Flying Moles

[ditton]

a pair arrived for home demo this evening. will see how they sing in main system before testing them again in AV set-up.

anyone with experience of these very small creatures? quite light too. 100W into 8, 160 into 4.

 

[lordsummit]

Are they refugees from the Bupa advert then?

 

[ditton]

not sure, I get all my illlnesses on the NHS.

http://www.flyingmole.co.jp/en/products/dadm100pro/index.html

 

[ditton]

quick report:

not able to play loud, but Miles Davis Sextet was very seductive ...

 

[Tenson]

PMC have put these in a few of their active speakers now. So far only the small ones, but we will see what happens. Surprising considering the relationship/synergy they have with Bryston already.

 

[daytona]

seriously cool. tiny, v.powerful and dynamic but not the last word in delicacy and refinement. they are real party animals and fabulous fun. the lack of delicacy may have something to do with them never being designed for the hifi industry where precision components are the norm and have often been chosen by ear. PMC are looking into a version where this is the case.
as such we have stuck to using them in AV systems where five from a processor is just amazingly good!
they can also be sat next to the speakers...which is nice.

 

[ditton]

The Moles have just fled the nest, and very enjoyable they were too.

I tried them in 4 ways:

1) on their own driving the JM Lab Electra 905s: 2 x 100w
2) bi-amping with my AudioLab 8000S: 60w x 2 on HF; 100w x 2 on LF
3) bi-amping with my AudioLab 8000S: 60w x 2 on LF; 100w x 2 on HF
and
4) as part of AV set-up driving the Gallo A'Diva & Micros

In (1) they were better than the 8000S with more grip and revealing some greater bass

In (2) this was much better still, with much more at top, mid and bottom. A full open sound

In (3) the extra bass was less evident, but the top and mid were more integrated

Net result was me wanting to have 4 x Moles to have complete bi-amp.

They had no colouration and were very engaging. There was no lack of delicacy, because the AS Dax Decade (withBG) and modded Transcend (with Ncode) already delivers that. There was just the fun.

Conclusion. If I cant find a poweramp to love, I'm going to ask the Moles to move in with me.

 

[I-S]

I'm a bit wary of the digital amps at present

 

[ditton]

Well, I was! But now, I'm not.

I did not understand what was digital about these amps. I remain a little baffled, but there are moments when having just read some blurb, that I feel as tho I am without bafflement ..

Anyway, I liked what I heard, and now strut about, no longer wary and seemingly unbaffled.

 

[I-S]

The term "digital" is poor terminology when applied to class D amplification.

There are two distinct types of class D amplifier. The analogue class D, which performs a comparator function upon an analogue input compared to a triangle wave, usually around 400kHz to switch the outputs, which are then low-pass filtered. This includes the LC Zap pulse modules like michaelab has, the flying mole, tripath chipsets and Zetex ZXCD among other modulator chipsets.

The digital class D, such as sony S-master, D2Audio, Apogee DDX, Texas Instruments and Zetex ZXCW take a digital input and convert this directly to PWM (pulse width modulation), which drives the output, again low-pass filtered. Switching frequencies range from 384kHz (D2, Apogee, TI), to 1/2MHz (ZXCW) to 2.8MHz (S-master).

The latter group are arguably Digital Amplifiers. The former group are more accurately described as switching amplifiers. Both groups fall under the remit of Class D (with trade names such as Class T used to try to differentiate products).