Du kan lese mer om denne forsterkeren her: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/diya...ab-honey-badger-class-ab-power-amp-pair.htmln
Vi snakker om en klasse AB forsterker på 150W/8ohm og 240W/4ohm. Forsterkeren er bygd inn i et tidligere Jungson chassis. Jongsons store nettrafo er beholdt. Meget stor og tung, men jeg har dessverre ingen VA data på denne unntatt utgangsspenning. Regner ikke med mangel på strømkapasitet i forsterkeren.
Pga vekt og dårlig erfaring med posten, må alternativ frakt ordnes. Jeg er behjelpelig med frakt om kjøper bor i rimelig nærhet til meg. Strømforsyningen er noe endret fra det vedlagte bildet. De åtte kondensatorene på bildet er byttet ut med fire nye 25.000 uF dvs. at ladekapasiteten totalt er på 100.000 uF.
Forsterkeren vil nok være ukjent for de fleste her hjemme. Les testen fra et Australsk HiFi blad:
Wow, am I glad Simon left me with his Badger for the evening.*
The Honey Badger seems to have gained quite a reputation in certain circles, and I can tell now that this rep is well earned. It has a nicely sized 600VA TT and is rated at 150 watts, has 4 unbalanced inputs and looks fairly "Badger-ish" (or so I am told).
For the sake of this review the HB was fed from my Consonance cd120 via Ribbonflex ICs and then fed in turn via Ribbontek speaker cables to my S2R standmounts.
To summarize I have to say that this amp sounds absolutely brilliant. I would call it excellent but that one word just wouldn't do it justice. I swapped from a Burson PRE 160 feeding an Exposure Classic 28 power amp and I noticed that the noise floor actually dropped away, it improved drastically (7 or 8db would be my guess, I don't have the equipment to actually measure it but the change was palpable) moving from pre/pwr to an integrated. Isn't that meant to happen when you go the other way?
Out of my 10 chosen categories this amp tops 6 of them, tops them so effectively that I have actually awarded it 6 nines, where a score of 9 is "the best I have ever heard" on my scale of 1 to 10. I want one of these for my very own!
My notes say the following.
Highs: Best piano yet, triangle has an awesome "crisp twinkle" to it, brass is sharp and "prappy" but not harsh or hard (or I could say that brass was exactly as hard and harsh as it should be and it still sounded very pleasant to listen to). 9.0
Mids: notes ring true, excellent hang time and decay, transients that almost seem to chase each other as they loop around the room. 9.0
Bass: Deep and clear but never warm, smooth when it should be. Very nicely detailed, notes have a beginning, middle and end and the bass decay is just a beautiful thing. Actually deeper and stronger bass than I recall from the Exposure 2010S2, also faster and more effectively controlled, but not as smooth 9.0
Vocals: Female - so natural it is difficult to believe, not artificially sweet or breathy but very naturally so. Not Norah, Enya, Dido or Amy Lee have ever sounded this good before. 9.0
Male - Extremely good, smooth and a little "peaky" with Freddy, mellow and little rough with Knoffler, all as it should be but not quite good enough to rate above an 8.5.
2D Soundstaging: 9.0 On several amps now I have heard channel separation so sharp that you can hear the vocals coming out of each speaker and it almost sounds like there is a time delay there because you can hear them so clearly, well the HB gives you that level of separation but makes those words meet seamlessly in the middle of the soundstage. Drums dance around in front of you as they are hit and cymbols sound just that bit higher than the drums that are being played at the same time. Freaking Brilliant!
3D Soundstaging: 8.0 Still extremely good but it doesn't quite rate as the best I have heard in this regard. Probably about 5th or so, I had to mark it down because it didn't make that guitar on Eric Carr's "Car Jam" growl from far enough behind me.
Overall Performance Integration: 9.0 Bloody fantastic! A very rhythmic groove to the music but at the same time it has such a range of tonal diversity. It manages to be very neutral in its presentation (so it doesn't emphasise any one area over the others and gives them equal presence within the music) but at the same time it seems so flexible that it can throw several tonally different instruments at you and have each one stay separate but accurate and enjoyable all at once.
Ability to Emote: 8.0 Suffering a little from its success here, I'm so busy listening to the individual instruments and notes that noticing the some takes second place. Still extremely good, just not quite up there with the best in the known universe.
Electric Guitar Test: Slightly disappointed with Joe Satriani's electric guitar solo so I gave it an 8.0 but was forced to revise up to an 8.5 once I heard the "wandering electric guitar" in the middle of Oriental Melody. Is it the best I have heard here, not sure, maybe in the top 3 or so.
80's Rock Test: 9.0 Even fairly raspy, feral guitar is not harsh to listen to. All the plusses of the style are present but none of the minuses.
Personality summary: Pleasantly dry, invigoratingly crisp, beautifully clear and refreshingly rhythmic.
(Like diving into a cool, clear mountain pool underneath a waterfall at a rock concert and being handed a world class beer by a tall, blonde, gorgeous, Scandinavian member of the band that teaches aerobic classes in her spare time as you wade out of the water. What more could I want? I mean, what more could you want?)
An excellent range can be heard within each note, a drum strike can be crisp, dry, deep and smooth as it passes from initial impact through to full bloom and then decay. Cuts out glare so well you would swear the amp was polarized, even pop hits come out without any trace of their trademark attention-grabbing-in-your-face-style-presence that I personally dislike so much.
What more can I say except;
"Hail to the Badger."
* Yeah, I know it sounds wrong, but it's funnier that way!
Vi snakker om en klasse AB forsterker på 150W/8ohm og 240W/4ohm. Forsterkeren er bygd inn i et tidligere Jungson chassis. Jongsons store nettrafo er beholdt. Meget stor og tung, men jeg har dessverre ingen VA data på denne unntatt utgangsspenning. Regner ikke med mangel på strømkapasitet i forsterkeren.
Pga vekt og dårlig erfaring med posten, må alternativ frakt ordnes. Jeg er behjelpelig med frakt om kjøper bor i rimelig nærhet til meg. Strømforsyningen er noe endret fra det vedlagte bildet. De åtte kondensatorene på bildet er byttet ut med fire nye 25.000 uF dvs. at ladekapasiteten totalt er på 100.000 uF.
Forsterkeren vil nok være ukjent for de fleste her hjemme. Les testen fra et Australsk HiFi blad:
Wow, am I glad Simon left me with his Badger for the evening.*
The Honey Badger seems to have gained quite a reputation in certain circles, and I can tell now that this rep is well earned. It has a nicely sized 600VA TT and is rated at 150 watts, has 4 unbalanced inputs and looks fairly "Badger-ish" (or so I am told).
For the sake of this review the HB was fed from my Consonance cd120 via Ribbonflex ICs and then fed in turn via Ribbontek speaker cables to my S2R standmounts.
To summarize I have to say that this amp sounds absolutely brilliant. I would call it excellent but that one word just wouldn't do it justice. I swapped from a Burson PRE 160 feeding an Exposure Classic 28 power amp and I noticed that the noise floor actually dropped away, it improved drastically (7 or 8db would be my guess, I don't have the equipment to actually measure it but the change was palpable) moving from pre/pwr to an integrated. Isn't that meant to happen when you go the other way?
Out of my 10 chosen categories this amp tops 6 of them, tops them so effectively that I have actually awarded it 6 nines, where a score of 9 is "the best I have ever heard" on my scale of 1 to 10. I want one of these for my very own!
My notes say the following.
Highs: Best piano yet, triangle has an awesome "crisp twinkle" to it, brass is sharp and "prappy" but not harsh or hard (or I could say that brass was exactly as hard and harsh as it should be and it still sounded very pleasant to listen to). 9.0
Mids: notes ring true, excellent hang time and decay, transients that almost seem to chase each other as they loop around the room. 9.0
Bass: Deep and clear but never warm, smooth when it should be. Very nicely detailed, notes have a beginning, middle and end and the bass decay is just a beautiful thing. Actually deeper and stronger bass than I recall from the Exposure 2010S2, also faster and more effectively controlled, but not as smooth 9.0
Vocals: Female - so natural it is difficult to believe, not artificially sweet or breathy but very naturally so. Not Norah, Enya, Dido or Amy Lee have ever sounded this good before. 9.0
Male - Extremely good, smooth and a little "peaky" with Freddy, mellow and little rough with Knoffler, all as it should be but not quite good enough to rate above an 8.5.
2D Soundstaging: 9.0 On several amps now I have heard channel separation so sharp that you can hear the vocals coming out of each speaker and it almost sounds like there is a time delay there because you can hear them so clearly, well the HB gives you that level of separation but makes those words meet seamlessly in the middle of the soundstage. Drums dance around in front of you as they are hit and cymbols sound just that bit higher than the drums that are being played at the same time. Freaking Brilliant!
3D Soundstaging: 8.0 Still extremely good but it doesn't quite rate as the best I have heard in this regard. Probably about 5th or so, I had to mark it down because it didn't make that guitar on Eric Carr's "Car Jam" growl from far enough behind me.
Overall Performance Integration: 9.0 Bloody fantastic! A very rhythmic groove to the music but at the same time it has such a range of tonal diversity. It manages to be very neutral in its presentation (so it doesn't emphasise any one area over the others and gives them equal presence within the music) but at the same time it seems so flexible that it can throw several tonally different instruments at you and have each one stay separate but accurate and enjoyable all at once.
Ability to Emote: 8.0 Suffering a little from its success here, I'm so busy listening to the individual instruments and notes that noticing the some takes second place. Still extremely good, just not quite up there with the best in the known universe.
Electric Guitar Test: Slightly disappointed with Joe Satriani's electric guitar solo so I gave it an 8.0 but was forced to revise up to an 8.5 once I heard the "wandering electric guitar" in the middle of Oriental Melody. Is it the best I have heard here, not sure, maybe in the top 3 or so.
80's Rock Test: 9.0 Even fairly raspy, feral guitar is not harsh to listen to. All the plusses of the style are present but none of the minuses.
Personality summary: Pleasantly dry, invigoratingly crisp, beautifully clear and refreshingly rhythmic.
(Like diving into a cool, clear mountain pool underneath a waterfall at a rock concert and being handed a world class beer by a tall, blonde, gorgeous, Scandinavian member of the band that teaches aerobic classes in her spare time as you wade out of the water. What more could I want? I mean, what more could you want?)
An excellent range can be heard within each note, a drum strike can be crisp, dry, deep and smooth as it passes from initial impact through to full bloom and then decay. Cuts out glare so well you would swear the amp was polarized, even pop hits come out without any trace of their trademark attention-grabbing-in-your-face-style-presence that I personally dislike so much.
What more can I say except;
"Hail to the Badger."
* Yeah, I know it sounds wrong, but it's funnier that way!
