YNWOAN
100% Analogue
A few weeks ago I received a (very) unexpected call from Les Wolstenholme, main man of Avondale Audio. Now in the interest of clarity I should make it clear that I have known Les, on and off, for something like twenty five years. However, in all that time I’ve only ever owned two Avondale products. The first was a chassis that allowed you to externalise the Naim phono boards from the pre-amp (Nac32.5 and 72) and power them from a separate power supply (I used a Naim Snaps modified for dual rail output). This worked very well but was eventually replaced by a quite different phonostage (non Avondale). The second was the TPR4 regulator module for my Naim Hi-Cap and I still use this. In the meantime I have tried a number of other Avondale designs and, without going into detail, I think it’s fair to say that, whilst beautifully made, they haven’t really aligned with my musical tastes/priorities.
The purpose of Les’ call was to ask if I would like to try a pair of Avondale Voyager power amps, these fitted with Avondale’s latest NCC300 amplifier boards. Now I’m always interested in furthering my audio knowledge and experience so the opportunity to hear a pair of Voyager amps was a ‘no brainer’, as they say. However, as I drove to pick up said amps I must admit I did feel an element of trepidation. The reason for this doubt was that this wasn’t to be my first loan of Voyager amps. A few years ago I had also been loaned a pair and, rather awkwardly, they weren’t to my taste at all - or perhaps they were just too different to my resident Naim Nap135’s. So, given that I wasn’t wild about the previous incarnation why might I like these new (freshly built) ones? Well these new ones used a newer generation of the Avondale circuit (the NCC300) and also, in the intervening years, my system has developed and moved on a bit (it’s not radically different, I don’t go in for wholesale abandoning of components for something entirely different).
Arriving at ‘Avondale Towers’ I quickly caught up with Les and he showed me the inside of one of the Voyagers. As I expected it was very neatly made indeed - not just in terms of the wiring but also the manufacture of the circuit boards - there is nothing DIY or cottage industry about the gear that Avondale make. In the case of the Voyager the front and back ends of the amplifier each have their own power supply, their own transformers and their own banks of reservoir capacitors. In addition, there is a soft-start module and a clever, non invasive, protection circuit that, should a fault occur, save both the amp and the speakers. The whole lot is housed in a large aluminium case and, as can be seen from the picture, the end result is appreciably bigger than my pair of Nap135’s. These amps are no lightweights either and it was with some huffing and puffing that I carried them the three floors to my listening room. My hi-fi racking is modular and, as luck would have it, I happened to have a spare level so that was quickly pressed into use and the Voyager’s were plonked on top.
Actually wiring up the Voyager’s was simplicity itself. Les had loaned me an appropriately terminated Flashback cable which I used to connect my pre-amp to the power amps and all I had to do then was wrestle a bit with my, unfeasibly heavy duty, speaker cable until it too was securely connected. In use there is an on/off switch on the rear which is next to the IEC mains input. There is also a small green LED on the front panel and that’s it. If you really want an on/off switch on the front panel I’m sure Les can accommodate that (though I didn’t actually ask him).
So now let us turn ourselves to the sound - how did the Voyager’s perform? Before we can proceed I need to explain a wrinkle that is related to my system changes I alluded to earlier. This is that my speakers (modified Yamaha NS-1000Ms) are now run semi-active. In other words, the bass drivers are run from their own power amps that also include a digital crossover that handles the crossover to the mid drivers and also includes correction for a couple of room modes). As such, the Nap135’s, that the Voyager’s replaced, only drive the mid and tweeter units through a passive crossover. Hence the ‘semi-active’ term refers to the use of both active and passive crossover elements combined within the same speaker. I could have configured the system so that the Voyager’s ran the speakers full range but this would have required a lot of messing about and a bit of crossover surgery - so I didn’t.
As I wrote before, I plugged in the amps, flicked the mains switch and the front LED glowed - music poured fourth. What there wasn’t was any hum, but there was vanishingly low levels of hiss and no usage issues of any kind - fit and forget. My first impression of the sound was how rhythmically coherent it was - really strikingly so in fact. You couldn’t just pick out individual instruments, it was also very easy to hear precisely the tune each instrument was playing. When I say this I’m talking about complex studio mixes and not simple, minimally miked, recordings. Presumably because of low distortion levels dynamic contrast was really very good and sounds sprang from an apparently absolute silent background. In direct comparison to my 135 amps I would say there was a smidge more detail from the Voyager’s with a similar level of improvement in tonal density. Being monoblocks both sets of amps had really good separation and both produced solid images with clearly specific localisation of individual instruments that didn’t wander with frequency (Naim Olive amps are often accused of poor stereo imagery but this isn’t true of their power amps and their pre-amps can be modified to great effect). The one area one could argue that the 135’s had the edge was in the aspect of..... edge (see what I did there
). That is to say that the Naim amps had more of a sense of attack as a note was struck. Whether this is a real or artificial aspect is another matter. Perhaps it’s worth noting that Naim’s current power amps, like the Nap300, have a different sonic signature to the Olive and Chrome Bumper amps of yesteryear (mine are early Olive vintage). Current Naim amps have lost this quality of ‘edge’ and are now a more ‘relaxed’ listen - more so than the Voyager’s which, I feel, successfully balance immediacy with neutrality.In conclusion, I think it’s fair to say I was impressed by this second opportunity to listen to the Avondale Audio Voyager power amps. These amplifiers are not budget items and I believe they are around £5,000.00 a pair; but, when partnered with a suitable pre-amp and associated equipment of similar quality, they can produce remarkably solid and smooth sound that shines with a wealth of detail and texture and all held together with a rhythmic certainty rarely encountered.
Some will be surprised to read that I was not asked to write this report and when I mentioned to Les that I may well do he shrugged and said “okay, well that’s up to you” (or words to that effect) - so I think it’s fair to say he didn’t try to influence its content and hasn’t been shown a copy. In addition, I have received no payment or reward and have no link with Avondale Audio.
Last edited:
