Stereophile: Channel Island's New D•400 Power Amp

Jon Iverson already posted a picture of Channel Island's D•400 amp ($4000/pair) and PCC•1 remote control passive preamp ($895), but he didn't mention how freaking powerful the combo sounded driving the Von Schweikert VR-5 ($18,000/pair). CIA's Dusty Vawter switched over to his also powerful-sounding D•200s and handed me a D•400—holy moly! The thing weighs a ton! The 0.25" side panels are all heatsink, which made me wonder, has Vawter produced a class-AB amp to join his class-D designs?

"Oh no," Vawter hastened to assume me, "this is our version of class-D, which means it has a stinking humongous linear power supply running the amp circuit. That puts out some heat."

Well, all right. That's good to know.

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Reader Comments

Posted Tue Jun 6, 2006, 9:30 PM — By Jason Victor Serinus

Albert Von Schweikert�s justly praised VR-5 speakers were producing very immediate, transparent sound with a Sony NS3100ES CD player, Channel Islands VDA-2 DAC ($599) with optional VAC-1 power supply upgrade ($159), D•200 monoblocks ($2299/pair), due in August, PLC-1 remote control passive preamp ($895), and Harmonic Technologies Pro11 speaker cables, Magic interconnect, and Magic digital interconnect (under $2000 total). With the amazing Marigo Signature 3-D mat ($200) used in the Sony, this system produced some very fine sound, I thought.

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