Best In D-Class Car Amplifier
Audison SR amplifiers have been with us since 1988. Always an audiophile’s choice, this new incarnation has taken class D topography to new levels of performance.
Unfortunately, we cannot bring you specific details. In the pre release information, Audison’s marketing people make reference to; “Audison D-Class Technology” However, when I questioned them as to what this is, they cannot give me anything concrete to write about!
My contacts at Audison did mention that the power supply configuration has been specifically designed to achieve a better size to performance ratio. They also point toward the fact that a great deal of care has been taken with product selection. The suggestion from the very little information supplied suggests that listening tests were undertaken and the results of these affected the components selected for use.
“Double blind” listening tests were undertaken using both home hifi and standard car hi fi products as a reference, but once again specific information regarding test tracks or even genres and the identity of any of their reference equipment is shrouded in mystery. This is a bit of a shame as we cannot bring you actual factual information as to why the SR amplifiers are better.
Putting this aside however, having heard the SR 5.600 in a car, connected to Audison Prima speakers, with which I am very familiar, I can confirm that the SR range does sound extremely good. The power is unwavering and the often confused mid-range area is delivered with great alacrity. Bass is also powerful and the mono output drives a couple of Audison 10″ extremely efficiently. You can read more on the sound in the Driving Sounds Article, “Colin, Andrea and Colin”.
The Audison SR 5.600 amplifier includes four output channels delivering 75watts RMS init 4ohms and a further channel that outputs 330watts RMS to the same load. As class D amplification is tolerant of a lower impedance, replacing a 4ohm load with 2ohms, the resulting power is quoted at 4 X 115watts + 1 X 550watts. However, the four channels can be bridged to two worth 230watts into 4ohms only.
SR Amplifiers do sound much bigger than they look. The compact case is just 294 x 155 x 47.5 mm. An extruded aluminium heatsink runs the length of the amplifier and dissipates heat so that no cooling fan is required.
The car I listened to included a bit TEN in the system however, for those who want to run speakers passively, there are hi-pass and lo-pass filters on board as well as a pantheon of other features which you can read more about here: Audison SR 5.600 These include a built in speaker simulator which avoids some modern cars returning a fault code when the speaker outputs of the standard equipment are messed about with. Many other requirements require an external device to achieve this so it is a very useful feature.
The Audison SR 5.600 is certainly the best class-D amplifier I have heard. Just very frustrating that I cannot find out why!
Contact your local FOUR MASTER for a demonstration.
