So what's my considered conclusion?
As we knew going in, this is a luxury product with a bespoke tag to match. That automatically has it live on a quite remote small island not even on most people's map. On raw specs and cachet it can't compete with the similarly priced Dan d'Agostino Progression integrated which packs a 2'000VA transformer for 200/400wpc into 8/4Ω. That too is a luxury product which looks the part but arguably out-luxuriates the AMP-54R before ever hearing it; and comes from a far more famous designer on upscale hifi's mainland. By the same token, the Enleum is more exotic, with styling for a different clientele. Its sonics combine what tends to be meant by neutrality with great insight into music's structural and textural strata, with fleet timing and an emphasis on lucidity and quickness over mass and might. The words elegant and sophisticated might best sum it up. It's also idiosyncratic. I can't excuse the rear-panel overhang which makes tightening normal spades a real faff; all the clicking popping attenuator relays one traverses quickly for fixed-gain power-amp mode; or the minimalist light-bar theme for chosen input and current volume that's not very informative from afar.
As an advanced product for advanced users, emirs of EDM would neither appreciate nor want it even with an unnumbered Dubai account. A Hypex Ncore 500 or equivalent class D muscle amp would better suit their needs. Though it might read elitist or snobbish, I think that the AMP-54R core audience has solid live experiences of acoustic music in mind and memory to align their playback preferences with those, not sound-reinforced clubs and arenas. Can the AMP-54R repeat the victory laps of its smaller brother, the AMP-23R? Without the latter's headfi facility so half the functionality for four times the coin + power which still has the latter low for the €25'000 league, that's a forecast for hifi psychics. I'm just a sidekick. Here's what even I know. Enleum's new best deserves to become a success. The lengthy genesis since first word of this slightly mad project circulated made the wait anticlimactic but worth it in the end. It's a very special amp that looks for equally special admirers. Let's close out with a treat from La Cité Phocéenne so Marseilles, via one of my all-time favourite albums, Barrio Chino's Méditerra Nostra.
For final specs, idle power consumption is 45 watts whilst full draw could reach 800 watts. That's most non-classic behaviour for claimed class A due to MCU-powered smart bias. Weight is 19.5kg so hefty for the thin-line profile but easily manageable. Dims are a 40cm² float not footprint of just 7cm height. Input impedance is 100kΩ on the standard voltage inputs, 10Ω on the BNC current and RCA phono inputs. The latter welcome 0.2-0.5mV MC carts of 5-20Ω. No loading calculations or adjustments are necessary. Output power into 2Ω is 166/247wpc in HC/HV modes. Voltage gain is -20dB at step 1, -7dB at step 5, -1dB/10, +5.2dB/20, +8.6/25, +12.2/30, +18/35, +23.7/40, +29.9/45, +31.3/50 and finally 31.7dB at step 59. With these figures, users with active preamps can set the amp for their desired voltage gain. When asked why the last nine steps only navigate less than half a decibel, "the attenuator circuit uses various resistors from a network of 10s to 10'000s ohms to combine into a single resistance. Once we reach step 50, we're already past 10kΩ where adding 10 or 100Ω changes very little. In the next production lot, we could simply change the software to stop at 50 since usual listening levels sit between 20-40 whether you use a preamp or not. There's no global negative feedback but the input stage has a simple DC servo circuit to cancel out DC offsets caused by transistor arrays."
Enleum replies: Dear Srajan, first of all, since we haven't been in contact since your wife's passing, I wanted to send my heartfelt condolences. She was an ever-present part of your writings and 6moons and with her own page now, Ivette continues to be. Secondly, thank you for your patience with us. The AMP-54R has been our longest and most challenging project – and in retrospect, something we pre-launched a bit prematurely as it was mandatory to announce along with the Red Dot 'Best of the Best' award. But I am proud and happy to read your review as you express in every way what this amplifier is all about. The design goal was to bring our core strengths as you've experienced in the AMP-23R to the absolute highest level of performance and with the power to drive so much more – including its unique dual-output High Voltage/High Current modes and its excellent phono current input. I can already tease a bit that for easier spade connections, we are looking to bring out our own platform to lift the AMP-54R which will certainly help for those thicker speaker cables and at the same time make the AMP-54R an even more visual centrepiece than it already is. Re: attenuation pops, this is inherent to all our amplifier designs and a natural consequence of our design choices to achieve what makes the Enleum sound: attenuation occurs past the input stage whereas conventional designs attenuate at the very beginning of the input. This is our core strength and unique nature of our design and we consider the pop noise a small price to pay. After some time and actual listening, the input DC offsets get more stabilized and cancel out and the noise becomes much less and almost gone during play. It's more important to have the best possible performance than to revert to conventional designs for compromises in favour of less pop noise. Once again, thank you for a wonderfully enlightened and enlightening review. The AMP-54R really is a special amp and for those 'lucky' owners, they will have found their end-game amplifier that will keep the musical experiences going – for ears and years. Best regards, Soo In
A few days later, "I have a quick update that we'll be 3D printing something like the attached to easily tighten the binding posts. My team confirms it's already working great."
