Post by julesd68 on Oct 2, 2019 15:44:18 GMT
Here are my thoughts on the BOSC monoblocks.
I’m interested to see where Class D technology is going at the moment, and these amps with their gallium nitride tech seemed intriguing to me. So I got in touch with Leo, the designer at Orchard Audio, who kindly agreed to a loan.
Here is what I received - 2 x monos, 2 x PSU’s and power cables, 2 x XLR adapters.
No I didn't get a ruler - it's just there for scale.
As you can see, a single mono is tiny - it fits easily in the palm of your hand!
The finish looks absolutely fine to me and I really like the tree logo design, very tasteful indeed.
The amps are also very light in weight and designed so you can have them hanging off the back of your speakers with hardly any speaker cable. My interconnects aren’t long enough to try this approach so I put the monos on my rack. I’m not sure how this would best be done for practical and aesthetic reasons long term - because rca and speaker inputs are on opposite sides of the casing, there will always be exposed cables. So from that point of view alone the amps would be better behind your speakers. You will want the two power supplies hidden away on the floor somewhere, so depending on your set up you may need longer IEC power cables than usual to accommodate.
Onto the listening. I streamed Spotify as usual using my DigiOne, via my new Topping D70 DAC and RVC. These monos really make quite an impact when you first hear them. I can honestly say that I was immediately struck by an incredibly high level of resolution that I hadn’t heard in my new digital system. Listening to a range of my favourite rock and classical recordings I was able to make out extra details and nuances with ease. Along with this I found the music really held my attention thanks to some most superior imaging and potent dynamics, which certainly generate real energy in the music. The bass was deep, very deep, and particularly well controlled with my Sonus Faber speakers.
I did however find the sound to be slightly on the lean side in my system and felt it just needed a little more body in the midrange; perhaps I would have enjoyed just a little more warmth? So naturally I’m wondering why this might be and of course I can’t give you a concrete answer but perhaps the monos may have excelled more with an active preamp which could have possibly added the body I was looking for. Mere speculation on my part, but this would certainly be something to experiment with in terms of getting the very best performance from the amps. I would also look at using shorter speaker cable lengths as suggested to see what changes this might achieve.
The amps had more than enough juice for my rock and pop recordings to be delivered at the high volumes I enjoy, but could have done with some extra power on tap for classical, which tends to stream at much lower levels - sometimes I was pretty much maxed out on the RVC.
So there you have it, a very interesting product and many thanks to Leo again for giving me a chance to check these amps out.
I’m interested to see where Class D technology is going at the moment, and these amps with their gallium nitride tech seemed intriguing to me. So I got in touch with Leo, the designer at Orchard Audio, who kindly agreed to a loan.
Here is what I received - 2 x monos, 2 x PSU’s and power cables, 2 x XLR adapters.
No I didn't get a ruler - it's just there for scale.
As you can see, a single mono is tiny - it fits easily in the palm of your hand!
The finish looks absolutely fine to me and I really like the tree logo design, very tasteful indeed.
The amps are also very light in weight and designed so you can have them hanging off the back of your speakers with hardly any speaker cable. My interconnects aren’t long enough to try this approach so I put the monos on my rack. I’m not sure how this would best be done for practical and aesthetic reasons long term - because rca and speaker inputs are on opposite sides of the casing, there will always be exposed cables. So from that point of view alone the amps would be better behind your speakers. You will want the two power supplies hidden away on the floor somewhere, so depending on your set up you may need longer IEC power cables than usual to accommodate.
Onto the listening. I streamed Spotify as usual using my DigiOne, via my new Topping D70 DAC and RVC. These monos really make quite an impact when you first hear them. I can honestly say that I was immediately struck by an incredibly high level of resolution that I hadn’t heard in my new digital system. Listening to a range of my favourite rock and classical recordings I was able to make out extra details and nuances with ease. Along with this I found the music really held my attention thanks to some most superior imaging and potent dynamics, which certainly generate real energy in the music. The bass was deep, very deep, and particularly well controlled with my Sonus Faber speakers.
I did however find the sound to be slightly on the lean side in my system and felt it just needed a little more body in the midrange; perhaps I would have enjoyed just a little more warmth? So naturally I’m wondering why this might be and of course I can’t give you a concrete answer but perhaps the monos may have excelled more with an active preamp which could have possibly added the body I was looking for. Mere speculation on my part, but this would certainly be something to experiment with in terms of getting the very best performance from the amps. I would also look at using shorter speaker cable lengths as suggested to see what changes this might achieve.
The amps had more than enough juice for my rock and pop recordings to be delivered at the high volumes I enjoy, but could have done with some extra power on tap for classical, which tends to stream at much lower levels - sometimes I was pretty much maxed out on the RVC.
So there you have it, a very interesting product and many thanks to Leo again for giving me a chance to check these amps out.
