This is a review and detailed measurements of the SCIBER AMPLOI stereo balanced amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $4,900.
The amp sets itself apart with somewhat unique styling that I like. The large footers allow for a set of RGB lights to show from the bottom that can dance to the tune of music. Lower feet are provided if you like less of an elevated setup (yes, the lights can be turned off). While volume control is provided, it and the preamp can be bypassed if desired:
As you see, both XLR and RCA are provided as is trigger support.
The design is rather unique with use of switching power supply but class AB amplification using four LM3886 amplifier ICs per channel. The amplifier necessitates good sized heatsinks which anchor each side of the amplifier, giving it fair amount of heft although still lighter than one with linear power supply. In use, the top gets very warm and company nicely notes this as a "CON" of the amp!
The amp is designed and built in Russia and got lost in transit once so took a while to get here.
SCIBER AMPLOI Amplifier Measurements
I originally intended to only test the amplifier with the preamp/volume control in the loop. Here is that dashboard:
Towards the end of testing, I ran a quick test with the preamp bypassed removed and noticed better noise performance. So went back and re-ran some of the tests again with the by-pass enabled:
This gets us essentially the same performance as advertised by the company (THD+N of 0.0005%). This is very good performance as you see in our rankings:
For RCA I only ran the test with pre-amp in the loop:
Back to XLR, here is the performance with or without the pre-amp engaged:
As noted, these are excellent results. Even with pre-amp engaged, crosstalk is reference quality:
Naturally, the frequency response shows no dependency on load impedance:
The dashboard revealed extremely low distortion which we see again in multitone and 19+20 kHz intermodulation tests:
Due to distortion being essentially constant, we get the excellent high frequency response above.
Power delivered matches the spec:
There is a slight power drop at 40 Hz:
Best showing is in this distortion vs power vs frequency:
Finally, the amp is stable on power up:
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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/
Conclusions
It is clear the company aimed to squeeze the best out of the architecture they picked, leaving no stone unturned across all measurements. You can read about it in the company's white paper. Net results is objective performance approaching state of the art and well above average. Innovation is also provided in look and functionality with the RGB lightshow.
The cost is on the high side. I am not sure of economics of building such a product in Russia. So can't objectively say that it is too expensive.
I am going to recommend the SCIBER AMPLOI stereo amplifier.
The amp sets itself apart with somewhat unique styling that I like. The large footers allow for a set of RGB lights to show from the bottom that can dance to the tune of music. Lower feet are provided if you like less of an elevated setup (yes, the lights can be turned off). While volume control is provided, it and the preamp can be bypassed if desired:
As you see, both XLR and RCA are provided as is trigger support.
The design is rather unique with use of switching power supply but class AB amplification using four LM3886 amplifier ICs per channel. The amplifier necessitates good sized heatsinks which anchor each side of the amplifier, giving it fair amount of heft although still lighter than one with linear power supply. In use, the top gets very warm and company nicely notes this as a "CON" of the amp!
The amp is designed and built in Russia and got lost in transit once so took a while to get here.
SCIBER AMPLOI Amplifier Measurements
I originally intended to only test the amplifier with the preamp/volume control in the loop. Here is that dashboard:
Towards the end of testing, I ran a quick test with the preamp bypassed removed and noticed better noise performance. So went back and re-ran some of the tests again with the by-pass enabled:
This gets us essentially the same performance as advertised by the company (THD+N of 0.0005%). This is very good performance as you see in our rankings:
For RCA I only ran the test with pre-amp in the loop:
Back to XLR, here is the performance with or without the pre-amp engaged:
As noted, these are excellent results. Even with pre-amp engaged, crosstalk is reference quality:
Naturally, the frequency response shows no dependency on load impedance:
The dashboard revealed extremely low distortion which we see again in multitone and 19+20 kHz intermodulation tests:
Due to distortion being essentially constant, we get the excellent high frequency response above.
Power delivered matches the spec:
There is a slight power drop at 40 Hz:
Best showing is in this distortion vs power vs frequency:
Finally, the amp is stable on power up:
------------
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/
Conclusions
It is clear the company aimed to squeeze the best out of the architecture they picked, leaving no stone unturned across all measurements. You can read about it in the company's white paper. Net results is objective performance approaching state of the art and well above average. Innovation is also provided in look and functionality with the RGB lightshow.
The cost is on the high side. I am not sure of economics of building such a product in Russia. So can't objectively say that it is too expensive.
I am going to recommend the SCIBER AMPLOI stereo amplifier.
