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EWA pfm tour: ABCaudio demo kit

I received Colins Claymore Integrated from @ABCaudio on Friday, and had it on over the weekend.

As you know, I am fairly critical and honest from my review of the EWA LS40’s, and the truth is, I love this thing. It’s such a cracker.

It has the smoothness of a valve amplifier, with the quietness and precision of a solid state. It pairs lovely with my Naim ND5XS2 and Q Acoustics Concept 300’s and provides a detailed, warm, absorbing and smooth sound – everything is *there* but portrayed in such a natural way, it’s truly addicting.

It really excels in portraying lifelike voices with texture and details that render them extremely life like and natural. Listening to John Smiths ‘The Fray’ and ‘Great Lakes’ is an absolute treat of calm, subtlety but engagement and pleasantry. There is a tiny little bit of sibilance but it's barely noticeable. Drum work is extremely life like, and dare I say it renders the lower treble area of the snare drums nicer and more natural than my Prima Luna at four times the price! Switching to Jason Isbell’s ‘Reunions’, it really manages the tempo and dynamics of some of the quicker tracks. Its timing is impeccable., and it leaves you enjoying each riff and set of harmonics while be exciting for the next change and hearing how it does that. It can however occasionally get a little ‘snappy’ and on the edge of coping with with very heavy tracks with lots going on which leaves you reaching for the remote to knock it down a notch…but wait..I couldn’t find the remote.

There is very little blurring of instruments which I often find with amplifiers at this price, normally for me they sound too critical and over egged, or too dull, boring and uninspiring. The Claymore is anything but. It has the detail, instrument separation and the retains natural warmth. It exceeds its price tag quite easily.

Being honest, it’s not going to rumble your house with a large explosive powerful sound and I found the bass a little faint at times – I knew the bass riff and rumble was there but it was a little too polite and didn’t hit me in my stomach. The cymbals didn’t crash into my hypothalamus disturbing my amygdala like a shot of top shelf absinthe. This however does lead to an un-stressful listening experience though - no exhaustion or feeling like your nervous system has been rattled with stimulation. It’s just, natural, dynamic and enjoyable and simple. Fatigue free sound. It has balance. And balance is probably the most important thing in our universe.

This is one amplifier I would probably purchase if I was downsizing. Sadly, it’s a deal breaker for me not to have a remote. Having to get up to adjust the volume just seems rather silly when in a world where I can adjust the volume on my tv from a different country! If you however have your rack right next to you or don’t mind the get up to adjust, then this amplifier would be a no brainer at the price. But in my opinion, it needs a basic remote to gain more appeal.

It’s been about six years since I have owned an amplifier of this price range, and I remember being completely bemused by the offerings at the time forcing me onto the upgrade ladder. And I tried a LOT ranging from £500 to £5000. If I compare this to say the Pathos Classic Remix (£2700) which I had for a while, while it can’t compete on looks, it kicks the backside of the Italian in sound production easily.

If this amplifier had arrived to me at that stage, it would have put my faith back into more budget units, and I may not have even searched for better. it’s just so, satisfying. Its harmony with the Naim and Concepts is spot on.

Big thumbs up to @CJ14 on this one! Im gonna have it on for a few more days and enjoy it a little more before sending it on though. Next person will just have to wait. Sorry. :)





Hello flutteringwo,
Have you prove the phonostage?
 
The M-50 arrived last week in Hecky with the box of EWA cables (see earlier for my cable impressions). As I already owned the LS-80 cables, I was able to get the full EWA experience. The test system was as follows: Mac mini M1, Denafrips Hermes DDC, Holo May DAC, Goldpoint SA2 volume control, M-50, ATC SCM19. Also on hand were my Sugden ANV50 integrated and PMC 25.23 speakers, and thanks to a visiting friend, a DIY Purifi amp and Chord TT2 DAC. A deluge of new stuff to compare!

In the end it was not hard to hear the contribution of the M-50 in this system. Tones and timbres just became even more natural and unforced. Often when a component does this you have to add "with the right speakers", "with the right genre of music" etc. But not with the M-50. All the dynamics, timing and control were fully present too. It's capable of intoxicating beauty without ever sounding polite. It's a great match with the Holo May (both get hot, too ;-)), All in all, and with all the cables, the best sound I've ever heard in my living room.

The M-50 also best showed up differences between some of the other components, a sure sign of true resolution rather than just added pleasing harmonic distortion.

Before hearing the M-50 I was not in the market for a power amp. Well, that has changed now ;-) Just need to figure some other things out first (pre, ATC actives / other speakers, rack space, total budget etc.)...

Thanks again @CJ14 and @ABCaudio -- lucky to know you guys! It's like knowing a big time dealer who will share their personal stash of pure unadulterated stuff before it gets cut for mass consumption. Very few people will ever realise what they are missing ;-)
 
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It's a great match with the Holo May (both get hot, too ;-))
great write up, thanks.

How much heat would you say this dumps in normal use? This is a consideration for me, my audio basement can get warm if there are many people in the room or if any piece of kit puts out a lot of heat (e.g. my jvc projector outputs about 150 or 200W which gets the room toasty after a few hours).
 
great write up, thanks.

How much heat would you say this dumps in normal use? This is a consideration for me, my audio basement can get warm if there are many people in the room or if any piece of kit puts out a lot of heat (e.g. my jvc projector outputs about 150 or 200W which gets the room toasty after a few hours).

It's a 3/4 width case which stays cool enough to keep your hand on, but I'd still call it hot rather than warm. Not an issue for me, although I was a little surprised — I've read other comments that say the amp gets barely warm.
 
It's a 3/4 width case which stays cool enough to keep your hand on, but I'd still call it hot rather than warm. Not an issue for me, although I was a little surprised — I've read other comments that say the amp gets barely warm.
I wouldn't know mine was even on as there is virtually no heat given off.
I have to agree totally with your description of how the amp 'sounds'
 
The M-50 arrived last week in Hecky with the box of EWA cables (see earlier for my cable impressions). As I already owned the LS-80 cables, I was able to get the full EWA experience. The test system was as follows: Mac mini M1, Denafrips Hermes DDC, Holo May DAC, Goldpoint SA2 volume control, M-50, ATC SCM19. Also on hand were my Sugden ANV50 integrated and PMC 25.23 speakers, and thanks to a visiting friend, a DIY Purifi amp and Chord TT2 DAC. A deluge of new stuff to compare!

In the end it was not hard to hear the contribution of the M-50 in this system. Tones and timbres just became even more natural and unforced. Often when a component does this you have to add "with the right speakers", "with the right genre of music" etc. But not with the M-50. All the dynamics, timing and control were fully present too. It's capable of intoxicating beauty without ever sounding polite. It's a great match with the Holo May (both get hot, too ;-)), All in all, and with all the cables, the best sound I've ever heard in my living room.

The M-50 also best showed up differences between some of the other components, a sure sign of true resolution rather than just added pleasing harmonic distortion.

Before hearing the M-50 I was not in the market for a power amp. Well, that has changed now ;-) Just need to figure some other things out first (pre, ATC actives / other speakers, rack space, total budget etc.)...

Thanks again @CJ14 and @ABCaudio -- lucky to know you guys! It's like knowing a big time dealer who will share their personal stash of pure unadulterated stuff before it gets cut for mass consumption. Very few people will ever realise what they are missing ;-)

The heat will depend on load and if the neighbour complain about noise levels.
The twin temperature sensors on each channel monitor the case (base plate and the air above the power transistors. Is not complex but it should :-
1) stop the amp getting above 50C by re-biasing.
2) allow the working temp below 30C to rise to 25C quickly. (Bias control again so amp comes on song quickly) I cheated see
3) so each channel have this independent from each other so one side of the chassis may be hotter than the other depending on cooling ambient temperature and internal temperatures.


Just a short note
in cold conditions the amp stay longer in A Class as the bias current is turn up.
 
It was my turn for the box of cable goodies, so I've just spent a rather nice long week-end with the cables. As an added bonus, it was mostly wet outside !

Getting behind the rack to swap out the cables is a bit of a pain, so I didn't go in for any swapping around. The relevant bits of kit are: Primare BD32 universal disc player -> Primare Pre32 -> Primare A60 power amp -> ESL63 speakers. The mains is distributed by a Pure AV P40, and the electronics have aftermarket mains cables, but nothing exotic (the power amp has a cable from TCI (True Colour Industries), which came with an amp I bought). The disc player and pre->power are connected with second-hand TQ Ultra Black XLR cables. The speaker cable is EWA40.

I started with the mains cable on the power amp. There were no night and day shocks, but overall the sound seemed different: more relaxed, sweeter. Some sharpness in the treble seemed to have gone. Putting the XLRs between the pre and the power amp added a little to the same effect.

Yesterday I had a really good session, and without analysing much, I realised that I was simply really enjoying myself. The sound was smooth, plenty of detail, ambience and tonal character. Lyrics were easily followable.

The box is on its way to Rajive, and listening with my own cables back in place, everything's fine, but a little sharp, as if someone's overdone the picture processing. The EWA cables offer a subtle, but worthwhile effect; the system just seemed to sing.

I wasn't able to try the RCA and USB cables.

Now, if Alan wants to pm me a pfm offer, I'm receptive ! :)
 
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The box is on its way to Rajive, and listening with my own cables back in place, everything's fine, but a little sharp, as if someone's overdone the picture processing
Looking forward to it. Since my time with the LS-40 I have made a few changes to the system that has brought out more detail and layers in the music. So hopefully with the increased resolution I will be in a better place to evaluate the various.

Your remark about the differences is interesting. Clearly a change but is it necessarily better or more "correct" (i.e. as the production / mastering engineer intended)?
 
Just to add a little to my earlier post regarding the LS80s; these cables continued to impress as the system settled down. The cables had the effect of making the amp seem to be more powerful, delivering more poise and control to the speakers.

The LS80s released more detail from the music without being in any way fatiguing - sometimes this was a little disorientating though as some familiar tracks appeared to be markedly different.

Layers of detail were present that I hadn't previously been aware of- qualities of the recording venue were more evident, overdubs that I may only have been subliminally aware of hearing before appeared to pop from the mix, distinct in quality from the main recording.

Poor recordings were revealed as such (and unfortunately my Auralic Aries Mini's inbuilt DAC revealed its limitations), good quality recordings however, were rendered incredibly palpably, projecting the emotional content whilst delivering additional nuance and impact. There are some records that I have returned to because I've never quite resolved them in my mind - Supersilent - '6' (Rune Grammophon) is one such record: with the LS80s I was able to hear deeply enough for the music to begin to make sense, the micro-details and textures that drive much of this improvised record were now revealed from the murk- sounds became distinct and took on texture and tone and drum impacts were enough on one occasion to make me jump out of my skin -i think i found myself listening with the volume turned up just a little further as subjectively the amps didn't seem to be as loud- perhaps due to the lower noise floor? dunno...)

To summarise then, great cables, very even handed and revealing without being overly analytical. Bettered my WitchHat Phantoms in most areas I would say (if we exclude price and compactness from the equation- these are fairly hefty cables)

I've loved my time with these and would heartily recommend these if your partnering equipment is up to it- certainly worth an audition for any PFMer I'd say- the difference from my normal cables were more than I'd anticipated and build upon the strengths of the LS40s.

Thanks again to Colin and Alan at @ABCaudio for the opportunity to try these- can you let me know who is next on the list?
 
Thanks again to Colin and Alan at @ABCaudio for the opportunity to try these- can you let me know who is next on the list?

For the benefit of anyone who's new to the tour concept, the list of participants is at the start of this thread. When you receive the gear, you contact (PM) the next person on the list and arrange shipping when you finish your audition. When you have shipped the cables, post on the thread and/or PM Alan so that everyone knows where the gear is.
 


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