www.roksan.co.uk

[kidloco46]

Hello all,

I recently decided to sell my Cyrus III amp and upgrade to a Roksan Kandy mk III

The rest of my system is as follows

Marantz CD63KI Sig
B&W CDM1
Yamaha DSP800 (AV Processor)
B&W CDMC (Centre Speaker)
Mission M73DS (Rear Speakers)

Mark Grant Interconnects all round
Chord Rumour Speaker wire


The reason I upgraded was because although I like the sound of my system, I just didnt think the Cyrus had the power to get a grip of the speakers, I was going to start adding Cyrus power amps and power supplies but I would have ended up with about 10 boxs

So after a fair bit of readin gand searching forums I thought id give the Kandy a whilr, the specs seemed impressive, over twice the power per channel of the Cyrus, and a very highly regarded sound.

anyway, I tracked down an absolute minter for around £200 which I thought was a bargain. It arrived today and iv spent the day playing around with it.

First impression were good, really nice sounding amp, does grip the music alot better then the Cyrus, also keeps the detail but its not as dry as it used to be. The only issue I have is with the Volume levels, I was expecting it to go very LOUD without having to strain the amp.

But im finding even to get it to moderate levels I am having to turn the volume to half way and more. dont get me wrong, when you crank it 3 quarters it is pretty loud, but I was expecting it to be deafening at 50%, oh, I hve made sure I havnt got the semi mute on.

Is it just me or do these amps need to cranked right up before they kick in, it certainally doesnt sound twice as loud as the Cyrus

[ken lyon]

Twice the amplifier power amounts to only a 3 dB increase in loudness.fwiw- a 1dB increase is generally considered the smallest increment that the average person can easily discern.Where you get the most benefit from a higher powered amp is in dynamic headroom for sudden transient peaks and the sense of greater musical ease, punch, grip and weight.
As for the volume knob settings, it's not really an issue and the actual dial settings for a given loudness only relative.Different makes of volume pots have different gain behaviours, sensitivity and dial settings to achieve a given electrical output level. Where it's set to get a given volume level has no bearing whatsoever on the quality or the maximum power output of the system itself. Some pots will achieve an output at near amp clipping levels at 12:oo o'clock and others at 4o or higher.