My main reason for buying a Green Solo amp is the poor headphone
output on the NAD amplifier. I was almost tempted to buy a cheaper
alternative, such as the Little Dot III, but in the end decided to go
for what could be the best possible sound at a fairly modest price.
The equipment here is:
NAD C521 BEE CD Player
NAD C350 integrated
amplifier
Sonus wireless music
system + subscription to Napster (great for checking out albums
before buying CDs)
Sonic Link Red
interconnects
Sennheiser HD 555
headphones. I also have a pair of HD 565 Ovation phones. These are a
lot better than the 555's but are out of action due to a broken
cable. A replacement is on its way.
Buying a Green Solo ain't
easy. If you want to buy say, an Arcam amplifier, you'll trundle down
to your local hi-fi showroom, have a listen to it and then take it
home. You can also order it online and wait a day or two for
delivery.
For a start, I couldn't find any word of the Green
Solo on Graham Slee's website. I only found out
about it by reading posts on the http://rockgrotto.proboards39.com/index.cgi?board=149 - Rock Grotto forum . It turned out
that the Green Solo was being offered at a discount because it was
the company's new 2008 model built under the guidance of European
Community directive 2084C, page 5523, paragraph 34, subsection 10c
(or some other Euro claptrap).
Because it has a new
design, Graham Slee offers this new amp at a reduced price and asks
if you would tell him what you think of it. Hence this review.
I therefore rang the
company and spoke to a man who was very chatty and enthusiastic about
the new amplifier.
"It's yours for 297
quid, including postage", he said. "Just send an email with
your details and we'll send you a PayPal invoice and we'll get the
thing built for you. It should take about a week."
The PayPal invoice duly
arrived and was paid using a credit card (you don't need a PayPal
account to complete the transaction).
If there's one thing that
needs to be fixed, it's the ordering process. There was no
acknowledgment of the payment and no email to say it had been
dispatched. The amp arrived out of the blue exactly two weeks later.
Chaps, if you could give a reasonable estimation of the dispatch date
and then email the customer if it changes, this would be good. On the
other hand, the friendly and responsive nature of your company is to
be admired.
THE PACKAGING
Excellent. Lots of
padding. Very secure. There's no way the amp can move around inside
the box whilst in transit.
THE AMP'S APPEARANCE
About the size of a small
paperback book. Looks a quality item and is well built. It looks
identical to the regular Solo. Only a sticker underneath reveals it
to be the Green version.
THE SOUND
The instructions state the
amp's sound will improve over several days and at first it may be "slightly bright with reduced bass output". Therefore, I
wasn't expecting too much to start with.
The first thing that was
evident was the lack of noise. When it's switched on and no CD is
being played, it's almost silent. Only the faintest hiss can be heard
when the dial was past four o'clock. In comparison, my NAD amplifier
headphone output noise level is similar to a pit of rattle snakes.
Angry ones at that.
Another revelation was the
volume. Crank it up and the sound doesn't distort; it simply becomes
louder. I found the Senns 555 phones gave a realistic volume with
the dial at ten or eleven o'clock.
On the first day, I
listened to about ten albums – mostly rock & indie stuff –
sampling two or three tracks from each one. The bass was deep and
only slightly flabby. Treble was somewhat harsh. Midrange was fine –
vocals, piano and saxophone sounding especially good. The best bit,
though, was the sound stage. It was wide and incredibly precise.
Fast forward to a week
later and the amp sounds even better. The shrill treble has been
tamed and the bass has tightened up. The sound stage is about the
same (impeccable).
I have listened to a ton
of music. This little amplifier has caused a wholesale reappraisal of
my music collection. Some CDs never used to get much play because I
thought they were poorly recorded. With the Solo, the superb stereo
separation transforms them into gems. For example, The Velvet
Underground aren't famous for leaving behind a legacy of hi-fi
recordings. Their album 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' is a
masterpiece of 1960's hiss and distortion. Despite the sonic
shortcomings, however, the Solo separates everything in a way that
allows the music shine through.
Even some tracks that
previously made me puke have been enjoyed. For instance, my wife
likes dance music. One track I particularly despised was “Baby
Cakes” by 3 of a Kind. If enough people played this, I'm sure it
would invoke the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Nevertheless, the
Slee amplifier & NAD CD spinner served up a performance close to
what I'd imagine the sound engineer heard when the song was mastered.
This past week, I have
listened to many vintage CDs. Be they Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, or
even ancient Roy Orbison tracks, it's no longer tiresome to listen to
older recordings.
Talking of dodgy
recordings, I have a number of MP3s on CD which have been downloaded
from Napster. These ain't exactly high end audio and are probably
only 192kbps or less. Now I was expecting the Solo to reveal these
tracks as the pile of trash that would be expected. However, the bass
has plenty of meat to it, the treble is a only a bit compressed, and
the sound stage is a tad more narrow. Clearly, the overall sound is
of lower quality than a regular CD, but the focus of the sound stage
is quite superb. I now understand why Ipod fans are raving about
Graham Slee's Voyager amp: It's clear that MP3's do sound a lot
better with good amplification.
Therefore, after a week's
use, I'm VERY impressed. My wife isn't. I've listened to so much
music that she mentioned the words “pig”, “selfish”,
“amplifier”, “wheelie bin”, and “divorce” in several
outbursts. A trip to the local perfume shop has sorted her out for
the moment, but it cost £50!
The sound of this amp may
well change over the next week or two. The superb Sennheiser 565's
will be brought back into action when the replacement cable arrives.
If anyone's interested, I'll update this soon.
That's no power amplifier to the right of the Graham Slee Green Solo. It's the perfume I had to buy the missus. Below are the Sennheiser HD 555's and Sonos wireless music streamer.
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