There are hardware reviews, and there are experiences that people write about. The experience of buying and owning a hardware. I guess this post is about the second type.
After having decided to go for HT separates, and having turned the internet inside out, I had short listed Emotiva and Anthem for a 9-channel power amplifier. There were glowing reviews about Emotiva, much less about Anthem. The budget was my primary constraint like for most of us, and while Emotiva had the 9-channel option, Anthem 5 channel amp itself was simply out of reach. Enter, O&B.
Customer Interaction
Thanks to this forum, after having read very positive reviews about O&B amps, I called up Aniket, and that was starting of a series of discussions that Aniket and I had. The discussions were more of a dialogue of what exactly I needed, what I could get within my budget, and what engineering compromises that comes along with my requirements. While watts and number of channels were my top of my requirements, Aniket explained the role of other parameters, such as current, damping factor, the role of the power supply that impacts sound quality, among many other things. Finally, the requirements were frozen, the prices agreed up on, with a delivery time for 6 weeks, which is fair for the amount of customization and price at which the amp was offered. Initially, the amp was to have LCR x 200W each and the remaining 9 channels with 100W each. To my pleasant surprise, Aniket mentioned that they were able to draw out more power with the current design and was able to offer the LCR at 250W each instead of 200W at no extra cost.
Build Quality
On the day of delivery of the amp, I received a WhatsApp message from Aniket about the courier tracking number for amp delivery, with a warning: the amp is very heavy! And, it took two of us to unpack the amp and move it up to my listening room on the first floor, and to set it down. The amp looked massive measuring almost 9 inches (H) and 20 inches (depth) and built like a rock! The front fascia is a handsome 7 mm thick brushed metal plate, not cluttered, and had a well damped power button. The amp is supported by six isolation feet, which are made from milled aluminium supported with Neoprene gasket, allowing a solid grip while the amp rests on the floor, which means even to move the amp a few inches, you are going to need that extra effort to do so for a such a heavy amp. Not really a complaint, but you want to take a careful look at your existing furniture if it can support the weight of this amp. This description should give you an idea of the solid build quality that this amp offers in line with what many of those boutique manufactures offer. The back panel is well laid out for RCAs and XLR connections (yes, for all 9 channels), ground lift switches accompanied by a thick, well-shielded power cable. There is sufficient space on the back panel, so interconnects and speaker cables do not crowd. The speaker terminals too are well made – they feel sturdy. The font face plate has a nine non-persistent blue LEDs, one per channel, which momentarily light up during loud passages. People who like their home theatre to be pitch dark may be mildly distracted by this since there is no option to turn off those LEDs. The not so good part was the top panel cover of the amp that was much less robustly built and not well-damped compared to the rest of the amp’s build quality. When I mention this to Aniket, he agreed to update the current 2 mm thickness of the panel cover to 3 mm in the next iteration of the amp. Not a deal breaker, though.
Listening Sessions
AVR: Marantz 6013:
To begin with, I plugged in the LCR alone with to my outgoing Marantz AVR (is being replaced with Arcam AV41). The immediate and clear change was the bass! While earlier, the L&R was driven by the well-performing Parasound A21, the O&B added teeth to the bass that I did not experience before. One of my favourite movie test scenes is in “Edge of Tomorrow”, while in the first time-loop, the aircraft from when Tom Cruise deploys is attacked by the fire power of the Mimics (the aliens). With Parasound, when the explosion tears through the hull of the craft, the cockpit, and some of the armoured soldiers, it was a controlled tactile response (supported by REL Predator2). With O&B, the bass had more attack, and I could sense a “peeling of layers” as the explosion detonates and proceeds to rip away the craft, starting from near the cockpit towards Tom Cruise. The explosion itself, and the mangling metals as the explosion proceeds were well resolved with the O&Bs, which gave a sense of depth to that particular scene.
It was surprising to see that the O&B gave the well-regarded Parasound A21 a run for its money in stereo performance as well. Here too, the bass was beefier but never bloated. However, the Parasound edges out the O&B in the treble department. The highs in the Parasound are a little fuller and sparkling than the O&B. However, the highs have gotten a new life with O&B when I use it with Arcam AV41 as a pre-amplifier. Problem solved! To be fair, the Parasound is a nearly or over a two-decade design. To sum up the character, the Parasound was a stiff upper-lipped conductor- clinical and neutral, while the O&B was like a DJ – enthusiastic and liberated.
The Uninvited Guest: The Hum
I eagerly unpacked the newly arrived Arcam A41, connected all the surround XLRs from the Arcam to O&B, and tried running Dirac Live. Unfortunately, with all the surrounds connect, the O&B was giving out a hum. Dirac Live refused to proceed with room correction since it recognized this hum as an ambient noise and complained of poor SNR. What happened next was unprecedented. While Aniket immediately responded and asked to run some tests on the amp, this issue, identified as a ground loop one, did not go away.
“I will come down and fix it”, said Aniket while discussing about this on mobile.
“You mean, are you going to fly down from Mumbai to my place Bangalore?”, I asked, slightly baffled
“Yes”, he said. “This is something we have never encountered while we were testing your amp. So, we are eager to come down and figure it out ourselves”.
There was a wave of relief: Aniket could have asked me to (pack) and ship the amp to the destination, however, his offer was very generous. This may not be practical when O&B scales, but I was very pleasantly surprised that they were ready to come down to my place to fix the amp issue. Of course, I was not charged any support fee.
After a few weeks of planning, Aniket, his team member, and I met at my residence, and he fixed the ground loop issue, which barely took less than half hour. The hum was gone! When I mentioned that the top cover of the amp was much thinner compared to rest of the build quality of the amp, he added few metal rods below the roof of the amp, damped it with thick rubber foam strips, for no additional cost. Now, the top panel cover is much better damped. I also got a peek at the amp’s guts while this work was being done: the internals were well laid out, with no clutter, and I did not see too many wires running around. Aniket mentioned that there are plans to reduce the size of the amp
Aniket and his team returned to my listening room much later in the night (the need for complete silence for Dirac measurements) to ensure that Dirac does not complain of any ambient noise due to the hum. There was no hum, and Dirac successfully completed all the required measurement sweeps in my room. I still have not set up Dirac completely since people say Dirac has a learning curve. For me, more than its complexity, Dirac has poor context-sensitive help within the app, so you have no clue what some UI elements exactly do.
Closing Thoughts
Some minor complaints notwithstanding, the overall amp build quality, its audio performance, customizations offered, and the after sales support from Aniket have been exceptional! All these, with a reasonable price tag. The power per rupee is also simply unbeatable value compared to the well-known audio gear makers.
If I have to sum up what O&B does given their transparency in dealing with customers, I would say: they make honest amps.
After having decided to go for HT separates, and having turned the internet inside out, I had short listed Emotiva and Anthem for a 9-channel power amplifier. There were glowing reviews about Emotiva, much less about Anthem. The budget was my primary constraint like for most of us, and while Emotiva had the 9-channel option, Anthem 5 channel amp itself was simply out of reach. Enter, O&B.
Customer Interaction
Thanks to this forum, after having read very positive reviews about O&B amps, I called up Aniket, and that was starting of a series of discussions that Aniket and I had. The discussions were more of a dialogue of what exactly I needed, what I could get within my budget, and what engineering compromises that comes along with my requirements. While watts and number of channels were my top of my requirements, Aniket explained the role of other parameters, such as current, damping factor, the role of the power supply that impacts sound quality, among many other things. Finally, the requirements were frozen, the prices agreed up on, with a delivery time for 6 weeks, which is fair for the amount of customization and price at which the amp was offered. Initially, the amp was to have LCR x 200W each and the remaining 9 channels with 100W each. To my pleasant surprise, Aniket mentioned that they were able to draw out more power with the current design and was able to offer the LCR at 250W each instead of 200W at no extra cost.
Build Quality
On the day of delivery of the amp, I received a WhatsApp message from Aniket about the courier tracking number for amp delivery, with a warning: the amp is very heavy! And, it took two of us to unpack the amp and move it up to my listening room on the first floor, and to set it down. The amp looked massive measuring almost 9 inches (H) and 20 inches (depth) and built like a rock! The front fascia is a handsome 7 mm thick brushed metal plate, not cluttered, and had a well damped power button. The amp is supported by six isolation feet, which are made from milled aluminium supported with Neoprene gasket, allowing a solid grip while the amp rests on the floor, which means even to move the amp a few inches, you are going to need that extra effort to do so for a such a heavy amp. Not really a complaint, but you want to take a careful look at your existing furniture if it can support the weight of this amp. This description should give you an idea of the solid build quality that this amp offers in line with what many of those boutique manufactures offer. The back panel is well laid out for RCAs and XLR connections (yes, for all 9 channels), ground lift switches accompanied by a thick, well-shielded power cable. There is sufficient space on the back panel, so interconnects and speaker cables do not crowd. The speaker terminals too are well made – they feel sturdy. The font face plate has a nine non-persistent blue LEDs, one per channel, which momentarily light up during loud passages. People who like their home theatre to be pitch dark may be mildly distracted by this since there is no option to turn off those LEDs. The not so good part was the top panel cover of the amp that was much less robustly built and not well-damped compared to the rest of the amp’s build quality. When I mention this to Aniket, he agreed to update the current 2 mm thickness of the panel cover to 3 mm in the next iteration of the amp. Not a deal breaker, though.
Listening Sessions
AVR: Marantz 6013:
To begin with, I plugged in the LCR alone with to my outgoing Marantz AVR (is being replaced with Arcam AV41). The immediate and clear change was the bass! While earlier, the L&R was driven by the well-performing Parasound A21, the O&B added teeth to the bass that I did not experience before. One of my favourite movie test scenes is in “Edge of Tomorrow”, while in the first time-loop, the aircraft from when Tom Cruise deploys is attacked by the fire power of the Mimics (the aliens). With Parasound, when the explosion tears through the hull of the craft, the cockpit, and some of the armoured soldiers, it was a controlled tactile response (supported by REL Predator2). With O&B, the bass had more attack, and I could sense a “peeling of layers” as the explosion detonates and proceeds to rip away the craft, starting from near the cockpit towards Tom Cruise. The explosion itself, and the mangling metals as the explosion proceeds were well resolved with the O&Bs, which gave a sense of depth to that particular scene.
It was surprising to see that the O&B gave the well-regarded Parasound A21 a run for its money in stereo performance as well. Here too, the bass was beefier but never bloated. However, the Parasound edges out the O&B in the treble department. The highs in the Parasound are a little fuller and sparkling than the O&B. However, the highs have gotten a new life with O&B when I use it with Arcam AV41 as a pre-amplifier. Problem solved! To be fair, the Parasound is a nearly or over a two-decade design. To sum up the character, the Parasound was a stiff upper-lipped conductor- clinical and neutral, while the O&B was like a DJ – enthusiastic and liberated.
The Uninvited Guest: The Hum
I eagerly unpacked the newly arrived Arcam A41, connected all the surround XLRs from the Arcam to O&B, and tried running Dirac Live. Unfortunately, with all the surrounds connect, the O&B was giving out a hum. Dirac Live refused to proceed with room correction since it recognized this hum as an ambient noise and complained of poor SNR. What happened next was unprecedented. While Aniket immediately responded and asked to run some tests on the amp, this issue, identified as a ground loop one, did not go away.
“I will come down and fix it”, said Aniket while discussing about this on mobile.
“You mean, are you going to fly down from Mumbai to my place Bangalore?”, I asked, slightly baffled
“Yes”, he said. “This is something we have never encountered while we were testing your amp. So, we are eager to come down and figure it out ourselves”.
There was a wave of relief: Aniket could have asked me to (pack) and ship the amp to the destination, however, his offer was very generous. This may not be practical when O&B scales, but I was very pleasantly surprised that they were ready to come down to my place to fix the amp issue. Of course, I was not charged any support fee.
After a few weeks of planning, Aniket, his team member, and I met at my residence, and he fixed the ground loop issue, which barely took less than half hour. The hum was gone! When I mentioned that the top cover of the amp was much thinner compared to rest of the build quality of the amp, he added few metal rods below the roof of the amp, damped it with thick rubber foam strips, for no additional cost. Now, the top panel cover is much better damped. I also got a peek at the amp’s guts while this work was being done: the internals were well laid out, with no clutter, and I did not see too many wires running around. Aniket mentioned that there are plans to reduce the size of the amp
Aniket and his team returned to my listening room much later in the night (the need for complete silence for Dirac measurements) to ensure that Dirac does not complain of any ambient noise due to the hum. There was no hum, and Dirac successfully completed all the required measurement sweeps in my room. I still have not set up Dirac completely since people say Dirac has a learning curve. For me, more than its complexity, Dirac has poor context-sensitive help within the app, so you have no clue what some UI elements exactly do.
Closing Thoughts
Some minor complaints notwithstanding, the overall amp build quality, its audio performance, customizations offered, and the after sales support from Aniket have been exceptional! All these, with a reasonable price tag. The power per rupee is also simply unbeatable value compared to the well-known audio gear makers.
If I have to sum up what O&B does given their transparency in dealing with customers, I would say: they make honest amps.
