[Peregrino]

hello everyone! Was wondering if anyone has tried out Nelson Pass's amp camp amp with any gr research gear? Since I might take the plunge soon on one or more of Dannie's speakers, I might as well build the amp too 😊
Most of Gr research's gear isn't particularly sensitive, but I was thinking of buying 2 amps to go monoblocking ©
I've heard good things about them, especially from The Audiophiliac, and since I'm not going to go all rock concert on them it might be ok with just 15W pr channel.
If you do have them, what pre-amp do you use?

Thx to all in advance,

Peregrino

[mkrawcz]

I built a pair last year and put premium caps in them which improved them some more. Running them as bridged monoblocks is a must, the sound quality is a big step up. For the money, they sound decent and it's a fun project. I found that they sound nice with the XLS Encores. They are almost tube like. I would not recommend them for the NX series speakers. I tried hard to like them with those speakers, but they just don't cut it for me. Perhaps its the damping factor of 10 and the low current. I think with a good preamp, the Icepower asc200/ac200 class D amps sound better with the NX series speakers for half the price of a pair of ACAs.

[Rock Ball]

I built the ACA 1.8 amp a few months ago, right after I built my NX-Tremes and Triple 12" H-frame servo OB subs.  It was my first DIY amp project and was a lot of fun.  I did not upgrade any parts and I only built one.  I was using a Denon AVR-X6200W AVR rated at 140W/ch.  The ACA was not as clear and powerful, but it had a midrange tone that I really liked better than the Denon.  It played surprisingly loud on the NX-Tremes.

I think what @mkrawcz said is accurate.  If I had to do it all over again, I would build two the way he did.

However, I built a 300B SET amp after the ACA and am using that now, so I don't have a need to upgrade my ACA.  I will find a use for it eventually.

[Peregrino]

thx a lot for the response guys, it helped a lot 😊

[Stephen Scharf]

hello everyone! Was wondering if anyone has tried out Nelson Pass's amp camp amp with any gr research gear? Since I might take the plunge soon on one or more of Dannie's speakers, I might as well build the amp too 😊
Most of Gr research's gear isn't particularly sensitive, but I was thinking of buying 2 amps to go monoblocking ©
I've heard good things about them, especially from The Audiophiliac, and since I'm not going to go all rock concert on them it might be ok with just 15W pr channel.
If you do have them, what pre-amp do you use?

Thx to all in advance,

Peregrino

That was exactly my plan when I bought my and built up my ACAs; to use them with my XL-S Encores. I built two and plan to run them as bridged monoblocks. I also built them using the premium parts that was convered in the Premium Parts thread for the ACA at DIYAudio forum.

Here are some pics...

(apologies to Danny in advance for going slightly off-topic).







Here are the two amps on the right middle shelf.


I'll  be using them with my First Sound Presence Deluxe 4.0 MKIII-Si tube preamp, which is crafted by Emmanuel Go of First Sound.


The First Sound is a fully dual mono preamp, effectively two mono preamps in a single, copper-plated chassis.


It also has dual mono external power supplies to keep the noise from the PS away from the preamp circuits. This preamp has >290,000 uF of power supply capacitance.

[Stephen Scharf]

The ACAs as bridged monos are very nice, very musical. They are pretty amazing for $654 all-in as monoblocks. Where they are let down a bit is they don't have the top end air, extension, and spaciousness that a better amp has as they use laptop power supplies. If you used them with good linear power supplies, I would predit they would sound really quite good.