Some German precision engineering of just 1mm clearance then managed to locate Hyperion where my office layout prefers: beneath the curved monitor. It just took removing all three footers to clear the monitor's own, then sliding the front footers underneath the amp so they sat clear of the HP's base. From base to basics: no power on/off thumps, no mechanical or electrical hum, no clicks or switching transients during volume changes. Though its gold trim has it look rather posh—and the black cover paint sparkles like a certain Stephenie Meyer vampire when hit by sunlight—on functionality the amp is perfectly yeoman so extremely unfussy. First sonic impressions?
female vocals with string quartet | vocal trio | complex electronica | large-scale Cuban salsa band ¹
When non-heroic female vocals like Mrs.Goceva's bulge the sails with dynamic emphasis, we're ear to ear with a charged circuit. After all, a vocal trio isn't two double basses in pianissimo pizzicato which suddenly scale up to a 70-strong Brucknerian symphonic eruption. We'd expect dynamic range with smaller-scale music to be narrower; unless it's not. That only requires high recorded dynamic range; gain circuits that can amplify small signal voltage fluctuations into bigger ripples; then transducers which track them. Hyperion Ge + triple ribbons = high S/NR. It's exactly what Dragan had promised. I just needed personal confirmation. Check. The second obviousness was detail density. I'm not talking about a fakir's bed which needles our backside with a thousand pricks but something more like charisma. That's when a big room is occupied by just a few people to feel quite empty. Suddenly someone enters with an enormous aura which fires up the entire space with tacit presence. It's not sensory overload and discomfort as I imagine sitting on a bed of nails to be. It's fullness and density of a different sort. In both headphone and speaker drive, Hyperion had that.
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¹ Contrary to belief, recorded dynamic range isn't a function of perceived constant loudness, musical complexity or performer head count. In the above four examples, the small-scale ensembles with female vocals have the broadest dynamic range whilst the seemingly far 'louder' electronica track and salsa band have from very little to zero dynamic range. No matter how gifted the SAEQ amp is on the dynamic score, it can't squeeze blood from a stone. But give it a good recording like the two left ones and prepare for a rollercoaster ride.
With Raal 1995 triple-ribbon Immanis and its impedance-conversion transformer. Hyperion in direct mode, RCA in, high gain, volume at ~7-8.
The third obviousness of special personal appeal? Though decidedly not needling, this amplifier reproduces recorded treble intensity and transient incisiveness without adding foundation makeup. To me so-called smoothness and softness are too often makeup. It covers up energetic rawness to homogenize it. Not all music has that nearfield fire and vitality. But when it's there, I want to feel the friction, the urgency, the bite, the heat. Right off, Hyperion eliminated that personal pet peeve of beautifying makeup. At least in my experience eliminating that is not what tubes generally do. Au contraire. I thus wouldn't invoke such a tie-in. Regardless, being able to artfully walk the edge of recorded intensity without drawing blood is a rare trick which Hyperion clearly has in the bag. Is the Germanium action that very avoidance of getting ugly without defaulting to the usual soft focus? Having heard no other Ge amp nor being able to swap these parts with silicon equivalents, that's simply an open-ended question.
What it meant vis-à-vis the next 12wpc class A amp was an overall brighter more alive sound. The Soundaware P1x plays it darker. That's a very popular trend for upscale solid-state electronics. My own bias is for a sound that's bright all over so not an imbalanced forward treble but a consistent quality across the full bandwidth. It's what I hear with Kinki Studio's 2.5MHz DC-coupled class AB amplifiers. Enleum's AMP-23R is a bit sweeter but has its own take on it. Clearly this SAEQ belonged to the same 'fast' sound aesthetic. Recognizing this didn't take long. The evidence was perfectly self-validating. Apparently the designer's live-sound claims for this amp were to be taken at face value. With first impressions preserved in the forge of newness, this assignment now had to cure and mature. But I already knew that my AMP-23R faced fierce competition on functionality, price and most importantly, performance pedigree. When I accept review assignments, I rarely know what to expect. This one started as a complete blank. Yet it had quickly turned into a powerful alternative to my favourite headphone amp which doubles as speaker champ as long as those loads and the room they're in don't want more power. Was a reshuffle of my personal hierarchy in order? On the subject of competing functionality, the stapled pages of the owner's manual—still a bit declassé considering this league—explain that Hyperion can effortlessly power two headphones simultaneously. Even four might be possible contingent merely on load and loudness. The Enleum can't do that. Neither does it have XLR inputs nor an XLR4 output. But it counters with a fancy remote control and even slicker metal work. The SAEQ counters that with the practical Speak.|HPh. toggle which doesn't require unplugging the headphones to switch over to speaker listening; or vice versa. Also, Dragan's 0 volume position equals complete mute whilst Enleum's already makes very attenuated sound.
With Soundaware P1x amplifier. Innards of LessLoss Firewall for Headphones passive noise filter on monitor screen.
Dragan: "The output impedance is below 50 milliohms for headphones and speakers alike. Optimal speaker impedance is ~8Ω, sensitivity should be greater than 90dB though I've driven Thiel 3.6 at 85dB with a very severe impedance dip at 50Hz. This amplifier is very resilient to speaker impedances but in general I recommend 6Ω and above. On the underside of the amplifier are two 1A slow-blow fuses as simple current limiters. Higher speaker sensitivity reduces the likelihood of blowing a fuse." The Thiel mention recalls Dutch reviewer Christiaan Punter's surprise success on his Magico and Xavian speakers: "…there's nothing small about this mini amp's performance. It scales surprisingly well and easily fills the room with luscious sound. It won't reach party levels with the much less efficient Magicos [S1 MkII floorstanding 86dB 7" 2-way – Ed]… but still goes loud enough for my personal taste. When you do push the amp, it will simply start compressing dynamically, followed by a soft crushing of the peaks… So long as it's used within its limits, there's an immense sense of being directly coupled to the music but without the sound being square, edgy or hard. Unlike when they are paired with most tube amps, despite only having 11 watts at their disposal, the Magicos do not at all become sleepy or overly smooth. Rather, the sound is open, lively and beautifully expressive. It really is the antithesis of the stereotypical 'transistor' sound but nevertheless with impressive crispness and very fast transient behavior…".
For extreme dynamic range, try this 24/48 recording.
