Axiom ADA1000 Power Amp $1390: 125×2 @ 8 ohms
250×2 @ 4 ohms, (5.25h, 17.75w, 16.75d, 44 lbs)
We have just received Axiom’s new ADA1000 power amp. It is built in Canada with a 5 year warranty- and it is SWEET!
Bryston and Axiom, two privately owned audio companies based in Canada, merged some years ago. ADA1000 is the first amp to be released under the Axiom banner as a result of this convergence.
ADA1000 has marvelous dynamics, air, and depicts a wide array of musical colors in its timbrel balance. It triples rated power on peaks and gives music a breathy ambiance that makes the far east imports sound… flat… or mundane.
Please drink that in for a moment.
ADA1000 is rated at 125×2, but will hit 375w peaks as music demands. Your traditionally built 200 w/ch Chinese amp has literally no headroom, and hits a brick wall, often well below its 200w rating. This helps explain why ADA1000 sounds more flowing and spacious than amps built on the other side of the globe in mass quantities.
What grabs me most about ADA1000’s performance through spacious speakers, like Brystons and Magnepans, is how it can separate instruments and purvey a wide, deep soundstage.
The presentation is more RELAXED and 3D than its main stream competitors- despite selling for the same money and being built in N America instead of China.
To get a deep dive on the nuts and bolts, please visit the Axiom yellow tab at the bottom of our home page.
Axiom ADA1000
ADA1000 is better than the imports because of the details. Oh, so many details!
Now, I’m well aware that many audiophiles think D amps can’t sound great. That prejudice has an understandable root, in that many early D amps, and indeed most D amps today, have cheap parts and switching power supplies. Basically, amps built like this are just the D chip on board, with the flimsiest power supply possible to make them work.
Axiom takes you well beyond this rudimentary level of design and build.
ADA1000 is the first of a new series of Axiom amps to eschew the cheapskate method of building D amps. Axiom benefits from the efficiency of D design, but constructs its amps with much superior architecture.
The problem with mass produced AB designs is that they use stifling switching power supplies and an array of miss matched output transistors, yielding a grainy, fatiguing sound.
ADA1000 uses a large, 1000 watt toroidal transformer. Toroidal transformers harness the magnetic field with their circular cores. EI transformers spew RFI all over the PCB which creates a more cloudy sound.
ADA1000 uses a linear power supply with a high value of filter capacitance, 60,000 uF. This gives Axiom great headroom. Similarly priced competitors use switching supplies and tiny amounts of filter capacitance. They literally have no headroom and QUASH dynamic musical contrasts.
ADA1000’s hardware is spread out. They don’t stuff caps against transformers, for example. The noise floor is dead quiet. The other guys often permeate a noise floor of hum/hiss. All musical details come through more clearly when there is no snow in the audio picture.
ADA1000 is typically purchased in a stereo, two channel configuration. Yet you can order it with more channels for custom applications.
While home theater is one such usage for more channels, don’t forget the bi-amp option Some incredible speakers like Brystons are built to accommodate bi-amping. Just run your preamp into a 4ch version of ADA1000 ($1650) and you’ll be shocked at how much more acceleration your speakers will have!
