I recently purchased a pair of Khartago Mono Amps from Audiogon. I have attached a photo of the interior of the units. They appear to be highly customized units with the addition of very large blue capacitors, a black motherboard which I was told is used in your top model, different transformer, etc.
These mono amps replaced a BADA MK 100MKII amp that I have been using for a number of years. This is a heavily built stereo amplifier with good build quality but purchased for well under $1000.
After visiting with Klaus at the Capital Audio Show earlier this year, I had set my sights on owning a pair of Odyssey mono block amplifiers. I caught an ad on Audiogon for a pair of Modified Khartago mono blocks and purchased them.
This is where it all went south. I am writing this email due to the concern over the Khartago mono amps performance.
My system:
• Speakers - Magnepan 1.7s - Was using Def Tech Mythos STS as subwoofers but just sold them (I know this sounds crazy but had a pair, needed some bass reinforcement and hooked them up. They worked decently adding additional weight to the Magnepans). I will be ordering a Rythmik F12 soon.
• Preamp - Nuforce AVP-18 (an all-digital front end AV DAC and preamp) amazing sound for the price
• Cables – Mostly Wireworld Series 7 - Silver Starlight 7 Coax Digital, Equinox 7 RCA analogue cables from preamp to amp, and Electa 7 power cord powering one of the two mono amps with a matching cable on order. Every addition of the Wireworld cables has made a dramatic improvement in the system. I use Morrow SP5 Reference speaker cables.
• Music Server - Netgear EVA9150 music server feeding the digital output to the Nuforce AVP-18 AV DAC/Pre. This incredibly inexpensive music server blows away my PC Music Server in sound quality and ease of use.
With the recent addition of the Wireworld cables and using the BADA MK 100MKII amp, I was getting amazing micro detail in the music. I have a large collection of Guitar music, mostly classical and acoustic, where it was incredibly easy to get a sense of the recording venue and differences in guitars on the different CDs. It was musical detail that provides a sense of size and space for each instrument playing. For example, I play a lot of Mozart concertos, quartets, etc. and was able to easily differentiate the instruments in space and hear the interplay between instruments.
All of that is gone once I replaced the BADA amplifier with the two Khartago mono blocks. The spacing around instruments and the feeling of depth has actually shrunk a bit, the micro detail is gone, what I left is a bit homogenized sound that doesn’t sound bad, but it lifeless. There is little sense of acoustic space around the instruments.
The Odyssey amps did begin to sound a little better but not up to the level I had previously. I had heard that mono amps should help increase the soundstage but the opposite was the case. Previously with some recordings, the soundstage would extend beyond the speakers. Now the sound stage is constricted in width and depth, best guess is that it has constricted by 1/3rd the amount I had previously. Imaging detail is a little softer and more diffuse than what I had previously.
To the casual listener, it sounds nice, polite but has lost the involvement that the BADA amp provided.
I did research on the amplifiers and saw a lot of discussion about long break in times. I don’t know how much the previous owner has played the units but he says that they are less than 6 months old. Still, I would have thought that they would be broken in by now. I have left them on 24/7 for about 3 weeks so far and play music about 12 hours a day through the amps to help break them in.
Breaking in – Questions and comments
• Units have been plugged directly into the wall outlet (using Hospital grade wall plugs). Correct Y/N ?
• Units have been left on for about three weeks, so far. Remember these were purchased used from an owner that I assume has played the units for some time.
• Music plays through them most of the day but off at night. Amplifiers, however, remain powered up.
• I can’t play them loudly for hours at a time. Can the amps be fed a signal without the speakers being hooked up? If so, I could run them at a higher power level for hours at a time.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I just want to know if I will ever get the micro details, large hall ambiance and sense of live performers in the room that I was getting with my previous, much less expensive amplifier and, if so, what steps can I take to speed up the break-in process to achieve those results.
