin amp, or through my own 875. Maybe a deeper sound of the drums? Maybe a larger sound stage?
We then played the Radetzky Marsch from the 2002 New Year's Concert conducted by Seiji Ozawa. The depth I was looking forward to and the presence of the huge auditorium I am used to was again missing. In truth, the concert sound tinny to me and I was completely taken aback. To see if there was something wrong with my choice of number, I played the Beethoven 1st Movement from Symphony No. 5 played by the London Symphony Orchestra. A semblance of depth was there, but the deep sound and envelopment I expected was missing.
I raised the volume as much as I dared, but that did not make a difference. Maybe this amp should not be used with single driver speakers. Unfortunately, though I do have the standard multi driver speakers, we never used it for some reason.
When we connect the Primare amp, the difference was immediately audible to me. The Primare brought in a depth to the sound stage that was missing with the Class D amp.
The Marantz 6003, for some reason, refused to play my copy of 'Maya'. Reddy was very eager to try his DAC, and we had to move on to connecting a different set of electronics. Another thing that I noticed today was something that has been bugging me for sometime with the Marantz. If there is a difference in the gain in recording between different CD's, the output amplitude immediately changes by quiet a large margin. This forces you to keep changing the volume pot in the amp. If you do not have a remote, for a couch potato like me, it is quite irritating.
My conclusion? I think a more serious and longer review is warranted. In addition, I think the speaker cables needs to be better. Unfortunately we could not fit any of the other cables we had. I certainly would like to try the amp with multi driver book shelf speakers.
The amp has costed CR some 8 odd K. In addition, I think CR may have to spend another 10-12 K to properly house the amp in a cabinet as well as provide connectors at the back as well as power switch, source switch, and pots in the front. But for 20 odd K, you get a 125 watt amplifier that sounds really decent for most music. And all that if you have a streak of DIY in you.
My apologies, Capt. Rajesh. But as I said in the beginning, these are my personal views.
Took my amp there to try out their performance with his Audere single driver speakers and also to seek his guidance regarding the cabinet design etc.
