Mytek AMP+ Review (Stereo Amplifier)

[YSC]

No, I see a stereo one from VTV for $800: https://vtvamplifier.com/product/vtv-pascal-t-pro1-stereo-amplifier/

hum~ but they don't have the fancy casing

 

[Bruce Morgen]

SINAD slightly worse than the sub-$100USD Aiyima A07? Seriously?

 

[amirm]

It is a lot more powerful though.

 

[YSC]

One of my worst nightmares. Having a faulty piece of gear, not noticing it right away and trying to find the flaw somewhere else. Had those moments a few times already and got trust issues.

Looking at that cramped amp I wonder how hot it gets. My stereo Hypex UCD kit also is pretty cramped and reaches temperatures that makes the case impossible to touch after a few hours which probably doesn't to the life span much good.

that sounds bad, I always dislike vendors making products so cramped and not properly cooled down for longevity...

 

[Lorenzo74]

This review remind me what Mytek owner said to Stereophile’s reviewer K. M. a while ago.

"Duntechs, with their multiple drivers and complicated crossovers, are a very difficult load," Mytek's chief designer, Michal Jurewicz, told me. "Hypex [class-D modules] cannot drive it, the amps collapse, but this Brooklyn Amp does it with ease. This came out during months of design tests I did in 2016, when we were testing many different circuits." Jurewicz also said that Mytek spent six months experimenting with more than 15 class-D amplifier modules from various OEMs, upgrading parts, adding capacitors, adjusting circuit parameters.

would be nice if M. J. could be connected here and explain what findings made him came up to such conclusions…
https://www.stereophile.com/content/mytek-brooklyn-amp-power-amplifier

Hope this is of interest to ASR community.
my Best
L.

 

[BDE]

Don`t overrate the audio performance the enclosure is very pretty!!!


You can get amplifieres with Pascal modules (S-Pro2) for a fraction of the costs -> Monacor/ IMG Stage Line STA 1000D or 2000D
-> S-PRO2 - Pascal Audio (pascal-audio.com)

June 2016 – Rognliens hifi-blog (wordpress.com)

Measurements:
-> Layout 1 (tools4music.de)

 

[Bruce Morgen]

It is a lot more powerful though.

Well, for more than 25 times the price, it better be!

That said, you're absolutely correct -- and I think that reflects Pascal's orientation toward pro audio rather than the sort of home stereo applications where low distortion and noise floor tend to be more heavily prioritized.

 

[amirm]

This review remind me what Mytek owner said Stereophile reviewer K. M. a while ago.

"Duntechs, with their multiple drivers and complicated crossovers, are a very difficult load," Mytek's chief designer, Michal Jurewicz, told me. "Hypex [class-D modules] cannot drive it, the amps collapse,

Pretty sure he must have thought that subjectively. No way the Hypex amplifiers "collapse."

 

[Koeitje]

I like the industrial design of this, but that's about the only thing to like .

 

[Grotti]

For just about 800 EUR added you could purchase the Pascal amplification with seemingly increased power in an active speaker design:

https://www.dynaudio.de/professional-audio/core/core-7

Not shure if it's worth though.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

WOW, they didn't pay their bill? without willing to judge on certain part of the world practices, and spread clichés, it does not sound like something that you'd expect to happen in Brooklyn NY manufacturing facilities, does it? Were they still manufacturing in the US?
Edit: I see made in E.U. so I guess they moved production, it wasn't the case a few year back.

Oh, not in Brooklyn. LOL what an

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

No, I see a stereo one from VTV for $800: https://vtvamplifier.com/product/vtv-pascal-t-pro1-stereo-amplifier/

Would a 4 channel one of these be useful for biamping?

 

[Bruce Morgen]

Oh, not in Brooklyn. LOL what an

Hey, don't mock the land of my birth -- I was made there and my SINAD is extraordinary!

 

[amirm]

Would a 4 channel one of these be useful for biamping?

It will produce music if that is what you are asking.

 

[restorer-john]

Hey, don't mock the land of my birth -- I was made there and my SINAD is extraordinary!

Brooklyn? There's the famous bridge and then there's Brooklyn Decker.

The bridge is nice enough, but not in the same league...

 

[FeddyLost]

I see such layout as s big compromise. Mains very close to amp modules and all is cramped into small box with questionable heat dissipation.
Personally I see no reason in keeping 2x300 in half-rack sized box. It's much more reasonable for headphone amp or some desktop equipment.
Typically 2x300 is a big pair of floorstanders, so decent poweramp will be very nice even from aesthetic point of view.

 

[AudioSceptic]

This is a "half" review of the Mytek AMP+ stereo class D amplifier. I say "half" because one channel is broken in it. After consultation with the owner who kindly sent it to me, I decided to measure the working channel since the company says it is a "dual mono" configuration. The AMP+ costs US $2,500 from the company.

It is amazing how small Class D amplifiers are as Mytek has managed to stuff it in the same box as their desktop DACs!

View attachment 146425

The "M" logo lights up all around it in blue when you power it on and gets brighter when you push the power switch in the front. The back side has what you expect:

View attachment 146426

Speaker terminals are close to each other so a bit hard to get heavy cables into them but you can manage.

The unit supports bridge mode so I thought maybe that was activated and was the reason one channel was not working. Went to find the manual and it was very difficult. Eventually I found one on their European site. The switches are all in off position which should not have put it in bridged mode. There is USB input for their control app which I downloaded. That was for not as it did not find the amplifier. Windows complained about the USB device not having the driver or some such thing. There is a switch that enables that but that didn't make a difference.

And yes, I tried RCA input as well and the dead channel remained dead. I swapped out the AMP+ for another to make sure it was not my instrumentation/wiring. The other amp worked like a charm. I left the unit on and that didn't make a difference. Left if off overnight and tested today and the dead channel, you guessed it, remained dead. Put my noise close to the vent but could not smell anything burned. My guess is that input is disconnected from the main power board as I could see some amount of signal being amplified by the dead channel.

Mytek AMP+ Measurements
Here is our dashboard:
View attachment 146427

Distortion rises to high 80s. Add some noise and it drags SINAD down to 82 dB which is a bit above average:
View attachment 146428

Multitone test showed frequency dependency and distortion rises to -80 dB:
View attachment 146429

Frequency response with 4 ohm load is very good:

View attachment 146430

Sadly, switching to 4 ohm changes the frequency response so the amplifier response is speaker load dependent. Best in class amplifiers put the feedback loop around the class D output filter as to eliminate or lower its impact. Not so here.

Signal to noise ratio is not great at 5 watts but is reasonable at full power:
View attachment 146431

You can see how the broken channel attempts to produce some output.

Let's measure power versus distortion+noise starting with 4 ohm load:

View attachment 146432

That is decent amount of power but I don't like how the curve flattens very early meaning distortion takes over noise. With very low distortion amplifiers, the line keeps going down until at or near clipping as you see in the both references provided. The AMP+ doesn't do this due to rising distortion very early on.

Same is true with 8 ohm load:

View attachment 146433

There is more power available if we allow distortion to rise up to 0.1%:

View attachment 146434

Strangely the peak/burst power is not as high. Had not seen this before. Usually with regulated power supplies in class D amplifiers, burst mode produces the same power as max but not less. Anyway, it is not much of a difference to worry about.

Testing for frequency dependency, we see rather organized set of curves indicating no wild non-linearities:

View attachment 146440

Then again the primary distortion mechanism is high enough to obscure any secondary sources.

I was pleased to see the switching frequency is nicely attenuated:
View attachment 146453

Some amps reduce that to just -10 dB or so but here we have nearly 40 dB which is nice.

Conclusions
I admire the small and cool running amplifier here. Other than that though, performance is middling and nowhere near state of the art in class D amplification which you can get for these prices, albeit probably from lesser known companies. Reliability is a worry. Reading about it, there were some strange comments from the company in forums that some European contract manufacturer had produced faulty units that were literally going up in smoke. The changed manufacturing and supposedly the problem is fixed. I think the owner said he had sent his in for repair and this was the replacement unit or something like that. Doesn't inspire confidence.

I am not going to recommend the Mytek AMP+. It is too expensive for middle of the road performance with potential reliability issues.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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That's such a shame as it's a wonderfully packaged design.

 

[AudioSceptic]

each you mean by channel? that's extremely expensive and honestly Mytek is not doing bad if it's the case. It has CE marking...

They look very pricey for the performance compared with Hypex and Purifi, and the Mytek looks poor value compared with, e.g., Alan March's amps. Reliability rules out the Mytek in any case.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I see such layout as s big compromise. Mains very close to amp modules and all is cramped into small box with questionable heat dissipation.
Personally I see no reason in keeping 2x300 in half-rack sized box. It's much more reasonable for headphone amp or some desktop equipment.
Typically 2x300 is a big pair of floorstanders, so decent poweramp will be very nice even from aesthetic point of view.

This would make more sense as 2x mono amps in similar cases. Much better heat dissipation, still very small, and you could put them near, or hide them behind, your speakers with short speaker cables.

 

[AudioJester]

The Dutch &Dutch 8c - one of the best measuring active speakers ever - uses Pascal amps, perhaps one of the worst regarded class D amp families.
Strange huh?