User Feedback for Sophia Electric™ 845 Amplifier By Roy, California
Hello Richard and Sue,
As you may recall I bought a used Sophia Electric 845. I have been using it as the \xe2\x80\x98tweeter\xe2\x80\x99 amp (above 1200 hz) on my Dali Megalines (ribbon/cone hybrid) with very good results. The Sophia Electric 845 amp has been driving the ribbon and I have tried a few amps on the bass/MR cones: Canary reference Ones (pp 300B design) and more recently a pr of NAT Se3 Reference (PSE 845 design). I have been generally having very good sound but have not yet been completely satisfied with the Megalines and the mixing of amps through their active (solid state) crossover.
Two days ago, I tried something different - I put the Sophia on the lower (cone) section of the speakers and the NAT on the ribbons. The Megalines are rated at approx 90 db efficiency and run 3 \xc2\xbd to 6 ohm impedance. Well after adjusting the balance between the amps I was stunned!!! The Sophias give up a little in the bass in terms of power and damping to the NAT (which are very good in the bass) but the overall sound was now absolutely exquisite! I\xe2\x80\x99m still in a mild state of unbelief at how much more musical and realistic the Sophias sound when driving the cones (1200 Hz and below) than any of the other \xe2\x80\x98super\xe2\x80\x99 amps. I listened for 5 hrs straight yesterday and the sound just kept getting better (I think it took an hour of two for the Sophias to adjust to the new load and settle in). The entire sound field was incredibly transparent and open. The midrange was the best I\xe2\x80\x99ve heard in my house \xe2\x80\x93 ever.
Anyway the Sophia 845 amps are staying in the premier position for driving the midrange from now on! I am still not convinced I am going to keep the Megalines \xe2\x80\x93 which still bothers me to have an active crossover, especially a solid state one. But having said that I have not heard any other speakers I prefer \xe2\x80\x93 I am going to audition another speaker system soon as the manufacturer lives in the next town over. I guess we\xe2\x80\x99ll see.
If I do decide to keep the Megalines, I will almost certainly look to get a second pair of Sophia 845 amps. With that in mind I wanted to ask you how the newer 845 amps differ from mine?
Another question \xe2\x80\x93 I know some people have had new crossovers built for their Megalines using tubes instead of solid state. The crossover is not just filtering but also adding EQ in places and boosting the gain on the ribbons by several db. Would you be interested at all in possibly designing/building a custom tube based crossover for the Megalines? I am so impressed with your results on the Sophia 845 amps that I should think you could build a superior crossover circuit. Just a thought.
Thank you for this exceptional amplifier!
Sincerely,
Roy of Fallbrook,California