Well, since I am one of the blessed few who listen to the Robert Kodas every day, perhaps I should take some responsibility to sharing my experiences of these amplifiers.
1. Overall.
I would say of all the equipment I have heard owned and even of all the equipment I have ever auditioned seriously, the Robert Kodas have represented one of the greatest learning experiences for me. In terms of impact, it ranks up there with listening to the Genesis Ones for the first time (the massive, next gen version of the legendary 8'/2.5m tall, 4'/1.25m wide 4-tower Infinity IRS Vs), hearing the Apogee Stages 30 years ago ...mind you, from a base of only ever having heard Sonus Faber, B&W and Celestion bookshelf speakers, and probably ranking as a greater impact on me even than hearing the Zanden digital after listening to Emm, Meridien, Krell, ARC and DCS among others.
It has taught me not only what is possible...but also what does the combination of organic purity and effortlessness appear to sound like? Interestingly, it does not sound impressive or bold or detailed or powerful or anything that takes you by surprise. It remarkably and almost astoundingly non-chalant. You turn it on, and it just plays music. That is, until you start to really really really listen to your music and you realize what you are hearing.
2. Background
By background, in our own system or a very very similar one in the local demo room, we have heard some very good amplification: Naim Statement, FM Acoustics, ARC Ref Monos, Goldmund, D'Agostino Monos, Boulder 2000, MBL Ref Monos, Soulution 5-series, Krell Evo Ones, Unison Research. In our own system, we used Conrad Johnson and Gryphon Audio for many years.
All of these have come with a variety of unique and pretty fantastic signatures...the effortless detail and insanely gripping control of Boulder, the balance of D'Agostino, the natural filigree and alacrity of FMA, the illuminated treble of Goldmund. For me, the lack of grain combined with the very low noise and very natural tonal color of the CJ combined well for over 10 consecutive years with the mighty Gryphon amps...culminating in the CJ GAT 2/Gryphon Mephisto combination. Talk about the iron fist in a velvet glove.
You had foundation, tonal hues in the mids, you had powerful bass beyond bass...straight to the core of the earth bass. Who could ask for more?
And then along comes the almost unassuming Robert Koda K15EX/K160 Monos. None had presented a combination like the Robert Kodas for me.
3. At first...the K15EX replaces the CJ GAT 2 with the Gryphon Mephisto
In the first few hours through the first several weeks of owning the Robert Kodas, I found some very obvious strengths:
- Far, far greater detail than the CJ GAT 2. Not close and yet so effortless, like words and choral lines and background elements of electronic music had just been missing (obscured) in the preamp (note...I brought the K15EX preamp in before the K160 monos...so was actually able to drop the K15EX in place of the GAT 2).
- That was very odd to me...I was use to getting an upgrade in detail from CJ ACT 2 to CJ GAT 1 to CJ GAT 2...but this was a significantly greater leap than the ACT 2 all the way to the GAT 2...not just or only because of pure detail, but because the K15EX has a way of allowing you to enjoy and appreciate the detail without throwing it at you. It is just there, as if it had always been there in your living room. Very non-chalant actually. It made the CJ GAT 2 seem more like it was missing something rather than that the Robert Koda had something.
- Then there is the power thing...when playing Dark Knight this non-chalantly capable preamp then allows the growl of the Gryphon Mephisto to reach deeper and growl with more natural power than with the CJ GAT 2. Fun! Was definitely not expecting that!
- And all the while, the treble, the mids, the expressiveness of tonal shadings all artfully but very very simply articulated.
- And the comes the K160...this is where the learning really began
4. In goes the K160 with the K15EX
- Straight in with Dark Knight...and the growl of Hans Zimmer goes much much DEEPER and with far far greater articulation and separation (did we say deeper than a Gryphon Mephisto?)
- 235 Watts of Pure Class A Power into 4ohms
- The ability for orchestral swells and also piccolo nuances to be heard (at the same time) is extraordinary
- But again, in such a non-chalant way, one wonders...why doesn't every amp do this?
- Organic but not richly colored...just a sense of human musicians making music
- Shadings of timing seem just 'on'...no sense of sharpening or hardening, just the band is 'tighter' today in the performance
- BUT...something is amiss...
- the Upper Midbass seems 'flat'?
- Given how many things are going extraordinarily well...I am stumped. Really stumped. It takes me hundreds of discs to decipher...who is right? Gryphon Mephisto or Robert Koda? I have always said if the midbass of Gryphon has just a hair of extra juice, I frankly do not care, it adds a foundational heft and weight to music that makes everything wonderful and real to behold.
- Is the Koda spectacular in all areas but weak in bass? Could that be right?
- Are all of these CDs just more timid than I actually thought? Do I recalibrate my listening?
- Do I need to retube the Zanden? (I did...better but still not there.)
- Some albums just so so much better across all areas...
- and others seems slightly anemic in the midbass...can this be right?
...until...
- ...until I realized that perhaps it was the Wilsons that had been dialed in using my then CJ/Gryphon electronics...to my ear and to a fairly flat response in-room. And so the question became...did perhaps the massive power of the Gryphon reflect perhaps just a dollop of extra power in the midbass?
- I went back to listening notes, to emails and discussions with other Gryphon owners...and there certainly seemed to be a thread of consistent recognition of this wonderous foundational power...just awesome (I still think it's awesome)...but was it also perhaps a touch of welcome design license? Some comments I re-read seemed to suggest midbass power, as in a bit of extra midbass power...
- whereas perhaps Robert Koch of Robert Koda made no such allowances in simply design his amps to reflect the signal in its absolute purest most unadulterated form
...and so Absolute Sounds UK came back and dialed the Wilsons back in again and indeed found that the bass XLF ports did need to be re-set up to get back to an even spectrum...
- and voila, the midbass power came back...but now with a matching level of articulation that I had heard throughout the spectrum which the Mephisto simply could not match. The midbass was far more powerful...but in a way that naturally slotted into the overall performance of the rest of the spectrum of the Robert Koda.
And so we were back to that lesson of non-chalance. Ease. Simplicity. And yet the music is all there.
5. The Lesson
The lesson for me was that Robert Koda K15EX/K160 really demonstrated to me that it is possible to create a completely pure, even grade of musical spectrum with grace and massive power that also comes with a remarkably low noise, low distortion capability (K15EX less than 0.0003% distortion at 2VRMS, 147dba Signal to Noise at full output) because Robert has applied an almost obsessive attention to detail in how he isolates/shields every single piece of major equipment inside the casing, does the point to point wiring himself, overspecs the design in key respects to allow effortless delivery, etc, etc.
Furthermore, Robert Koda demonstrated to me that when you do this...you actually dont hear anything. You just listen to music with newfound appreciation for the music. That's it.
And thus, relative to the many, many wonderful amps out there (again, list above of some of them), I found with Robert Koda there can be a level of sublime performance that almost seems perfectly at ease, perfectly at home that you almost miss what it is doing that is so extraordinary...something which I had never experienced before with any of the other amps before which each seemed to have something 'brilliant' about it..including my long-term reference CJ/Gryphon combination which clearly was doing 'something' character-like.
It appears Robert Koda does this from an incredibly obsessive desire to just reflect the music to an out-of-this-world-degree well.
The key is when you audition the Robert Koda, you have to make sure you dont listen for greatness. You dont listen for scale or power for nuance or inflection for tonal palettes or grainlessness. You have to almost re-set your expectations a bit...and just listen for more music than perhaps you had expected but not in the way you normally get more music (more power, more detail, more decay)...the Robert Koda gives you all of these things but in a way you literally almost miss it because when you push play...it is just there. Right in front of you. Very simple, very unassuming. But more...a lot more. More nuance, more detail, more power, more grace, more artist inflections and tonal shadings...but you only hear them if you go back and forth. The minute you stop doing that, it becomes incredibly tough to hear any of these things, because the music comes across as 'just there'.
And so when you finally realize after all your audiophile test CDs, setups, checks and comparison that it really is all there, and all very very simply there in a way I had never ever heard before...where it is almost impossible to 'detect' it in the traditional way, it really takes your breathe away.
Robert Koch of Robert Koda holds to a design ethos of 'dynamic simplicity'. I genuinely think he has done that.
