Received my
Apollon 4-channel Purifi 7040 amp! Let me start by saying that it’s beautifully made. I don’t think anyone else offers custom paint and has such a solid chassis. The
high end connectors are also a welcome upgrade over my previous McIntosh MI254 (which was junk - see below). My rack is against the wall and suspended from the ceiling, which makes connections tricky as I have to do them ‘blind’. Having nice solid connectors goes a long way to making the connections in these types of setups.
Being able to
customize the paint is another nice touch. The paint quality is very good and I’m happy with the custom color. Since my components come from a variety of manufacturers (e.g., Trinnov, DarTZeel, and Nagra), they don’t look consistent. To mitigate that, I wanted all amplification to look similar, which meant coming close to the DarTZeel’s unique gold and red paint scheme. I knew it would never be a perfect match, largely because the DarTZeel is anodized, but this comes close, especially with the lights down.
Selectable gain is another important feature. Matching gain is crucial to maximize dynamic range in a system with a pre-amp and DAC from different vendors. Setting it to 20.5dB is quite close to the Trinnov amp’s 19dB.
If your gain is not matched and optimized among the devices that amplify the signal you are reducing dynamic range to avoid clipping - it’s that simple.
More importantly, how does the amp
sound? It’s just been a day, but immediate impressions are great. First of all, the
power supply does not buzz like the McIntosh amp did. (McIntosh said it was “normal” and no, it was not audible from the listening position, but it still gave a poor first impression.) Secondly, there is absolutely zero background noise/hiss from my 94dB sensitive speakers. Given the amount of power available from the Purifi 7040 I thought there would be some noise… nope! (And just as Tibor said.)
Overall, I highly recommend Apollon — great products and Tibor is always professional and reachable.
Family photo
