Posted by LineSource (A) on September 01, 2020 at 07:37:11

I've discussed possibly picking up this amp in a couple other threads but I thought I'd start a new one since I did end up purchasing it. I deliberated the purchase of this amp along with with Vincent's T700 mono blocks, Emotiva's XPA-DR2 and their DR1 mono blocks.

I've been driving the 1.7is with an Emo XPA-2 Gen 2 for a little over a year but felt I wasn't getting as much out of the speakers as they are capable of. The XPA-2 has plenty of power but because of how they wired the capacitors in a series/parallel scheme it only had 47,000uF of filter capacitance. Most amps with this kind of power have much more actual usable capacitance than that. I just felt I wasn't getting the refinement that some other amps within my budget could give me.

I deliberated over this a lot and had concerns about the SP332 which have turned out to be a non issue. First, it puts out half the power of the Emotiva amp but comes close to doubling into 4 ohms. Next I had to wonder why they lowered the number of output transistors from the SP 331 from six per channel to four when this amp is supposed to be an upgrade from the 331. But the amp has as much filter capacitance as most 200 watt per channel power houses, so I figured it must provide plenty of currant. During my research someone here in another thread provided an informative math lesson in how much actual Dbs are produced per watt which really helped in my decision. So I decided to take a leap of faith and ordered the SP 332 because it's a hybrid design which is very different from the XPA-2 and I thought tubes had a good chance of providing what I was looking for.

Well my concerns about whether or not the amp could drive my Maggies was completely unfounded. This amp drives them effortlessly and actually squeezes more bass out of them than the Emo amp ever did and it never seemed to lack in that department. If the VU meters are even close to being accurate this amp rarely needs more than 10 watts to drive the Maggies to the volume levels I listen at. Using a sound pressure meter I keep it just below or at 80db, occasionally going over that on peak transients.

But what about the sound, which is what I bought it for in the first place. When I first turned it on and started listening I was concerned. The sound was very muffle, like there were blankets thrown over the speakers. That very quickly lifted and by fifteen minutes in the sound was acceptable but not much better than the Emo amp. Now I knew from what limited reviews I could find on this amp that it needs quite a few hours to burn in, but I wanted to play with my new toy so I listened a total of five hours that first day. Even in that short amount of time the sound steadily improved dramatically and ended up out performing the Emo substantially. The difference is hard to explain. It just sounded more refined and smooth with no listening fatigue. The sound stage opened up wider and deeper and it was really quite a bit of fun listening to this thing improve hour by hour. I now have probably between forty to fifty hours on it and the improvements in performance have slowed but are still taking place every time I turn it on. Everything just sounds more analog if that makes sense. I recently purchased a Pro-ject Tube Box DS phono stage that has a tube output and the combination of that, my RPM-3 turn table with Sumiko Blue Point No2 cartridge produces sound to die for, with good recordings of course. Keb Mo's self titled live double album sounds like I've left my room and and have been transported to what ever venue the recording took place at. Digital sources are much more analog sounding and did I mention the sound stage? These kinds of experiences always lead to thinking, how much further can I take this? So a Sumiko Blue Point Special EVO III low output is ordered, which the wife knows nothing about. I can sneak that in and she'll never know.

I'll keep reporting on the progress with the amp and other things I add because even at forty plus hours I think this amp still has a ways to go before it's full potential exhibits itself.
LineSource