With all the action on the bottom and rear, a belly-up interlude on the carpet was mandatory. The rear panel is crowded but the IEC thankfully moved back enough to accommodate even big-barrel power cords.
That overhang conceals no cabling but condemns the terminal posts to barely finger-tight when crammed conditions don't allow proper purchase to safely secure spades. I found this rather nerve-wrecking.
We clearly see the power mains, input selector and volume knob along the lower front edge which right-side up disappears from view. That's what my camera had on show 'n' tell. I'll leave it to your eye and monitor calibration what shade of grey to call this: mochaccino? I'm no bean counter or drinker so just guessing. Perhaps plain classy says it best? Before you say 'what the discus' for one low-rider toroid going tripod, let's flip this flounder for the flotation thing. If armed with spade terminations, you should find Soo In's skinny obsession silly. Actually, my inner punter by proxy felt saltier to think of a stronger six-letter 's' word. With these sun-ray caps, socket wrenches are out. Good luck tightening these posts by hand so your spades sit firm. Then insufficient shelf clearance means that we either need to elevate the amp on footers or have its business end hang over the shelf edge so spades can even enter without kinking their cables at an immediate right angle. Going on a monkey diet of straight bananas is far happier. Still in grouch mode, annoying pops through the speakers accompanied ramping the volume up/down. No comment. Back on my sunny side, I had instant proof of life. Since I'd use this amp wide open¹, I'd only hear its flatulence at power on when its volume automatically returns to zero before opening the speaker relays. We can never run afoul of the last user's possible disco levels.
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¹ For other fixed-gain users, could not a firmware update remember our last-used setting so it'd be fixed at power-on? I appreciate the default safety of always starting in mute but if one runs the AMP-54R fronted by a preamp to have its own attenuator at say 50, it would be more convenient if it powered up like that rather than having to, click click click pop pop pop, cycle through most or all of the resistor ladder.
Whilst one might write off calling a spade a sad spade—just get bananas or use footers sufficiently taller than the toroid—I found the noisy attenuation relays unacceptable for any €25K luxury proposition. The autoformer taps in my passive-magnetic preamp open and close without any switching transients; in a device starting at €1'600. Together with the light-bar scheme which at my regular seated distance I call only slightly useful, I do think that Soo In's design aesthetic has lost a bit of the reality plot like a celebrity overdoing plastic surgery in pursuit of an unrealistic beauty ideal. I'm not sold on certain external/functional details. As long as you are, no harm no foul. Having duly niggled my negativity nerve, the sound got me right back on my regular jovial track.
When I couldn't switch to HC mode by holding the remote's power button for five seconds, I asked Michael. "The new software now does it with the remote's top-right button being held for 7 seconds. That will turn the amp off and reboot it in the new mode." That worked. On my speakers high-current mode made the presentation softer, warmer and lazier. "The attenuation relay clicks are part of the design and will be impacted by temperature, other components in the chain and whether you've played or not for a while as voltage might charge up the pops a bit. We switched from the AMP-23R's original mechanical relays to solid-state relays to lower these pops which are nothing to worry about. With my sound|kaos Liberation speakers I usually listen at around 20-25 whilst Soo In with his Wilsons gets to ~30." At full gain to let my AVC handle volume, my 89dB dipole midranges at 4 metres betrayed faint hum in the seat where my 300wpc Dazzle is dead quiet. However, in power-amp mode that Kinki integrated subtracts its 13dB of line-stage gain to be down to 23dB. Once I throttled Enleum's gain back to 42 on its display, the noise was gone. With HV mode preferred, I had my marching orders. Holding the remote's power button turns the AMP-54 on. The two light bars reflecting the currently active HV or HC setting briefly show solid, then start to blink whilst the circuit wakes up. When the blinking stops, a single light showing the selected input signals readiness whilst the amp is still in mute with the volume at zero. Below you see it in input 1, max volume so five bars on the left for 50, the rightmost bar for 9 = 59.
One active PSI Audio bass trap on the far right doubling as plant stand.
Having recently elevated my system with this dual-mono Dazzle integrated of high bandwidth and triple power, its own preamp stage replaced by my AVC, how much performance headroom remained asleep awaiting Enleum's wakeup call? Or would the amp swap execute a sideways move to merely shift illumination on different aspects rather than raise the lot to the next level? The price gap seemingly made this foregone conclusion. Yet PRC origins in Singapore-direct currency have Dazzle's ~€7'500 ask easily weigh twice if not more in High Street coin. That raw value advantage resets any foregone conclusion to premature status. Being too worried about an accidental short from a loose spade on the AMP-54R, I had to replace my Exact Express Flame speaker leads with banana-terminated Virtual Vermillion to make secure far easier connections. Gain matching had the Enleum at 45/59. It meant that the sub amp's attenuator could remain fixed throughout the AB because both speaker amps produced equal output. With both amps live, I only had to swap RCA and speaker leads in the correct sequence. My Guangzhou vs Seoul games were afoot. The Irish weather nymphs blessed the occasion with some cloudless sun from County Kerry across the Shannon river. Unlike classic class A amps which soon sweat just sitting there, my use didn't tax Enleum's smart bias beyond luke warm. No space furnace here even after 24 hours. Only Svalbard residents will be disappointed.
