The Starkrimson amps just won budged product of the year from The Absolute sound see here:
Unfair Competition: Orchard Audio Bosc Monoblocks vs. Pass Labs XA30.8
After hearing a friend's Orchard Audio Starkrimson Integrated Amplifier in my system (https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/9074) a few weeks ago (it sounded pretty good!), I arranged to audition a pair of used Bosc $1500 monoblocks (now called Starkrimson) for close listening. Was curious to see just how well this "distortion-free" class D amp (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/orchard-audio-bosc-pdf.47492/) could replicate my beloved Pass labs class A beast costing >$6000 new. Close listening was done after several days of casual listening/break-in.
Bosc - The Good:
- Wide and tall soundstage
- Convincing central image
- Extremely quiet -- less baseline hiss than the Pass
- Fast transients
- Excellent instrument decay/echo
- Obviously more energy and space efficient
Bosc - The Not as Good
- Lacked soundstage depth/separation
- Less vibrant and engaging, lacking difficult-to-articulate "magic" of the Pass
- Inconsistent bass performance, some tracks sounded firmer and tighter, others weaker than the Pass
- "Flat sounding" with less fleshed-out midrange
After having the Bosc in my system for a few days and listening to nothing but that with a variety of music, I would have been very happy to keep it for the long-term. It was only after A/B with my Pass that I realized what I was missing.
Not a fair comparison dollar-wise, but I was, perhaps naively, prepared to be convinced the Bosc could go head to head. A nice reminder of what I enjoy about the Pass in my system, though. How to measure these qualities, though?
Bosc - The Good:
- Wide and tall soundstage
- Convincing central image
- Extremely quiet -- less baseline hiss than the Pass
- Fast transients
- Excellent instrument decay/echo
- Obviously more energy and space efficient
Bosc - The Not as Good
- Lacked soundstage depth/separation
- Less vibrant and engaging, lacking difficult-to-articulate "magic" of the Pass
- Inconsistent bass performance, some tracks sounded firmer and tighter, others weaker than the Pass
- "Flat sounding" with less fleshed-out midrange
After having the Bosc in my system for a few days and listening to nothing but that with a variety of music, I would have been very happy to keep it for the long-term. It was only after A/B with my Pass that I realized what I was missing.
Not a fair comparison dollar-wise, but I was, perhaps naively, prepared to be convinced the Bosc could go head to head. A nice reminder of what I enjoy about the Pass in my system, though. How to measure these qualities, though?
Showing 6 responses by orchardaudio
@emil, bingo. can't buy some of the needed parts till late February. |
Nice write up, what did you use to drive the older BOSC amp? You could have had an impedance mismatch between the two devices. The BOSC amps have a 5k input impedance where the Starkrimson amps have a 44k input impedance. So if you were driving the amps with a passive or tube pre you would not have gotten the most of them. |
@dweaton I'm glad you enjoyed the monoblocks. The ultra amps will have better bass just from the nature of them having more power, otherwise, they will sound identical to the monoblocks. |