Ok, so this is long as I got carried away.
Introducing the Volksamp Pass Aleph-30.
Have you ever had an idea of what something should sound like only to realize that nothing really was ever going to fulfill that wish? This isn't a story that ends like that.
The past two years here have been a battle of (near) extremes. On one end was the 15wpc Leben CS-300x. Exactly what I wanted but with too little power for the speakers that, a few weeks ago, stole my audio heart. The Harbeth Super-HL5.
On the other end, the Mark Levinson No. 432. Supposedly the last amp I'd ever need to buy. More power! Specification perfection! 1600 watts into 2ohms! Heavier than my girlfriend even after a vacation binge! The name that equates to audio happiness and high end supremacy!
And it sounded nice. It kind of didn't sound like anything, really. According to the psycho-acousticians, I should have wanted to marry it because of the price and name, but I stayed single. When a crescendo hit, it would send the cat running out of the room. That was fun. My Quads didn't seem to take offense at the power even though they were supposed to. It didn't blow them up. It put sound into the room at varying degrees of loud and soft and it really had a way with letting notes trail off into nothingness, and it was very quiet and...wait, I haven't mentioned once how I liked listening to music through it. And I probably won't mention that.
It was the wet dream of the audio-one-upper. The best name, the heaviest amp, the most powerful amp. It even got me into the secret back room of Audio Consultants with the mere mention of what I ran for an amp. It was the key to the Holy Grail! Only the penitent man shall pass.
Pass? What's that? I've heard that name.....
Nelson Pass:
"The last ten years have once again demonstrated that high-end amplifiers with part-per-million distortion numbers and other superlative specifications are not very popular. It's like pure distiled water-it has no character and most people don't want to drink it."- Nelson Pass as quoted from The Absolute Sound amplifier designer roundtable (an excellent read, BTW).
Damned if he wasn't right on.
What I wanted was an amp that sounded like my Leben CS-300x but with more power. And I kind of didn't want another tube amp. I just don't want to deal with options. I don't want to roll tubes in two systems. And as much as I like the Leben CS-600 I like variety, too, and am also not convinced an EL-34 amp would have the same intoxicating sound that the EL-84 CS-300 has. I really wanted a solid state system that had everything the Leben had but with maybe double the power. After all, it had chewed up and spit out an $8000 Mark Levinson amplifier that outweighed it by nearly 100lbs. And my Harbeths were doing well on a modified Stereo-70 that only seemed a bit lackluster in bass (yeah, I know it's EL-34 based and I just said that the magic might not be there but contradictions make life interesting...). Was there a solid state alternative that traded spec-bragging-rights for musicality?
I thought about my friend's Bedini 25/25. I love that amp. It sounded like tubes, sort of, and solid state, sort of. But the one I was going to buy was sold before I had a chance to check it out. Still, it got me thinking about lower wattage Class-A solid state.
I thought about Monarchy, on the recommendation of Tom Brennan and Stereocuuple, two (well, three..they are a cuuple) of the Local AK ears-I-trust club. But the Monarchy amps are always available, and seem a good deal, while something else had caught my eye. I had started reading things that Nelson Pass had written. Then I started reading reviews of his amps, particularly the Aleph line. Hmmm.
Everything I read sounded like what I was after. Simple circuits. Few gain stages. A designer who realized that numbers and notes were different things.
And there was one in Bartertown! A bit more than I intended to pay in replacing the Levinson but the other ones for sale seemed to hover around the same price, and it was that most important thing: available here and now. So I bought it.
And have been listening to it nonstop since it got here. I can't stop listening to it. I have always thought that the amp was just kind of there. Preamps? Love them. Source gear? The most vital link! Speakers? Where personal taste is fulfilled! Amp? Uh...it makes things louder?
Ok, I learned with the Leben that the amp could change everything. But prior to that, I just wanted one that wasn't "grainy" (you know, that word that causes arguments here).
So what does it sound like? It sounds like, to me, the perfect mix of tube gear and solid state. It's open..the sound just detaches from the Harbeths and fills the room. It sounds natural. The spooky-real timbre of the Harbeth lineup is complemented by the sound this amp gives them. It not "electronic" sounding, which is hard to explain until its no longer there in the system. I guess the word would be organic.
It does the trick that I've seen a lot of gear fail at...being detailed while not seeming to shine a spotlight on individual sounds at the expense of the whole presentation. Everything stays together in a tight performance, but you can focus intently on anything going on, and follow it. It does that PRaT thing, its quick and coherent. Honestly, It boggles my mind how one amp can hold music together while another one lets it meander apart into boredom. It's an exciting amp. The time I heard Harbeths on solid state that really made me aware of what they could do, they were on higher-up Naim gear. I like this better than the Naim gear, but could see somebody leaning the other way. Naim and Harbeth are a good match, FWIW if one wants or needs more power....
Acoustic instruments sound like what they are, not a hi-fi facsimile. At least, to the extent that I've heard. I've always loved tubes for that. I've finally heard it in solid state.
Is it perfect? Is anything? The bass can, very slightly, loose grip compared to the big amp that was sitting here before it (on different speakers...I never had the Levinson on the Harbeth HL-5s, as I had to sell it to pay for them). Other than that, I can't fault a thing.
It depends on what you listen for. It's natural sounding. It has a holographic soundstage that I have not heard outside of tubes, and its better at that than much of what I've heard there, too.
If you want to rock out on harder to drive speakers, this isn't your amp. It has a surprising amount of ooomph for 30wpc. And within those 30 watts is some of the nicest music I've heard. The few times I've pushed it beyond that, it just complains a bit by losing it's otherwise solid foundation. The bass gets a bit "lumpy" when really pushed very loudly on rock. But I certainly don't just listen to chamber music or little-girls-'n-acoustic-guitars, and it has held up just fine on speakers that aren't terribly efficient (but that are an easy load).
I have yet to try it on other speakers. I'll try it on the Quad 63s at some point.
A few last points:
I haven't heard anything else in the Aleph lineup.
I have only had it a week.
I am running a preamp with it that seems a perfect match, the Klyne 6L, and much of what I like could be the attributes of the sources/pre/amp/and speakers being a great match. So...your mileage may vary.
I think that somebody with a different set of goals could listen to it and not get the big deal compared with the Levinson, which they would have loved.
Associated gear for these observations: EMM Labs CDSAse CD/SACD player, VPI Classic w/Zyx Yatra, Klyne 6L preamp and phono stage, Harbeth Super HL-5 loudspeakers. Cables/wire from Audioquest and some no-name home-brew ones that look really nice, are super flexible, and came free with my Quads.
Yep, I am in love with an amp.
Introducing the Volksamp Pass Aleph-30.
Have you ever had an idea of what something should sound like only to realize that nothing really was ever going to fulfill that wish? This isn't a story that ends like that.
The past two years here have been a battle of (near) extremes. On one end was the 15wpc Leben CS-300x. Exactly what I wanted but with too little power for the speakers that, a few weeks ago, stole my audio heart. The Harbeth Super-HL5.
On the other end, the Mark Levinson No. 432. Supposedly the last amp I'd ever need to buy. More power! Specification perfection! 1600 watts into 2ohms! Heavier than my girlfriend even after a vacation binge! The name that equates to audio happiness and high end supremacy!
And it sounded nice. It kind of didn't sound like anything, really. According to the psycho-acousticians, I should have wanted to marry it because of the price and name, but I stayed single. When a crescendo hit, it would send the cat running out of the room. That was fun. My Quads didn't seem to take offense at the power even though they were supposed to. It didn't blow them up. It put sound into the room at varying degrees of loud and soft and it really had a way with letting notes trail off into nothingness, and it was very quiet and...wait, I haven't mentioned once how I liked listening to music through it. And I probably won't mention that.
It was the wet dream of the audio-one-upper. The best name, the heaviest amp, the most powerful amp. It even got me into the secret back room of Audio Consultants with the mere mention of what I ran for an amp. It was the key to the Holy Grail! Only the penitent man shall pass.
Pass? What's that? I've heard that name.....
Nelson Pass:
"The last ten years have once again demonstrated that high-end amplifiers with part-per-million distortion numbers and other superlative specifications are not very popular. It's like pure distiled water-it has no character and most people don't want to drink it."- Nelson Pass as quoted from The Absolute Sound amplifier designer roundtable (an excellent read, BTW).
Damned if he wasn't right on.
What I wanted was an amp that sounded like my Leben CS-300x but with more power. And I kind of didn't want another tube amp. I just don't want to deal with options. I don't want to roll tubes in two systems. And as much as I like the Leben CS-600 I like variety, too, and am also not convinced an EL-34 amp would have the same intoxicating sound that the EL-84 CS-300 has. I really wanted a solid state system that had everything the Leben had but with maybe double the power. After all, it had chewed up and spit out an $8000 Mark Levinson amplifier that outweighed it by nearly 100lbs. And my Harbeths were doing well on a modified Stereo-70 that only seemed a bit lackluster in bass (yeah, I know it's EL-34 based and I just said that the magic might not be there but contradictions make life interesting...). Was there a solid state alternative that traded spec-bragging-rights for musicality?
I thought about my friend's Bedini 25/25. I love that amp. It sounded like tubes, sort of, and solid state, sort of. But the one I was going to buy was sold before I had a chance to check it out. Still, it got me thinking about lower wattage Class-A solid state.
I thought about Monarchy, on the recommendation of Tom Brennan and Stereocuuple, two (well, three..they are a cuuple) of the Local AK ears-I-trust club. But the Monarchy amps are always available, and seem a good deal, while something else had caught my eye. I had started reading things that Nelson Pass had written. Then I started reading reviews of his amps, particularly the Aleph line. Hmmm.
Everything I read sounded like what I was after. Simple circuits. Few gain stages. A designer who realized that numbers and notes were different things.
And there was one in Bartertown! A bit more than I intended to pay in replacing the Levinson but the other ones for sale seemed to hover around the same price, and it was that most important thing: available here and now. So I bought it.
And have been listening to it nonstop since it got here. I can't stop listening to it. I have always thought that the amp was just kind of there. Preamps? Love them. Source gear? The most vital link! Speakers? Where personal taste is fulfilled! Amp? Uh...it makes things louder?
Ok, I learned with the Leben that the amp could change everything. But prior to that, I just wanted one that wasn't "grainy" (you know, that word that causes arguments here).
So what does it sound like? It sounds like, to me, the perfect mix of tube gear and solid state. It's open..the sound just detaches from the Harbeths and fills the room. It sounds natural. The spooky-real timbre of the Harbeth lineup is complemented by the sound this amp gives them. It not "electronic" sounding, which is hard to explain until its no longer there in the system. I guess the word would be organic.
It does the trick that I've seen a lot of gear fail at...being detailed while not seeming to shine a spotlight on individual sounds at the expense of the whole presentation. Everything stays together in a tight performance, but you can focus intently on anything going on, and follow it. It does that PRaT thing, its quick and coherent. Honestly, It boggles my mind how one amp can hold music together while another one lets it meander apart into boredom. It's an exciting amp. The time I heard Harbeths on solid state that really made me aware of what they could do, they were on higher-up Naim gear. I like this better than the Naim gear, but could see somebody leaning the other way. Naim and Harbeth are a good match, FWIW if one wants or needs more power....
Acoustic instruments sound like what they are, not a hi-fi facsimile. At least, to the extent that I've heard. I've always loved tubes for that. I've finally heard it in solid state.
Is it perfect? Is anything? The bass can, very slightly, loose grip compared to the big amp that was sitting here before it (on different speakers...I never had the Levinson on the Harbeth HL-5s, as I had to sell it to pay for them). Other than that, I can't fault a thing.
It depends on what you listen for. It's natural sounding. It has a holographic soundstage that I have not heard outside of tubes, and its better at that than much of what I've heard there, too.
If you want to rock out on harder to drive speakers, this isn't your amp. It has a surprising amount of ooomph for 30wpc. And within those 30 watts is some of the nicest music I've heard. The few times I've pushed it beyond that, it just complains a bit by losing it's otherwise solid foundation. The bass gets a bit "lumpy" when really pushed very loudly on rock. But I certainly don't just listen to chamber music or little-girls-'n-acoustic-guitars, and it has held up just fine on speakers that aren't terribly efficient (but that are an easy load).
I have yet to try it on other speakers. I'll try it on the Quad 63s at some point.
A few last points:
I haven't heard anything else in the Aleph lineup.
I have only had it a week.
I am running a preamp with it that seems a perfect match, the Klyne 6L, and much of what I like could be the attributes of the sources/pre/amp/and speakers being a great match. So...your mileage may vary.
I think that somebody with a different set of goals could listen to it and not get the big deal compared with the Levinson, which they would have loved.
Associated gear for these observations: EMM Labs CDSAse CD/SACD player, VPI Classic w/Zyx Yatra, Klyne 6L preamp and phono stage, Harbeth Super HL-5 loudspeakers. Cables/wire from Audioquest and some no-name home-brew ones that look really nice, are super flexible, and came free with my Quads.
Yep, I am in love with an amp.
