NVA AP20

My first AP20 was about 2002 used. Back in the 80s I had a few Pre/powers including a pair of mono blocks.All were very good but I never really rated the phono stages that highly, even with multiple plus. I also had an AP30:or 35 which was good too.

My AP20 was a metal cased one with very thin lacquered wires inside.

A reviewer once said they sounded simple and direct. I think that’s a good description. A tad bass light IMO but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As they are all the same circuit, I find you get 95% of what’s on offer from the budget kit, unless you have insensitive speakers,

It's been said a few times elsewhere that the smaller Amps have the magic so you might be in to something

Did you cancel your order for the A20 in the fire-sale Shane?

Ask macca if you want an honest description of the sound of a smaller NVA amp - just seen the above comment - it's not as heavily coloured as macca portrays but it certainly ain't squeaky-clean-clinical either. To me over dozens of examples, it's utterly charming, involving and musical, painting the music in broad strokes, Rudi would love the total lack of any harshness or 'HiFi' glare and you can listen through an NVA for hours with no listener fatigue whatsoever! I find the current issue larger amps build on the smaller models sonically, offering some real audiophile clarity to the musical reproduction of the base models - Savvy should be able to confirm this. HOWEVER, the larger ones must not currently be used by a numpty unless the recommendations on cables and so on are strictly followed. Not sure what cables macca used - Chord Odyssey would not be a good choice at all in my experience.

Another word of caution worth repeating as so many owners, especially of the larger amps, ignored this at their reliability peril. Until now, no instructions have ever been provided, the thoughts being that owners, once they 'find' NVA, know what's what and are intelligent and thoughtful enough to follow the guidelines about speaker cables and so on. Sadly this hasn't been the case and although the smaller amps are almost tolerant, the larger ones currently aren't although plans were afoot to improve this!

Anyway, you don't want to know or hear what I'm telling you, but I'd suggest that few previous owners of NVA ever complained about the product itself and that includes serial box-swappers like yourself Shane. I'm going back over ten years on AOS for this. The man himself was another matter obviously.

Same boards and output stage, so there shouldn't be any difference tonally. Not something I ever experienced at Sidcup when RD compared amps for me although I admit, the largest amps i ever had here were AP70's - my own larger home made amp uses AP70 size power supplies. My smaller one is configured as a dual-mono AP20 and this compresses in comparison, emphasising reverb and atmospheric effects as the A20 does a little (the magic 'everyone' loves including me).

Bi-amping always usually works well, regardless of amp maker.

What speaker cables were used?

I should add that in any description here, I’m the worst person to ask about whether anything is coloured, it’s not something I tend to value or am easily able to discern. I guess I don’t listen in that way, NVA has never sounded coloured to me, but then not much has,

If these differences are so audible, and using the same amp boards and output stage too, then any 'dullness' must be very easily measurable. I can't say more in any depth and currently it's academic. i would say though that the small amps compress like a Naim Nait mk1 used to. According to repeatable research the Beeb did decades ago, 'we' can tolerate up to 10db of compression before really noticing it and it's my view and experienced that really powerful gear does tend to sound 'dryer' than nicely clipping smaller amps and not always as 'nice' to start with. My two NVA home-builds tend to show this - the larger amp here sounded more like Maccas Krell in direct A-B comparison, but of course, a large NVA isn't a nice Krell, so the eyes would say it's nowhere near as good! The smaller amp delivers in a charming way that flatters the ears and that's how I find 'proper' production sounds as well, so I feel qualified to make the comments.

An AP20 is not 'placky cack' as described elsewhere. It can be a great amplifying 'companion' in a domestic music system and used as instructed, it should be very reliable.

Surprised you don't like LS5 westie. I find it very good here in 3m runs but then, I use LS2 successfully (mine is Ebion Kablo sourced) in the main system and in 8m runs too.

Man up, dude. What haters think is irrelevant. It's each to their own, anyway...we only have our own ears.

You could be right, but I’m puzzling over why the AP10 seemed unaffected. Maybe the bigger amps like complex crossovers even less. They are the only NVA electronics I haven’t liked, so something is unusual, especially when they all have the same circuit,

I’d already found stuff I liked better by that stage, so I just moved them on at £450 iirc. No complaints from the next owner, but then they did work, so I dunno if he got. A better result or not.

I know this shouldn't be posted in this section.

I'm possibly looking at maybe getting NVA 'Super Sound Cords' to use on my headphone system. Are the SSC shielded to reject hum etc?

Forgive my witless question here. Does the SSC have the potential to out perform interconnects costing in the £300-£350 region?

S.

No.  but I could send you a set to try if you want. I've got three pairs of ssc and I'm not using any of them. Only half a metre long though.

I’d expect there will be a few expensive ones it will beat, but that’s because a price is what somebody decides to charge. It’s not a reflection of material cost or sound quality. It’s a decent cable but I’d be DIYing it for peanuts rather than paying for the made up version.

I have way better cables (IMO) now, but that’s just my opinion and worth no more than anyone else’s. I dunno if a loaner is available, but you could always try Macca’s SSC against Spotfire. The latter was better in many ways for me, but it just lacked an extra sense of presence I got from SSC. In the end I got the Black Rhodium which did more than any other cable has.

I wouldn’t spend half my life fiddling with interconnects but I’m glad I had the last round of comparisons. Big losers were Klotz AC110 with Profi plugs and the white Isoda cable that Roksan like. It sounded like the throwaway ones you got given with cheap jap kit in the 80s. I quite liked the Audio Note AN-C but it wouldn’t compete with a top cable.