Orchard Audio Starkrimson Mono Premium Amps Reviewed

The world of semiconductor-based amps has been the most wonderfully disruptive category in the audiophile hobby, and Orchard Audio is one of the main brands behind the movement. We discussed this matter in depth in this featured news story. A satellite engineer by trade, Leo at Orchard Audio is no dummy but, unlike slightly more wealthy guys named Elon and Jeff, his technological passions are located less in space or Mars but more in down-to-Earth audiophile electronics. Orchard Audio products, be they audiophile streamers, stereo preamps or new school, Class-D amps, are all about performance and maximum efficiency, delivered direct to the consumer at a very, very fair price. Consumers are smartly snapping up his affordable audiophile gear in ways that make some in the audiophile establishment a little bit jealous.

The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps ($2,500 per pair) are single monoblock amps designed to sit directly to the side of your main speakers. These somewhat physically nondescript, smaller-than-a-shoebox amps kick out a factory-measured 150 watts of power into eight ohms (300 into four ohms) via a fully-balanced design that uses the popular Gallium Nitride chip-based amplifier technology. We’ve raved about today’s GaN amps before, including ones from Orchard Audio. The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Monos come with better everything, including a significant internal power supply. You’ve likely heard all about Gallium Nitride or GaN amps (if not, read my story about them here to get up to speed) with their often-hard-to-believe audiophile benefits. To recap: GaN amps provide big power from a small semiconductor form factor that flies in the face of everything that we know about top-performing audiophile amps. They produce a sound that is analogous to Class-A amps, but use close to no power and create, in effect, no heat. GaN amps don’t cost a fortune, but they have changed the amp game. Readers are emailing us that they are selling A-List, blue-chip audiophile amps in order to purchase these new hot-stuff Class-D amps. Should you make such a move? That’s what we are here to find out…

What Makes the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps So Special? 

• 150 watts per channel is a lot of power for any modern, respectable audiophile amp. The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps double down into four ohms and basically just laugh at two-ohm loads in ways that other amps have issues with. These are very small but very powerful amps, even if they aren’t the physically biggest or most costly power amps on the market today. 
• The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps are fully balanced in their design, and come with XLR inputs on the back. If you need to use unbalanced RCA connectors, Orchard offers an active converter “dongle” of sorts, which you can purchase for $300. Remember, not all amps with a balanced input are truly balanced designs, as some just take an XLR in, but that isn’t the case with the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Monos. They are a fully-balanced design, which lowers the amount of possible noise in your system, which is always a good thing from your amp.
• The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps don’t have a house sound, meaning that they don’t color the sound in any meaningful way. If you are into hearing the sound that is on your recording as it was recorded, you are barking up the right tree with the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps. If you are looking for that soft tube sound to somewhat mask or obscure other issues in an audiophile system, you should stick with tubes or slightly more sonically-flavored amps. The Orchard Audio monos really try to be colorless in their sound by design. 
• The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps make you choose your power cable from a list based on what country that you live in, as they are sold all over the world these days. You can easily replace the power cables with aftermarket ones if you are so inclined. I’ve been playing around with some Wireworld power cables, but I don’t have two exactly comparable options to test with the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps, thus I am doing my unofficial power cable listening with other, non-monoblock amps.
• Leo believes in keeping the price down, and audiophiles love him for that. All of his products come with the best available chipsets (at, or near, the price point), as well as beefy power supplies. If you haven’t heard this before, let me report to you that the power supply is the most important part of these new Class-D amps. Most consumer electronics are all about getting products to work using the least amount of power, thus have often smaller and cheaper power supplies so that they meet standards like Energy Star regulations. When it comes to these new Class-D amps, a badass power supply goes a long way. Some designers in the space think that the best reason why the first batch of Class-D amps didn’t sound that great wasn’t because of the ICE chips (today’s chips are much better), but rather the lack of a really good power supply. 

Why Should You Care About the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps?

While you are a performance-first audiophile, value is important to you, thus the draw to a top-performing GaN amp. Others, like me, don’t like using as much power as Class-A amps demand by design, and often can’t take the heat that the great-sounding Class-A amps yield. One of our readers was trading in a truly blue-chip amp for an Orchard Amp, mainly because the delta in performance is barely there, but the energy savings and heat reduction are very alluring at this stage of his journey. Others will be compelled by the concept of being at the bleeding edge of music playback technology. There are a lot of reasons to be into a GaN amp from Orchard. 

Some Things You Might Not Like About the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps

• The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps aren’t audiophile eye candy, nor do they charge those types of lofty prices. These amps are anything but eye candy at first glance. If you are looking for a Vinnie Rossi or a D’Agostino or a Pass Labs amplifier that has some meaningful audiophile jewelry appeal – the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps are not for you. They might be able to to compete shockingly sonically, but they don’t in terms of physical appeal, even though these more modern amps are better-looking than earlier Orchard Audio designs. 
• The size of the monoblocks is not any kind of standard with the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps. Each amp is a modestly long but somewhat thin rectangle with an angular front. The angle mildly harkens to the old days of the Aragon 4004 amp, but the V from that amp is now a triangle on the front of this one. Orchard likes you to use their monoblock amps next to your speakers, which in my audiophile installation is simply impossible. The two amps went on a standard 2U rack shelf and worked fantastically well, but just didn’t look as cool as others, and the way audio gear looks matters with its overall value. 
• A balanced amp is better than an unbalanced one in general, and you can connect a balanced amp with a connector or, in this case, a dongle that for about $300 can make the connection. Orchard refuses to waste money putting redundant connections on the amp because it raises the price, and he’s trying to spend where you get a performance benefit and not in other fancier places.
• The Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps doesn’t ship with a power cable unless you specify one. They aren’t expensive from Orchard by any means, but specifying a power cable is a somewhat odd detail when ordering an audiophile amp. If you have aftermarket power cables, you can save yourself $20, which shows you how dedicated Orchard Audio is to value. 

Listening to the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps… 

In the mid-1990s, our closer demo track at the uber audiophile retailer, Cello Music and Film Los Angeles, was “Church” from Lyle Lovett’s immaculately recorded Joshua Judges Ruth album. There is so much to love from this album that is as close to the Country genre as I personally get, but make no mistake, “Church” is a truly fantastic demo track, in that it develops tremendous musical layering. There is everything from Lovett’s raspy voice to a full band, as well as a full gospel choir. I’ve heard this track on so many of the world’s best amplifiers, and what struck me was the way that the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps were able to present these layered musical elements in a rich, compelling and dynamic fashion. So, what would the alternative be? Other, lesser power amps tend to sound flat. They lack the dynamics and spank that you get from the Orchard monos. Lesser amps don’t offer the clarity in the mids and highs when things get musically complicated in the track (this is best heard with about 0:60 to 0:45 or so left in the track, with everything going on musically). The idea that I am comparing a semiconductor-based GaN amp costing well under $3,000 today with Cello Performance II Class-A 400-watts-per-channel amps that cost $50,000 per pair (back in the Nineties!!!) should have you thinking. My amazingly well-regarded reference power amp, the Pass Labs XA-25 amp , is a smaller but very tasty modern-day Class-A amp delivers the same level of excellence in terms of detail and resolution. That amp is $5,150 retail and considered a bargain. I think you are getting my theme here. 

I am a late adopter to one of the most classic and well-regarded audiophile recordings of all time, Fleetwood Mac Rumours (played from QoBuz in 24/96) and the track “Gold Dust Woman.” Like “Church,” this mostly acoustic track is wonderfully layered with all sorts of sonic Easter eggs for you to discover as your system improves. GaN amps get great marks for bass performance, and the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps are no exception, in that they deliver a really visceral feel on the bass guitar and lower frequencies of the drums. The amount of power needed to drive my Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4 speakers, which are rated at a modest 90 dB sensitivity, was more than enough to make them get up and dance. Later in the track, listen for all of the grunting and groaning that goes on in the prolonged musical outro. There’s lots to hear there. This was one area that the $6,500 Bricasti M3 DAC (review pending) or the $1,895 Benchmark DAC3 B (read the review) both shone, but let’s give the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps credit where credit is due. These little monoblock GaN amps deliver power well beyond what you might expect from their size (and especially cost) with a truly audiophile-level performance. 

Peter Gabriel’s newest record, i/o (played from QoBuz), is a more modern recording and, unlike some of his more legendary albums, this record is very well-recorded and mastered. The song “The Court” (bright side mix) is of specific note and one that I’ve used in some of my more modern audiophile reviews. You can hear that the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps don’t present a colored sound whatsoever, but they do resolve detail, layering and dynamics wonderfully. The bass is captivating on “The Court,” with syncopated moments that give you that heart-stopping effect that is not heard anywhere but in the best of audiophile systems. There are some cool-sounding volume swells that make for musically dramatic lead-ins to the catchy chorus of the song. The innovative percussion also serves as audiophile demo track gold for your enjoyment, and sounded just fantastic on the Orchard GaN Monos. You don’t normally get such musical impact and dynamics from anything but truly fantastic, high-powered amps that normally come with a huge price tag. The Orchard amps come with that huge sound, but not the huge price tag, and enlightened audiophiles will likely rejoice.  

Will the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps Hold Their Value?

It has been a while since I have written this much about value in an audiophile component review, but Orchard Audio is uniquely about value, and that’s why people are flocking to them in recent years. These monoblock amps are packing cutting-edge technology, which additionally helps retain value. They also just aren’t that expensive overall, thus they don’t have far to potentially fall in price. GaN technology is a hot topic, but realistically, there aren’t that many GaN amps (or other Class-D amps like Hypex or Pascal chips) on the market, thus there is a bit of scarcity. The performance delta between a lower-cost amp like the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps versus amps costing many, many times more is small, thus the overall dollar spent for audiophile value is so strong that is it hard to see anybody losing too large of a percentage of the audiophile amp budget here.  

What is the Competition for the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps?

AMPED AMERICA’s AMP 2400 ($5,000 – read the review here) is a Pascal chip-based, new-school Class-D amp that comes in a more standard form factor chassis (like Orchard’s Starkrimson Ultra 2.0 Stereo amp for $2,650 – read Michael Zisserson’s review here) and offers more power, like the 500-watt Ultra 2.0. The Pascal chip is a new but different way of doing Class-D, but it is also what uber-high-end companies like Jeff Rowland use in their $35,000 Class-D amps. 

The AGD Productions Tempo di Gan for $5,700 (read the review) is a close comp in terms of performance for the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps, but costs literally twice the price. I’ve had this amp in my system and it was impressive, but not any more sonically than the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps. The AGD’s form factor is a little bit more luxurious, but not anywhere close to justifying the huge difference in cost. 

Again, not a monoblock configuration, but the 500-watts-per-channel Hypex chip-based Buckeye Amps NCx500 for $1,095 (read the Mike Prager review here) is yet another different Class-D option with great sound, low power consumption, Class-A-like sound, and no heat to speak of. 

Orchard Audio’s own Starkrimson Mono Ultra amps ($4,795 for the pair) is another comp for the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps. The Ultra monos are more standard in size, and also come in a pair. The biggest difference is the whopping 500 watts per channel of output that you can get for under $5,000. GaN technology is used, of course, in both options.

Final Thoughts on the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono Amps…

In any given day in my career, I talk to all sorts of audiophile companies, including their executives and designers. In a call this week, I was talking with my friend who does the booming U.S. sales for CH Precision, which has some of the most lauded and most expensive audiophile electronics available anywhere on this planet. While we discussed the advantages of his products, I couldn’t help but tell him how impressed that I was with these affordable monoblocks. Are they CH Precision killers? Nope, but boy, are they amazingly good for the money. 

Most audiophiles will not need more power or quality power. For those looking for a flavorless amp that can truly light up even some of today’s more demanding speakers (with ease), there is no reason to miss out on the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps. In the Class-AB world, insiders know that ATI made/makes a really bland-looking but extremely capable power amp. Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps are the Class-D version of that, in that you get stellar performance at an even more impressively low price. If you are a value-driven audiophile, or a technologically advanced buyer, or somebody who wants to use less AC power in their system, the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps could be the answer for you. Other than the looks (specifically the metal work) of the amp, there isn’t all that much not to love. Consider these amps an early contender for Product of the Year Award consideration, as the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Premium Mono amps are simply that good.