[Gallium Nitride amplifier] Impressions of the Mini Gan 5 by Premium Audio, pictures / video inside

[whislai]

OK thanks. You mean : you prefer the Mini Gan 5 vs the M22 ?

So far it's GAN 5 >= SDS-470C > NAD M22, but it's my whole gear matching impression, within this limited time, due to covid I'm not able to back hometown to have more proper space and room listening, condo has less engaging sound, need more space to eat and disperse the bass properly.

 

[daniboun]

Makes sense thanks for the answer. I do appreciate

 

[Schollaudio]

aha now it's not happen, suspect is because of my speakers banana metal part touch some other metal part from my monitor, I'm from Malaysia where electric shock can causing death btw haha. Also this amp is not running cool at all, living on 33 level condo without aircon, I feel the massive heat from this amp lol. The song playing is Inva Mula - Lucia Di Lammermoor + The Diva Dance

Keep in mind with balanced amps the negative speaker terminal is hot as well as the positive. The negative terminal should not be grounded.

 

[whislai]

Keep in mind with balanced amps the negative speaker terminal is hot as well as the positive. The negative terminal should not be grounded.

lol the word "balanced" confuse me, aha I think as long it's a practical right amp to match my audio chain then fine, not a man that easily seduced by fancy word.

 

[pma]

One needs to distinguish the balanced input from the bridged/balanced output. All combinations of SE/balanced I/O are possible, giving 4 options.

 

[mcdn]

Amir will get a Mini GaN 5 to test soon, so we will find out how it performs on the bench.

 

[Bob from Florida]

Another question for the experts .... the manufacturer shared this measurement in relation to the headroom of the mini Gan ... I have trouble understanding what he wants us to understand....

I have to admit that ClassDaudio communicates little and badly .... Any idea ?

Here the answer :

"Hi,

This graph was from a discussion I was having with someone and it was regarding the amps headroom. This little amp puts out lots of power and lots of very clean headroom. Some of the components of the amp are not made to handle this king of power for long periods so it is rated at 200W RMS per channel into 8 ohms.

Tom"

The wording may not be super clear, but I would interpret it as follows.

Amp is rated at 200 watts into 8 ohms. All components can take 200 watts long term. Exceeding 200 watts for long periods will stress some components. Graph shows 600 watts output into 8 ohms before distortion hockey stick starts. So, you should be able to hit 600 watt RMS peaks before clipping if I read this right. Of course nobody runs 200 watts RMS continuous power into our speakers so as long as the dynamic peaks don't exceed 600 watts it should not clip.

Real world failure data from owners will bear this out. Being a new product this may take awhile.

 

[daniboun]

The wording may not be super clear, but I would interpret it as follows.

Amp is rated at 200 watts into 8 ohms. All components can take 200 watts long term. Exceeding 200 watts for long periods will stress some components. Graph shows 600 watts output into 8 ohms before distortion hockey stick starts. So, you should be able to hit 600 watt RMS peaks before clipping if I read this right. Of course nobody runs 200 watts RMS continuous power into our speakers so as long as the dynamic peaks don't exceed 600 watts it should not clip.

Real world failure data from owners will bear this out. Being a new product this may take awhile.

It is a hypothesis which holds the road) thank you for the answer

 

[daniboun]

Amir will get a Mini GaN 5 to test soon, so we will find out how it performs on the bench.

that's a hell of a lot of good news
I would be curious to see how the loop gain of this amp performs.... (The Purifi has a High loop gain >75dB)

 

[onix]

OP: don’t you want a reduced slew rate for improvemen?

 

[whislai]

hmm the sound stop problem seem happen again if I would like to challenge at extreme volume, wonder is it a limitation that can be removed?

 

[daniboun]

hmm the sound stop problem seem happen again if I would like to challenge at extreme volume, wonder is it a limitation that can be removed?

Since it is a power amp. Do you use a DAC, a Preamp ? XLR inputs ? RCA inputs ?
Try the following, as the gain is adjustable @ - 26dB, 28dB, and 32dB :

Set it @ - 26db (low : L) and then gradually increase the volume of your dac or preamp and let us know...

 

[whislai]

Since it is a power amp. Do you use a DAC, a Preamp ? XLR inputs ? RCA inputs ?
Try the following, as the gain is adjustable @ - 26dB, 28dB, and 32dB :

Set it @ - 26db (low : L) and then gradually increase the volume of your dac or preamp and let us know...

I have tested with 3 gain settings, the sound at some point of certain track is being cut off at extreme volume around 4 o'clock (close to 100% volume) of my Fostex HP-A3 DAC/preamp connected to the power amp via RCA, speakers is Wharfedale Denton 80th, tracks played:

Inva Mula - Lucia Di Lammermoor + The Diva Dance
Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird - Finale (Tutti!)

 

[antcollinet]

So you are thermally overloading something in the amp. Probably - or it has another mechanism that limits the power (perhaps anti clipping? or over-current protection in the PSU).

Do you actually need to listen at that volume (I can't imagine you do) - or are you just trying to find a problem? Depending on the characteristics of your speakers, you may well be exceeding the rated power output of the amp.

Worst case you are risking damaging the speakers if you drive the amp into clipping.

 

[whislai]

So you are thermally overloading something in the amp. Probably - or it has another mechanism that limits the power (perhaps anti clipping? or over-current protection in the PSU).

Do you actually need to listen at that volume (I can't imagine you do) - or are you just trying to find a problem? Depending on the characteristics of your speakers, you may well be exceeding the rated power output of the amp.

Worst case you are risking damaging the speakers if you drive the amp into clipping.

hmm I don't listen at such extreme volume normally, but at times I do challenge it for 0.1% of my entire music collection, these tracks usually have wider dynamic or stronger bass which is interesting to audition and listen. It's a challenging mission for my entire audio chain.

 

[daniboun]

I have tested with 3 gain settings, the sound at some point of certain track is being cut off at extreme volume around 4 o'clock (close to 100% volume) of my Fostex HP-A3 DAC/preamp connected to the power amp via RCA, speakers is Wharfedale Denton 80th, tracks played:

Inva Mula - Lucia Di Lammermoor + The Diva Dance
Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird - Finale (Tutti!)

100% of the max volume....
at home @ 30% via my DAC, I'm killing my ears )

No need"to chalenge at extreme volume"... you should chalenge at suitable volume for a good level of listening and a coherent audio use ))

 

[whislai]

100% of the max volume....
at home @ 30% via my DAC, I'm killing my ears )

No need"to chalenge at extreme volume"... you should chalenge at suitable volume for a good level of listening and a coherent audio use ))

Well it's an exciting journey to explore sound aha...isn't that the purpose of the power amp? Anyway most probably I reckon this is the limit of my current speakers over the years pairing with different amps, for extreme dynamic the NAD M22 seem to be the best in control but my speakers somehow still has that limitation on dynamic. Next speakers hunt perhaps aha. But then the GAN let me hear that fine control given my current speakers limitation, impressive amp I have to say.

 

[daniboun]

Well it's an exciting journey to explore sound aha...isn't that the purpose of the power amp? Anyway most probably I reckon this is the limit of my current speakers over the years pairing with different amps, for extreme dynamic the NAD M22 seem to be the best in control but my speakers somehow still has that limitation on dynamic. Next speakers hunt perhaps aha. But then the GAN let me hear that fine control given my current speakers limitation, impressive amp I have to say.

LOL : enjoy your amp )
Now let's see how it will measure when Amir gets it )

 

[JayGilb]

What the hell is going on with that. I can believe (having been involved with evaluating Gan for 1.5kW+ (non audio) equipment), that heatsinks might not be required - but putting them there for decoration means the whole device can be thrown in the bin as far as I'm concerned.

It's a possibility that they are using a pcb layer ground plain as a heat sink and the anodized heat sinks are pulling heat via the mounting legs.
Although very inefficient, I'm hoping that's what they're doing instead of adding them for coil stabilizers.

 

[daniboun]

It's a possibility that they are using a pcb layer ground plain as a heat sink and the anodized heat sinks are pulling heat via the mounting legs.
Although very inefficient, I'm hoping that's what they're doing instead of adding them for coil stabilizers.

Another hypothesis from a US user

"that is a very interesting claim indeed. Air has a much higher thermal impedance than a thermal compound or thermal interface material designed for heat transfer, so one can only wonder what they were doing differently between the two setups to end up having the current solution being more effective at removing heat from the components.

The only thing I can think of is that they may have unintentionally used shorter non-metal standoffs when trying the compound/TIM and that resulted in a higher thermal impedance between the PCB copper and the heatsink, but that would seem like a pretty obvious difference to notice during testing. The GaN FETs have the least thermal impedance through the solder joints and into the PCB copper, which is why pulling heat out of the PCB near the FETs is the best way to cool them down, but surely using the compound/TIM along with metal standoffs between the PCB and heatsink would only further reduce the thermal impedance and improve the thermal transfer. Anyway, this is all speculation."