Starke Sound AD4.320 Review (Multichannel Amplifier)

[ROOSKIE]

What is a beryllium copper output binding post all about?

 

[laudio]

Looks pretty, but head blew off. 100 W into 4 ohms not bad but way overpriced.

 

[charlieevett]

I definitely agree they are quoting total power and not per channel power.
Kinda shady I guess because it is not typical (except in pro audio and Pyle level gear).
The missing THD spec is a little more shade.
Not cool.


Well make sure you at least switch up the order you play tracks in as the 2nd run almost always sounds better.
With two of you you could easily level match and do a blind test with amps. Lets see if the love is real.
Speaking of level matching make sure you are within 0.5db or ideally even less.

We definitely mixed track order a lot. Not sure how level matching would work since we're playing straight from a DAC, but maybe we could do something. The blind test I was thinking of was basically to cover the wires so you can't tell which amp is live and but then the listener can play with the volume on the app to taste.

 

[DHT 845]

I am very curious about AGD Vivace and AGD Audion GaN amplifiers. How they would measure by Amirm?
These are class D with GaN technology and some say are very musical and great sounding and "extremely low distortion"... Is it possible?

AGD Production Vivace GaNTube Monoblock Amplifiers - Positive Feedback

AGD Production Vivace GaNTube Monoblock Amplifiers review

positive-feedback.com

 

[DHT 845]

The "tube"

AGD The Audion power amps

EUROPEAN PREMIERE | Alberto Guerra strikes one more time.

www.remusic.it

 

[GimeDsp]

The "tube"

AGD The Audion power amps

EUROPEAN PREMIERE | Alberto Guerra strikes one more time.

www.remusic.it

hahahahahahahahahaha

 

[DHT 845]

hahahahahahahahahaha

Price of these is less funny... Made is USA

 

[JohnL]

I sent an email to Scott DeLoache, Chief Design Director, at Starke mentioning this review and asking if the AD4’s I purchased are rated at 320 watts into 4 ohms PER CHANNEL or TOTAL ACROSS ALL CHANNELS

Starke states for the A2.640 amp on their website it is over 600 watts into 4 ohms per channel in the product description section and “640W RMS x 2 at 4 Ω” in the spec section. This implies AD4.320 is “320W RMS x 4 at 4 Ω” but their spec says “320 W RMS at 4 Ω （4-channel output)” which is different.

The product description section on the AD4.320 states this…. “Operate in 4 channel mode and deliver 320 watts into 4 4ohm Atmos speakers” which describes 320 as the total RMS for the amp across all 4 channels. If this is true the amp should be named AD4.80 to keep consistency in their other product names.

Jay’s recent YouTube review and the HTF review disagree by a factor of 4 with what Starke lists in their description. They state the Starke AD4.320 power output is 320W per channel. If this is not true, Starke should have reached out to correct the information. They have had plenty of time to correct the HTF review and Jay mentioned he is talking with Starke directly for his review and Starke should have corrected that info if it were wrong by now as well.

Hopefully this is an honest mistake or Amir got a bad unit. Will soon find out

 

[peng]

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.

You are absolutely right! I am just too curious to know if the amp might have been (as Amir mentioned) in fact wired, or set incorrectly to 120 V when it needed 230 V. That's pretty much the only explanation for the big gap between the rated and measured output.

 

[peng]

It also says Maximum output current per channel: 16.5A. That is 1089W at 4 Ohms per channel!

I hate that kind of potentially misleading specs, but.. The so called maximum output current are usually for peak (such as in this case), in some cases even instantaneous, and in yet some cases for when a load would dip to 2 ohm. All for short durations, or extremely short duration only. Those old enough will remember how Harman Kardon used to brag about their high current AVRs and magazine reviewers just took them all in and helped promote the myth. Denon, Marantz, Parasound, Yamaha all seem to do the same kind of marketing style specs.

Here's how innovative/creative Denon managed on the current spec, for their flag ship 50 WPC integrated amp:

"The UHC-MOS FET used in the PMA-SX1 LIMITED boasts a rated current of 60A and an instantaneous current of 240A, enabling playback with overwhelming margin."

That's just so obviously misleading that it shouldn't even be allowed, marketing or not!

 

[Matthew J Poes]

right!?! But here's the thing - we have been fed this for decades, from every corner. "if you want to get better sound..." "if you want to take your stereo seriously..." "if your powering alot of speakers..." "for the best performance..." ----- upgrade from an integrated/avr/receiver/whatever and get separates. Literally every tech/audio/AV publication spouts the same stuff, and for what? For my system, I don't even have budget level processors and amps, but they STILL are outperformed by the most modest of mid tier AVR's.

The better sound claim isn’t/wasn’t wrong, just misportrayed. It isn’t that such an upgrade improves noise and distortion. That’s a minor issue, receivers are already very good. It’s that receivers typically lack sufficient power. Far worse than an amplifier with a SINAD under 80 is one that is clipping. Most receivers do not have enough power for good music and movie reproduction without clipping. If receivers could provide reports of how often they clip, most would be shocked just how often it happens.

So upgrading the amplifier should be about more power, not lower distortion. Most people do not have rooms that would allow them to hear the lower noise and distortion of something like a Purifi based amplifier over a typical receiver of competent performance.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Well darn. I have one of these boxes up waiting to be reviewed. I didn’t expect it to perform like the best on the market, but expected better than this. At least I now have a valid data point to compare my measurements with.

I talked to the company about the design of the amplifier and asked a few technical questions. It seems they were pretty forthright with the design to be honest. They told me how the feedback loop worked on this design and seemed to understand it would be more reactive. The comment made to me was that this was not for high sound quality, that is what their Class AB amps are for.

 

[jtwrace]

The comment made to me was that this was not for high sound quality, that is what their Class AB amps are for.

If it's not made for high sound quality then what is it made for? paper weight?

 

[greenpsycho]

The comment made to me was that this was not for high sound quality, that is what their Class AB amps are for.

oh yeah, now i'm DEFINITELY going to spend {looks at starke sound 2 channel ab amp} $9,000 USD for their 2 channel amp! /s

thats just lunacy - as we've been shown countless times around here, class D can be clean, cheap, and like, kinda easy. Just don't mess it up. The fact that they can't make a decent class d amp (and advertise the specs properly) from those simple chips (or whatever they may be) just proves they aren't capable of being trusted with electronics. Maybe their other stuff is great, but as a whole, they get X'd off the list in my book

 

[ROOSKIE]

We definitely mixed track order a lot. Not sure how level matching would work since we're playing straight from a DAC, but maybe we could do something. The blind test I was thinking of was basically to cover the wires so you can't tell which amp is live and but then the listener can play with the volume on the app to taste.

Hmmm, generally with amps since the differences are typical subtle or even non-existant, any non level matched test is pretty much poo-poo.
If one amp is even 0.5db louder it will likely sound better to the slight SPL advantage. I think some folks shoot for 0.1db to be sure.
Having the listeners control the volume is one sort of way to mitigate/randomize that. Though it adds some issues, the chaos is an interesting leveling agent. (And I like that with speakers due to the wildly difderent responses) However again consider the idea that the SQ differences between non broken amps is going to be small with most speakers so being blind as a listner & switching back and forth between level matched amps is likely the only way to truly determine if there really is variation and preference.

 

[peng]

Well darn. I have one of these boxes up waiting to be reviewed. I didn’t expect it to perform like the best on the market, but expected better than this. At least I now have a valid data point to compare my measurements with.

I talked to the company about the design of the amplifier and asked a few technical questions. It seems they were pretty forthright with the design to be honest. They told me how the feedback loop worked on this design and seemed to understand it would be more reactive. The comment made to me was that this was not for high sound quality, that is what their Class AB amps are for.

If it was incorrected wired for the supplied voltage (120 V/60Hz vs 230 V/50 Hz), it could explain the lower output measured, but I wonder if it could also affect the SINAD measurements. May be you can ask the manufacturer about that possibility too?

 

[haris525]

Hi - do you think this youtube reviewer got a cherry picked unit or maybe something wrong with the unit tested here? He seems praise the unit especially on the "power" it is delivering. What do you guys think?
Another Edit: The reviewer says he is not pretentious, but might come across as such.

Thank you

 

[jtwrace]

Hi - do you think this youtube reviewer got a cherry picked unit or maybe something wrong with the unit tested here? He seems praise the unit especially on the "power" it is delivering. What do you guys think?

Thank you

Subjective vomit. There are many others that praise garbage. Could be they're clueless or it could be the special deal they get on the review sample.

 

[voodooless]

Hi - do you think this youtube reviewer got a cherry picked unit or maybe something wrong with the unit tested here? He seems praise the unit especially on the "power" it is delivering. What do you guys think?
Another Edit: The reviewer says he is not pretentious, but might come across as such.

The only thing cherry-picked is the reviewer

 

[haris525]

Subjective vomit. There are many others that praise garbage. Could be they're clueless or it could be the special deal they get on the review sample.

Oh ok, thank you!