Starke Sound AD4.320 Review (Multichannel Amplifier)

[peng]

It's quite the opposite. Most of the distortion pools above 1khz, so it should be bright instead of warm ("warm" is typically stuff in the 100-300hz range. But the distortion is still ~70db lower in level than your actual content, so you'll be hard pressed to hear it during regular music listening.


I can't believe what I'm reading about this amp, the marketing team seems to be about as competent as the engineering team.
Calling class D "digital"... Maybe the engineers didn't know any better either...

+1, this thing measured even worse than a SMSL desktop amp:

SMSL SA400 Review (Power Amplifier)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL SA400 switching desktop power (speaker) amplifier. It was sent to me by the company for testing and costs US $660. The SA400 is a powerful amplifier yet it comes in the same compact SMSL package and UI you would find in their desktop amp...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[peng]

Since it is so far from claimed output perhaps you can return it and if they resist tell them you will report them for fraud. Serious.

On that, I think @amirm may be on to something, that the amp needs 230 V 50 Hz. He checked and said it was selected 120 V but there is an outside chance that the selector might have been wired wrong. I wish he had open it up to check and confirm it was in fact wired for 120 V.

 

[sam_adams]

@amirm, I didn't see anywhere in the review that you tested the trigger output performance . . .

 

[Shanman]

Dayuum! This was a contender on my list at one time, glad I went Buckeye!!

 

[nyxnyxnyx]

And total bullshit



The fuck is high speed amplification? And the reviewer thinks this piece of e-waste should cost 3-5 times its actual price.

I can understand and go past the subjective remarks whether they're consistent or not, but he actually did the "omg its cheap so thats why its underrated if it's more expensive people will love it more" which is very hard to like lol. And on top of that, this product doesn't measure very well, too.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Looks like the voltage selectors are inside on the boards. Maybe Amir’s intuition was right and the unit was mistakenly switched to 230 volts instead of 120?

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

WELL, crud. Bought this one last year for my home theater. In reality, I needed something class D, sealed (its in the basement where I'm occasionally woodworking), and had balanced connectors. But if the amp performance of this is worse than a denon x3700, and my emotiva xmc-1's performance is also worse than the denon x3700, then.....why the fudge am I even mucking around with separates with the all in one performs better? stupid choices i've made.

I made the emotiva mistake.

 

[snaimpally]

WELL, crud. Bought this one last year for my home theater. In reality, I needed something class D, sealed (its in the basement where I'm occasionally woodworking), and had balanced connectors. But if the amp performance of this is worse than a denon x3700, and my emotiva xmc-1's performance is also worse than the denon x3700, then.....why the fudge am I even mucking around with separates with the all in one performs better? stupid choices i've made.

Get a used Yamaha receiver. Plenty of their older multichannel receivers can be had for next to nothing (Amir reviewed one that someone bought for $10 and I have seen that same one go for $10 at Salvation Army). Class AB and high quality internals.

 

[Robbo99999]

I was gonna say this an argument for using active speakers, but then do we know the amplifier characteristics of the amps used in good "budget" active speakers like say the JBL 308p Mkii up to the more exotic Genelec active speakers......I wonder if we measured the amplifier characteristics of said active speakers, then what would we end up with? Has this been done before......is it worth doing..... @amirm is it worth doing, an interesting excercise, is it possible to do?

 

[pseudoid]

Uze 'awl realize that you are being quite harsh on that nice "member" who probably was not ready for the relevant piss-poor outcome of amirm's testing. Let alone, all the negative replies.
On the positive side, there are some features that look real promising on the fascia (front/rear) of the Starke.
Seems like the kludge on the inside is a result of trying to cater to too many needs.
If it can really pump out 400W@4ohms (x4 channels running?), should it (not) be equipped with some forced-air (fans) pass-thru??
I can't imagine what kind of daily audio hardware would need so much power but I fail to see any discussion of how it passes the 'ear' testing.

 

[audio_lover]

Despite's the measurements, has anyone actually heard this amp?
I have it (set to 230V for my region with the internal sliders) and I also have several Hypex based amps like a triple mono NC500DM from Nord that I use on my LCR.
I have been listening to the Starke and the Hypex and switched regularly the past 3 weeks and honestly the Starke just sounds damn good and gets pretty close to the Hypex.

Driven by a Bryston SP4 (StormAudio MK1) and MK Sound S300 speakers.
I will probably use the Starke on my surrounds to replace some NC252MP based amps.

 

[greenpsycho]

I have it myself (its not my unit that Amir tested). Its...fine? I mean, I use it in my living room with a 3 channel home theater setup and speakers I chose for aesthetic purposes over performance (aperion audio fwiw). I don't necessarily think the comments are too harsh - the reason I'm a bit ticked by this is that starke audio is WILDLY overstating the performance, and this unit wasn't necessarily cheap. For me, it was a splurge, and in the end, an integrated/avr does better. That just sucks and people should know it.

 

[nick-v]

I've been curious about the performance of their products. This isn't a good sign.

 

[sarumbear]

On that, I think @amirm may be on to something, that the amp needs 230 V 50 Hz. He checked and said it was selected 120 V but there is an outside chance that the selector might have been wired wrong. I wish he had open it up to check and confirm it was in fact wired for 120 V.

Why would he do that? He tested the unit set as requested by the manufacturer (label). If it failed then the manufacturer failed. End-off!

ASR is a crowd supported consumer service not a free testing centre for manufacturers.

 

[pma]

The beheaded panther is a proper prize this time, IMO. Both for FR grossly depending on load impedance and terrible distortion profile.

 

[bunkbail]

Amir, can you open the lid off and see if the voltage was set to 120V? I see that they have voltage selectors from the pictures people are posting.

 

[voodooless]

Could very well be that they just have different transformers for 230/110V. I can see only a single secondary winding, not two you would usually see when you have selectable voltages.

Edit: never mind, looks like there is an actual switch and some of the wires were a bit hidden.

 

[audio_lover]

Here is a pic of mine when I opened it to switch to 230V

 

[sarumbear]

@amirm, I didn't see anywhere in the review that you tested the trigger output performance . . .

How do you test a trigger?

 

[GimeDsp]

Boo!!!!!!