This is a review and detailed measurements of the Apollon 1ET6525SA ST Purifi based class D stereo power amplifier. It was kindly loaned to me by a member and costs 1,190.00€ (USD $1,348).
Apollon designs are unique a step up from some of its competitors. Even the power switch feels nice and has niceties such as settable brightness:
That premium extends to no less than four gain settings (although I had trouble reading the tiny fonts). Not only do we have trigger input but also output!
In use, the top of the amp was room temperature and bottom only slightly above.
Apollon 1ET6525SA ST Amp Measurements
To keep me from going crazy, I focused my testing on XLR input only. For gain, I started with the lowest gain setting of 12.X:
This performance easily lands the amp into top 20 amplifiers ever tested (out of nearly 300):
Naturally, higher gain settings rob you of some performance but not much at 20.X:
Going to 27 does cost you though in noise department:
Fortunately 20 dB gain is good enough to push the amp to max power with nominal 4 volt input over XLR connection:
If you have a professional interface that can output more than 9 volts, you can opt to use the lowest gain:
From here on, I focused on testing at 20 dB.
Frequency response is load independent as we expect in this class of class D amps:
Multitone and 19+20 kHz show superbly low intermodulation distortion:
Lower class class D amps really suffer in the above test. Not so here, leaving many class AB amps in the dust.
Channel isolation is superb as well:
Available power in the sweet spot of what I recommend:
And doesn't change much in bass either:
8 Ohm naturally has less power but most speakers are 4 ohms or lower:
I tested its ability to drive one channel with 2 ohm. While it did that superbly, it did not result in a lot more power:
Our sweeps with respect to frequency show the common rise in distortion at higher frequencies. But this is still excellent performance:
Power on noise is nonexistent but there may be noise on power off:
Finally, the amp is rock solid on power up:
Conclusions
The Apollon 1ET6525SA ST is a solid offering in premium module based amplifiers. It has done justice to the underlying Purifi module by providing superbly low noise and distortion. It has rich feature set in the form of gain setting, trigger, etc. With almost every speaker being happy with nearly 400 watts on tap, it makes for an easy and future proof choice. And a feature in the cap of our European members!
I am happy to recommend the Apollon 1ET6525SA ST amplifier.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Apollon designs are unique a step up from some of its competitors. Even the power switch feels nice and has niceties such as settable brightness:
That premium extends to no less than four gain settings (although I had trouble reading the tiny fonts). Not only do we have trigger input but also output!
In use, the top of the amp was room temperature and bottom only slightly above.
Apollon 1ET6525SA ST Amp Measurements
To keep me from going crazy, I focused my testing on XLR input only. For gain, I started with the lowest gain setting of 12.X:
This performance easily lands the amp into top 20 amplifiers ever tested (out of nearly 300):
Naturally, higher gain settings rob you of some performance but not much at 20.X:
Going to 27 does cost you though in noise department:
Fortunately 20 dB gain is good enough to push the amp to max power with nominal 4 volt input over XLR connection:
If you have a professional interface that can output more than 9 volts, you can opt to use the lowest gain:
From here on, I focused on testing at 20 dB.
Frequency response is load independent as we expect in this class of class D amps:
Multitone and 19+20 kHz show superbly low intermodulation distortion:
Lower class class D amps really suffer in the above test. Not so here, leaving many class AB amps in the dust.
Channel isolation is superb as well:
Available power in the sweet spot of what I recommend:
And doesn't change much in bass either:
8 Ohm naturally has less power but most speakers are 4 ohms or lower:
I tested its ability to drive one channel with 2 ohm. While it did that superbly, it did not result in a lot more power:
Our sweeps with respect to frequency show the common rise in distortion at higher frequencies. But this is still excellent performance:
Power on noise is nonexistent but there may be noise on power off:
Finally, the amp is rock solid on power up:
Conclusions
The Apollon 1ET6525SA ST is a solid offering in premium module based amplifiers. It has done justice to the underlying Purifi module by providing superbly low noise and distortion. It has rich feature set in the form of gain setting, trigger, etc. With almost every speaker being happy with nearly 400 watts on tap, it makes for an easy and future proof choice. And a feature in the cap of our European members!
I am happy to recommend the Apollon 1ET6525SA ST amplifier.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
