SCIBER AMPLOI Amplifier Review

[Sono]

Found the closeted German.

Panel gaps must be uniform!!1eins

Hah har!

Logo. The eyes listen also with!

 

[Sal1950]

View attachment 471784

Me too, but I bet I could take the cover off and fix it in a few minutes.
When I got my VTL tube monoblocks years back they had somewhat the same issue with the "tube protecting" straps.
It only took me a few minutes to square them with the chassis.

 

[xanalog]

What's your perspective?

I thought I bought the next 'best thing' for the price and recently traded up to a 3e[Soyyin]AudioA7.

 

[Multicore]

I thought I bought the next 'best thing' for the price and recently traded up to a 3e[Soyyin]AudioA7.

Not to worry. I'm sure it sounds every bit as good as a Benchmark AHB2 :>

 

[Yevhen]

View attachment 471784

Put some vase on top of the enclosure, it will press down the lid and reduce that gap

 

[JeffS7444]

If someone in the USA wanted one, how would it be paid for and shipped, given that Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT?

 

[xanalog]

how would it be paid for and shipped,

Cryptocurrency?

 

[Karmacoma]

Cryptocurrency?

And a stealth jet

 

[see_no_evil]

Fine performance, poor value => voted "not terrible" as a result

 

[Tovarich007]

Remarkable amplifier in its own right. Only its reduced power, according to the usage criteria of our time with inefficient speakers, could raise eyebrows. But anyone who has speakers with an efficiency equal to or greater than 94 dB could consider purchasing such an amp. Which is nevertheless much too expensive. But on the manufacturer's website, we can read that a user compared it to a very expensive and even less powerful French Lavardin amplifier! It seems that the Moscow hi-fi market is geared towards ruinous audiophileism where so many products are expensive and mediocre... so in this context, this amp is in its place... In any case, I read the white paper and their explanation of linear power supplies versus SMPS: these people are serious and the performance achieved by this amp is exemplary... Proof that class AB still has room for improvement...

Dear Haskil, Ok with you for performances (among the best in absolute terms, far below the audibility threshold) and built quality.
Ok too for use with high efficiency speakers-though I'm not sure this amp was purposely designed for this niche market among audiophiles.

But the value for money is mediocre and quite shoking IMO for a russian product, a country where most people live with far than 1000 € in big cities, and much less in smaller ones and the country side, most often people having a double job.
I won't go farther on the social and political topic, that's not the object of this forum, but I can't help writing I'm feeling very bad at ease with such a price in such a country.
The implementation of SMPS power unit with a class AB amp is not new at all ; it's a good solution anyway, as Benchmark Audio chief designer has already demonstrated, it's a pity SMPS tech isn't more widely used for R&D cost I presume.

 

[Joachim Herbert]

Don't care for the lightshow. I voted "not terrible" given the price.

Edit: Maybe this is the shape of things to come.

 

[redwings]

Fine performance, poor value => voted "not terrible" as a result

The performance is good but agreed the price is about $3000 too much and getting it repaired would be a nightmare if needed.

 

[xanalog]

And a stealth jet

Without getting too wordy, the following was a news headline today:
"European Postal Services Suspend Shipments To US"
via AP

 

[JeffS7444]

The performance is good but agreed the price is about $3000 too much and getting it repaired would be a nightmare if needed.

Repairs should be pretty easy, as I'd expect semiconductors to be familiar brands (if Russian opamps exist, I'm not aware of them), and power supplies are by Mean Well. I think it's pretty cool that @GydruS has dedicated himself to high-quality sound reproduction, but for now, export potential is limited.

 

[Joachim Herbert]

This amp is pretty sensitive. Standard for balanced connections is 4V, not 0.8V. In practice one will have to attenuate output of sources quite a bit.

Less gain might yield better performance.

Edit: Stupid me. Must have been blind not to see the charts clearly show 5W output. Mea culpa.

 

[Whiskey the Cat]

I originally voted 'not terrible' but changed my vote to 'Fine' after thinking about it. About every second poster has pointed out that the AHB2 costs less for very similar (excellent) performance and has more power. I would certainly not recommend this amp to someone who lives in Canada or the US, where the Benchmark is easy to obtain and get repaired if necessary, but I don't think I would recommend the Benchmark to someone who lives in Russia where the problems would be exactly the same as me getting the Sciber Amploi (need to find a better name by the way) in Canada. We need to take into account our own individual circumstances/location etc. When I take all that out then the grade to pick was obvious.

 

[Whiskey the Cat]

This amp is pretty sensitive. Standard for balanced connections is 4V, not 0.8V. In practice one will have to attenuate output of sources quite a bit.

Less gain might yield better performance.

Is that not the purpose of the knob on the front: to reduce the gain? However, I would prefer a different implementation, perhaps with several switch settings, although I expect this linear configuration was chosen for the case where the user is driving the amp with only digital sources through a DAC.

 

[Joachim Herbert]

Is that not the purpose of the knob on the front: to reduce the gain? However, I would prefer a different implementation, perhaps with several switch settings, although I expect this linear configuration was chosen for the case where the user is driving the amp with only digital sources through a DAC.

That would be volume control. Havong this at max should yield maximum output. And maximum output should be achieved with 4V (2V unbalanced) input, as this is what contemporary sources deliver. Not 0,8V (0,4V unbalanced). I do not understand the reasoning behind this.

You can attennuate at the source for sure, but you risk loosing SNR by doing so.

Edit: Stupid me. Must have been blind not to see the charts clearly show 5W output. Mea culpa.

 

[Davey]

That would be volume control. Havong this at max should yield maximum output. And maximum output should be achieved with 4V (2V unbalanced) input, as this is what contemporary sources deliver. Not 0,8V (0,4V unbalanced). I do not understand the reasoning behind this.

You can attennuate at the source for sure, but you risk loosing SNR by doing so.

What's not to understand?
The voltage gain here is 15db with the preamp portion bypassed.

This unit is configured as a low gain power amp with an included line-level preamp. The system gain structure should be perfectly fine with normal sources.

 

[amirm]

This amp is pretty sensitive. Standard for balanced connections is 4V, not 0.8V. In practice one will have to attenuate output of sources quite a bit.

Less gain might yield better performance.

The amp achieves it max power at 4.1 volt. If anything, it needs to be a hair more sensitive than the other way around.