I am going to pick up a used CODA S5.5's when people decide they want more power. I think it will be great with the soon to purchase RAAL 1995 Immanis headphone. I have something like 5 ways to play those phones, one of them being the $800 Schitt Aegir amp (pretty good). The S5.5 should be better than the Aegir. The other amp I considered was the First Watt, but I think CODA amps are more to my liking.
The new Coda S5.5 amplifier: It's a "Petite Beast"!
I have in-house the New Coda Technologies S5.5 amplifier for review for Stereo Times website. It will be awhile before I write the review. However, I'm so impressed by the performance of this petite amplifier, it only weights 45 pounds, that I wanted to give a heads up to you GON members if you are in the market for a balanced pure class A amplifier, delivers 50 watts @ 8 Ohms, and can drop 100 Amperes of current on a peak!
The world class build quality of Coda amplifiers is on display with the S5.5, along with the most beautiful purity of tonality, precise sound-staging, complete liquidity offered by pure class A design, and what might be the best top end regarding details, decays, and a natural shimmering without brightness or any edge at all.
The S5.5 uses extremely wide bandwidth output transistors instead of the usual TO3 devices used in most transistor designs. I own the Coda #16, which is great, but the midrange/high end is taken to another level of musical enjoyment with the S5.5. The S5.5 has a sense of speed/aliveness that is exciting to listen to that you experience in live music. The amp is dynamic as hell, has driven with ease any speaker I have tried it with, hence my nickname of the "Petite Beast". Remember, 50 watts pure class A, can drop 100 amperes of current and only weights 45 pounds.
Teajay (Terry London)
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This has been (kinda) covered before, but I can't get over that the R&L inputs and speaker outputs are reversed as per the owner's manual. Any amp I have owned has the R&L connections "correct when facing the amp. So, does one just ignore that and hook up cabling as though they were not reversed or do you follow the manual instructions? If the instructions from the manual are followed you will have to cross the cabling. Are people doing that? From the manual: "DETAILED INSTALLATION |
@aolmrd1241 Seriously? 40 watts into 4? Here is the claim on the Destination Hi-Fi website: "Rated Power: 50 Watts Class A into 8 Ohms, 100 Watts per channel into 4 Ohms, 200 Watts per channel into 2 Ohms." |
@grk it's very confusing. Just put the speaker cables like you would normally put... Also the interconnects..I did what the manual said..soon I realized listening to tracks I know the channels were reversed. I swapped them like I did for the speaker cables and bingo..it was back.. Not sure why Coda has it like that in the manual..very confusing |
Yes, the channels are reversed from the normal on other amplifiers (left on the left when facing the FRONT of the amp has become the norm). But if you just follow the labeling on the amp itself you will be fine. Use the balance control on your preamp to verify. Also if you use a streaming service search for test tones. They usually have a left channel / right channel signal you can use to verify. Regarding power level at 4 ohms, I have Caladans which are 4 ohms. My other amp is an AGD Tempo (100w at 8, 200w at 4). The S5.5 plays louder than the AGD does for the same preamp setting. I don't play music really loud, so maybe the 5.5 clips sooner, I don't know. But it is hard for me to believe that this thing runs out of steam into 4 ohms under any but the most extreme circumstances. |
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