This is a follow up teardown of the review of LSA Voyager GaN 350 Class D amplifier. The motivation was to diagnose the problem with balanced input in one channel.
Four screws allow the top to come off, exposing the whole unit:
[click on image for larger size]
Architecture is dead simple and no different than many amplifiers built by individuals. We have two amplifier boards and a switching power supply. Both modules are built by a company called Elegant Audio Solutions (EAS). I looked them up and they are a consulting company based in Texas. Whether they produced these generically and are now selling them or did the design for LSA, I am not sure. There is no mention of these modules on their website.
What is fascinating is that each amplifier module is stereo! They are wired in bridge mode, doubling their power and likely doubling their noise+distortion. With a bit of wiring, you can convert this into a four (4) channel amplifier at half the power.
The quality of the modules looks first class to me. PCB is very nice as capacitors are top brand, Japanese Nichicon and Rubicon. A thick, aluminum plate under all three modules acts as a heat spreader/heatsink. All of this is a clear step above Hypex amplifiers as a reference.
I can't tell if the plat is properly attached to the chassis with thermal grease, removal of anodization, etc. I let the unit run at dual 5 watts for a few minutes but could not feel any rise in the temperature of the aluminum block.
On to the problem, it was very sloppy soldering job of the wires to the XLR connectors. One pin had lost its adhesion and was just barely touching the XLR pin through its sleeve and hence the reason I got some signal through it. I soldered that properly and the unit works fine now. I went over a few other joints that were the same for good measure. Here is a close up:
What is odd is that soldering job on the rest of the connectors was very good. Seems like two different people worked on it. It was a trivial 2 second job for me to re-solder the wires so it was not their make up that made it hard to get a good joint.
Here are new measurements with XLR balanced input:
In the review thread someone reported a missing screw on one of the connectors. This is indeed the case.
Conclusions
This was an expensive amplifier. Part of that seems to be due to very high quality of module implementation and the fact that there are four amplifiers here, not two. Strange that the company is going after audiophile market yet bridged this amp for higher power.
LSA's only job seems to have been the wiring where they partially did a very good job, and partially a horrible one. Given the $3,000 retail cost, this is not acceptable. Visual inspection alone would have shown the problem here and so would have electrical testing.
----------
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/
Four screws allow the top to come off, exposing the whole unit:
[click on image for larger size]
Architecture is dead simple and no different than many amplifiers built by individuals. We have two amplifier boards and a switching power supply. Both modules are built by a company called Elegant Audio Solutions (EAS). I looked them up and they are a consulting company based in Texas. Whether they produced these generically and are now selling them or did the design for LSA, I am not sure. There is no mention of these modules on their website.
What is fascinating is that each amplifier module is stereo! They are wired in bridge mode, doubling their power and likely doubling their noise+distortion. With a bit of wiring, you can convert this into a four (4) channel amplifier at half the power.
The quality of the modules looks first class to me. PCB is very nice as capacitors are top brand, Japanese Nichicon and Rubicon. A thick, aluminum plate under all three modules acts as a heat spreader/heatsink. All of this is a clear step above Hypex amplifiers as a reference.
I can't tell if the plat is properly attached to the chassis with thermal grease, removal of anodization, etc. I let the unit run at dual 5 watts for a few minutes but could not feel any rise in the temperature of the aluminum block.
On to the problem, it was very sloppy soldering job of the wires to the XLR connectors. One pin had lost its adhesion and was just barely touching the XLR pin through its sleeve and hence the reason I got some signal through it. I soldered that properly and the unit works fine now. I went over a few other joints that were the same for good measure. Here is a close up:
What is odd is that soldering job on the rest of the connectors was very good. Seems like two different people worked on it. It was a trivial 2 second job for me to re-solder the wires so it was not their make up that made it hard to get a good joint.
Here are new measurements with XLR balanced input:
In the review thread someone reported a missing screw on one of the connectors. This is indeed the case.
Conclusions
This was an expensive amplifier. Part of that seems to be due to very high quality of module implementation and the fact that there are four amplifiers here, not two. Strange that the company is going after audiophile market yet bridged this amp for higher power.
LSA's only job seems to have been the wiring where they partially did a very good job, and partially a horrible one. Given the $3,000 retail cost, this is not acceptable. Visual inspection alone would have shown the problem here and so would have electrical testing.
----------
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/
