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P452 and Sointuva from March Audio

PurdueDeep

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I actually got on this forum looking for more info about Purifi amps and I remember seeing the relative SINAD graph and found March audios offering to be extremely Competitive. Ive actually spent easily over 24hrs looking up how to build a (to me) high grade system with the sointuva and the p452 amp.

Is there some reason I shouldn’t/ am underinformed? Just read the thread between Alan and John but still really don’t know what to make of it. Any help/ objectivity here would be appreciated!
 
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PurdueDeep

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Ah yay! I’ve got a couple of questions:
  • What are you supposed to look for when matching an amp to a speaker?
  • Does the forum have something like a ‘stickies’/‘pinned’ posts for beginners?
  • What happened that got Alan banned? Im just trying to buy audio equipment so just looking for subjective detail on if the quality of the implementation is acceptable.
  • Im currently deciding between three implementations of the purifi eval1.
    • Vtv has an eval1 offering. Ive seen the QC issues thread thats massive. My understanding is that this is in the past and that ghent xu now supplies the chassis and is way better. (Top pick)
    • March audio is a good 50% more expensive for a similar offering (is quality with vtv bad, then, is quality with march bad as well?)
    • Building my own. Eval boards are about $1000, the chassis is $250 shipped from ghent and the psu, the smps1200, is shipping by mid-September for about $300 I think from audiophonics. (Id only want to spend so much more if the other two have known issues. I love DIY besides )
  • The same concerns about the Sointuva. Looks amazing. Well documented drivers and radiators and im very excited about it/ the active version that will come out next year!
 

dkinric

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Hey, @PurdueDeep , welcome to ASR! I'll start with some of the easy ones.

If you are looking for beginner stickies, there have been attempts, but nothing official. If you are looking for some insight into the objective based philosophy of many here, this one comes to mind, although discussion gets spirited along the way:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...iles-posting-at-asr-for-the-first-time.17598/

As for amp/speaker matching, it mostly has to do with speaker impedance and amplifier power. Most look for an amp that will play cleanly (distortion below audible levels) at the volume levels you will play it at, including musical peaks. Class D amps are popular now due to their ability to play cleanly with minimal electrical draw and heat generated - a much more efficient design than older amps.

The Purifi designs are some of the best measuring class D amps we have seen. Whether they are worth the price difference vs something like a generic Hypex based class D is more of a personal choice, as they both seem to have achieved transparency beyond audibility within their intended uses. March Audio from what I have read makes an outstanding product with excellent support and customer service. The owner is a member here at ASR and contributes to discussions. As you note, the price is commensurate with these advantages.

I agree the new Sointuva look very interesting, and quality active speakers seem to be the future, although you lose some amp swapping options that some like to play with. I built my own Hypex amp, but I got lucky and was able to buy some fully finished boards off ebay and a custom amp kit to match. So my "build" was more like a lego set assembly. Been very happy with the amp (cause it sounds like nothing - very quiet, no hiss, just music).

If you take a look around and read some of Amir's reviews, you will learn a lot and end up with a lot of knowledge to help you make informed decisions. Good luck!
 

Colonel7

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March, Boxem, and Apollon all seem to have excellent build quality but you pay for it and is worth the money. VTV still has build quality issues but is cheap.

My advice is to hold off on making purchases right now until you know more. Purifi is excellent but you are also excited over active speakers, and those 2 don't go together.

As you learn, figure out exactly what your use case is. How far from speakers will you be listening, is there one static listening position or will there be various people and positions listening, 2 channel stereo or combination of home theater and maybe gaming, subwoofers or even 2 or more etc.? Does the system need to scale if you will be moving up in room size? Streaming over services, playing on a network, or and/or using physical media like vinyl or cds? These are all important considerations.
 

Rottmannash

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I have the VTV Eval 1 amp and love it. I sent it to member @Rick Sykora and he changed and added a few things that improved the layout, added a fuse and cleaned up some wiring for not very much cost. Highly recommend this avenue if one doesn't want to go the DIY route. Easy and not super-expensive.
 
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PurdueDeep

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I have the VTV Eval 1 amp and love it. I sent it to member @Rick Sykora and he changed and added a few things that improved the layout, added a fuse and cleaned up some wiring for not very much cost. Highly recommend this avenue if one doesn't want to go the DIY route. Easy and not super-expensive.

Oh. How did you know what to change? Not trying to patronize but does everyone(or most) here have an above average Elec. Engineering background and the tools to measure stuff? Super interesting approach regardless.
 

maverickronin

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What are you supposed to look for when matching an amp to a speaker?

The most important specs are generally power and gain. Going as loud as you want and staying clean is generally the most audible difference. Residual noise would be important for high sensitivity designs, but the Sointuva doesn't fall into that category.

Low distortion levels are just icing on the cake, but the Purifi is already among the best in that regard

What happened that got Alan banned? Im just trying to buy audio equipment so just looking for subjective detail on if the quality of the implementation is acceptable.

He always insisted on having the last word in any argument and refused to reign it in when asked by Amir and the other mods.

Im currently deciding between three implementations of the purifi eval1.

Based on the teardowns posted here I would recommend against the VTV builds unless you're already an experienced DIYer who wants to save a little time by cleaning up a mostly finished build that's barely more expensive that the parts.

The Mach builds are much higher quality. There are also Boxem, Apollon for Purifi builds and @Buckeye Amps if you don't mind a slight downgrade to Hypex.

The same concerns about the Sointuva. Looks amazing. Well documented drivers and radiators and im very excited about it/ the active version that will come out next year!

You could hold out for measurements. Amir doesn't want to have anything to do with Alan any longer, but there was some talk in another thread about getting one to @hardisj (Erin's Audio Corner) who also has a Klippel NFS.
 
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PurdueDeep

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I found this thread to be an excellent intro to how many folks here judge equipment and purchases, approaching it from state of the art transparent to what is audible.

https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...-thresholds-of-amp-and-dac-measurements.5734/

Very, very good read. Thank you. I didn’t realize CDs had that kind of resolution even.

Ive got a Boss 2 streamer by looking through the site! Phenomenal for the price point haha and above.

Regarding the Purifi and Sointuva purchases, that definitely makes sense that power amps don’t work with active speakers. You know honestly I was thinking otherwise; I knew the active speakers had digital crossovers but i figured this could possibly come at speaker level signal rather than at line level. Would this not be something anyone would want?

About the environment/usage considerations. Ill be honest in that that is something I’ll probably never be able to approach with a good enough answer even. I love tech and engineering. I love audio. Its why this community is so attractive. Pursuing both shouldn’t have to be exclusive pursuits. Im just looking to see what, ‘Spectacular Class D’ is like, not to have to have it being used in the perfect application though I do assume I will learn how to here .

Since this is a beginner thread please excuse some sidetracking.

Haha i chased guitar amp tone for years before I saw what digital modeling could do. Funny we dont have modellers for tube amps in the hifi space. Then headphones. Heres me with the Sennheiser’s head of engineering, Axell Grell(super cool tip that blew my mind, he said they had objectively determined that my generation had a measurable preference for more compressed audio, and that we were killing high end audio and laughed hahaha). But now i can listen to airpods and love the out of them! Im a BSEE, but at the end of the day i just wanna have fun without being lied to(maybe a little harsh, sorry) about cables.
 

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dkinric

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He always insisted on having the last word in any argument and refused to reign it in when asked by Amir and the other mods.
Oh, I must have missed this, didn't realize they had parted ways. Seems a really poor business decision to alienate such an important source of potential support. Oh well.
 
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PurdueDeep

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The most important specs are generally power and gain. Going as loud as you want and staying clean is generally the most audible difference. Residual noise would be important for high sensitivity designs, but the Sointuva doesn't fall into that category.

Low distortion levels are just icing on the cake, but the Purifi is already among the best in that regard



He always insisted on having the last word in any argument and refused to reign it in when asked by Amir and the other mods.



Based on the teardowns posted here I would recommend against the VTV builds unless you're already an experienced DIYer who wants to save a little time by cleaning up a mostly finished build that's barely more expensive that the parts.

The Mach builds are much higher quality. There are also Boxem, Apollon for Purifi builds and @Buckeye Amps if you don't mind a slight downgrade to Hypex.



You could hold out for measurements. Amir doesn't want to have anything to do with Alan any longer, but there was some talk in another thread about getting one to @hardisj (Erin's Audio Corner) who also has a Klippel NFS.

Ah gotcha. I actually like listening to speakers on fairly low volume. So I’d take it SINAD is less of a consideration (given they are accurate) and bass extension at said volume would be more of a concern? This is different from tube amps id take it, in that world to play audio at low levels you’d want something like an attenuator artificially loading the amplifier. Is anything like that a concern?

Thank you for clarity on the choices. Ill do more reading and will look into your recommendations. Much appreciated!
 

maverickronin

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Ah gotcha. I actually like listening to speakers on fairly low volume. So I’d take it SINAD is less of a consideration (given they are accurate) and bass extension at said volume would be more of a concern?

Frequency response will be independent of level, so there's no need to worry about that.
 

Rottmannash

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Oh. How did you know what to change? Not trying to patronize but does everyone(or most) here have an above average Elec. Engineering background and the tools to measure stuff? Super interesting approach regardless.
I didn't-Rick did.
 

Colonel7

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Very, very good read. Thank you. I didn’t realize CDs had that kind of resolution even.

Ive got a Boss 2 streamer by looking through the site! Phenomenal for the price point haha and above.

Regarding the Purifi and Sointuva purchases, that definitely makes sense that power amps don’t work with active speakers. You know honestly I was thinking otherwise; I knew the active speakers had digital crossovers but i figured this could possibly come at speaker level signal rather than at line level. Would this not be something anyone would want?

About the environment/usage considerations. Ill be honest in that that is something I’ll probably never be able to approach with a good enough answer even. I love tech and engineering. I love audio. Its why this community is so attractive. Pursuing both shouldn’t have to be exclusive pursuits. Im just looking to see what, ‘Spectacular Class D’ is like, not to have to have it being used in the perfect application though I do assume I will learn how to here .

Since this is a beginner thread please excuse some sidetracking.

Haha i chased guitar amp tone for years before I saw what digital modeling could do. Funny we dont have modellers for tube amps in the hifi space. Then headphones. Heres me with the Sennheiser’s head of engineering, Axell Grell(super cool tip that blew my mind, he said they had objectively determined that my generation had a measurable preference for more compressed audio, and that we were killing high end audio and laughed hahaha). But now i can listen to airpods and love the out of them! Im a BSEE, but at the end of the day i just wanna have fun without being lied to(maybe a little harsh, sorry) about cables.
Cool pic! And welcome to ASR!
 

Mutsu

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I actually got on this forum looking for more info about Purifi amps and I remember seeing the relative SINAD graph and found March audios offering to be extremely Competitive. Ive actually spent easily over 24hrs looking up how to build a (to me) high grade system with the sointuva and the p452 amp.

Is there some reason I shouldn’t/ am underinformed? Just read the thread between Alan and John but still really don’t know what to make of it. Any help/ objectivity here would be appreciated!

I'll actually have a system very similar to this in the near future.

I've had the P252 for quite some time now, but in a couple of weeks my Sointuva's should arrive.

To be completely honest, I'm fairly happy with how my system sounds right now. One of the main reasons for me making the switch to the Sointuva was the customizability of look - especially with the wood options which I think aesthetically look far more appealing than any veneered option (which they will replace).

Alan probably contributed to over 90% of what I understand about objective audio. I just checked and my PM thread with him on ASR is over 200 messages long (plus more through email) - he went out of his way to explain how I can do fair AB tests, diagnose some strange audio anomaly I was experiencing with my setup (which wasn't related to his product), and even recommending filter settings on a DAC that I owned (he read the manual without me asking and said what he would use based on their definition of what the filter does technically). So my past experience with him really made a difference in terms of me trusting his products.

I've made quite a few audio purchasing in the past without auditioning pre-purchase and been disappointed with the result. The last time that happened was when I was looking to replace an old(ish) A/B dac/amp with something more efficient - Alan was the only person that responded to my disappointment about said amp (or at least the technology used) with some objective measurements that likely explained my subjective impressions (which was that compared to my A/B amp, bass had completely gone). That lead me to go with the P252, that with my RME-ADI2 or Topping Dx7 pro is all I'll ever need (by the way I level matched those dacs and blind AB tested them... I couldn't tell them apart).

The Sointuva I'm hoping will at least bring as much audible enjoyment I have with my current speakers with the added bonus that they are smaller and suit my room décor far better. If they sound better to me subjectively then that's even better :)
 

Mutsu

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Ah gotcha. I actually like listening to speakers on fairly low volume. So I’d take it SINAD is less of a consideration (given they are accurate) and bass extension at said volume would be more of a concern?

I'm the same in terms of mostly listening at low volume. One thing about low level listening is that perceptually the mid range frequencies will seem louder than the low and high ones. If you google 'Fletcher Munson curve' you can find more information about this. The RME-ADI2 has a 'loudness' feature that can be used to mitigate this perceived loss by boosting lows and high frequencies at lower volumes.
 
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PurdueDeep

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Haha makes sense
I'll actually have a system very similar to this in the near future.

I've had the P252 for quite some time now, but in a couple of weeks my Sointuva's should arrive.

To be completely honest, I'm fairly happy with how my system sounds right now. One of the main reasons for me making the switch to the Sointuva was the customizability of look - especially with the wood options which I think aesthetically look far more appealing than any veneered option (which they will replace).

Alan probably contributed to over 90% of what I understand about objective audio. I just checked and my PM thread with him on ASR is over 200 messages long (plus more through email) - he went out of his way to explain how I can do fair AB tests, diagnose some strange audio anomaly I was experiencing with my setup (which wasn't related to his product), and even recommending filter settings on a DAC that I owned (he read the manual without me asking and said what he would use based on their definition of what the filter does technically). So my past experience with him really made a difference in terms of me trusting his products.

I've made quite a few audio purchasing in the past without auditioning pre-purchase and been disappointed with the result. The last time that happened was when I was looking to replace an old(ish) A/B dac/amp with something more efficient - Alan was the only person that responded to my disappointment about said amp (or at least the technology used) with some objective measurements that likely explained my subjective impressions (which was that compared to my A/B amp, bass had completely gone). That lead me to go with the P252, that with my RME-ADI2 or Topping Dx7 pro is all I'll ever need (by the way I level matched those dacs and blind AB tested them... I couldn't tell them apart).

The Sointuva I'm hoping will at least bring as much audible enjoyment I have with my current speakers with the added bonus that they are smaller and suit my room décor far better. If they sound better to me subjectively then that's even better :)


Haha makes sense. Please. Pics when you get them and let me know how you like them. I just got a P502 from @ob1 and a Boss 2 streamer from Allo(which I absolutely love. It actually works at it's price point! which is just ridiculous considering how much of pain getting a spotify endpoint to work!
 
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PurdueDeep

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I'm the same in terms of mostly listening at low volume. One thing about low level listening is that perceptually the mid range frequencies will seem louder than the low and high ones. If you google 'Fletcher Munson curve' you can find more information about this. The RME-ADI2 has a 'loudness' feature that can be used to mitigate this perceived loss by boosting lows and high frequencies at lower volumes.

Super cool! That definitely makes sense cause it's not like sound is just diapraghmatic compression right? It is normalized by or brains for us to make sense of reality haha.
 

Mutsu

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Haha makes sense. Please. Pics when you get them and let me know how you like them. I just got a P502 from @ob1 and a Boss 2 streamer from Allo(which I absolutely love. It actually works at it's price point! which is just ridiculous considering how much of pain getting a spotify endpoint to work!

Alan sent me a picture of one of the completed speakers yesterday which I can share so far. I'll post again when I have them here and my subjective impressions.

sointuva.jpg
 
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