Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion What's New At Axiom A1400-8 Digital Amplifier Pics

With the A1400, you will win friends and influence people.

Okay, then. Maybe I should have started a new thread for all of this, but anyway, so far the biggest difference I've heard is in the Ben Folds and WASO Live In Perth DVD. I would try to turn it up to a respectable level in the past, where it would sound like I was at the performance, but the sound would always fall apart and sound compressed with the orchestra going. Now I can turn it up and turn it up, and it sounds great. It finally sounds pretty close to being there. I'm very happy.

We're all looking forward to a full review after you've had a chance to get comfortable with it. The review should include a description of your room size and furnishings (pics would be ideal), listening distance, equipment, channel settings, etc etc. Oh, and a statistical analysis of your A/B testing .

Also, which fuzzy slippers and Underoos you are wearing at the time. And what breakfast cereal you are eating. The crunchy stuff gets in the way of the A/B testing.

Good points, doc. After all, acoustical properties vary with the material.

Has anyone noticed the rolled-off frequency response from 8kHz upward on the FR curves of the A1400-8? The magnitude reaches to only about (-)0.6 to 0.7dB, but given the otherwise ruler-flat part of the FR, it stands out. Perhaps someone at Axiom could help us understand why this is so, how important it is, and why the FR curve is not flat throughout.

The only picture CV has shown us, the frontal shot, shows the black color to be less than impressive; it looks grainy and matte. We had heard that they reworked the mold for the cover to improve it cosmetically; I recall noticing small round depressions near 4 corners of the top cover (resembling attachment points of support feet for the under-surface) when Amie had posted pictures of a champagne unit. I would love to see more (updated and close-up) pictures of the amp from CV or Axiom.

John

Regarding the frequency response, a low pass filter at the output of the switching (power) stage strips the pulse width modulated carrier and leaves just the baseband audio signal. The low pass filter isn't perfect and hence attenuates the highs. Someone that has knowledge of class D amplifier design would recognize that, for the power and load driving capability, the A1400's performance is exceedingly excellent.

If I'm wrong, maybe someone at Axiom can correct me.

As far as the looks of the amp, I'm actually pretty impressed. The picture looks worse than it actually is, thanks to my horrible photography skills. I have been given permission to borrow my parents' camera this weekend, so I'll take a lot more pictures, hopefully with better lighting. It IS a matte black, and yes, those circles in the top cover are there, but I actually like it. Everyone has different opinions, but I'm happy with the look.

For the photos, just remember that on-camera flash is the enemy. Try to get some natural light from a window to illuminate the scene, and don't be afraid to get in close and use manual focus.