DOOD.CA: Guy Stuff

The Yulong AMP4780, another one of China’s exports that claims to provide Hi-Fi enthusiasts with an affordable and compact solution for high quality audio playback. I purchased the Yulong to replace my Creek 4330SE, which is a wonderful sounding peice of kit. The Yulong retails at a much lower price, and can be purchased new (including shipping) for about 1/2 of the price of the a used Creek 4330SE.

Check out the little guy here:

Depending on who you ask, this amp puts out between 40 and 60 WRMS. The place I bought it from claimed 40WRMS/channel. This is enough to power most bookshelf speakers, especially in a smaller room, and more than enough to power high-efficiency speakers in the 92db+ range. Currently I have it powering a pair of Jungson Beauty Deity BD-1 speakers, which are rated at 85db sensitive in a 250sq ft room.

Impressions
The amp seems adequate for it’s duties in my den, powering the sound from my computer. Oddly, though it is claimed to have tube-like sound and warmth, I felt that this amp does not really have those characteristics, but rather something unique. It does have the midrange bloom that we associate with tubes, however it lacks the warmth, instead having a somewhat more clinical sound, with emphasis in the midrange, with slightly less bass than most solid state.

The top end is clear, and detailed, as is the midrange. I find it very musical and have it playing while I write this review. The size is fantastic, and the large toroidal power supply makes it a nice hefty unit that feels very solid. It was strange that my unit did not come with instructions, though not really necessary, considering that it only has 1 set of inputs and a power switch and volume control.

The bass extends low, but has less emphasis than the Creek and Jungson amps that I had used with these speakers before. It may be that the amp does not have enough current to drive these somewhat inefficient monitors. I tried hooking up a pair of Aurum Cantus Leisure 2 SE’s speakers to the amp, which have a rated sensitivity of 86db, with similar results. I was a bit shocked that at the amp did not have that visceral bass. As a last resort, I pulled my Klipsch RB-5 MKII’s from my home theatre set up and plugged them in. The Klipsch are rated at 96db and are incredibly efficient, however, because of fairly large impedence swings down to 4ohms they don’t sound great with a lot of lower end tube gear.

The Magic Begins
Hooked up to the Klipsch RB-5 MKII’s, this amp sang like I would not believe. The Klipsch RB-5 MKII is one of the most underrated speakers I have owned, and much better than the current Klipsch Reference speakers with the plastic baffles. Similar to the T-Amps, this Yulong has that magical sound that I remember, but with a more robust case and power supply, for a lot less money that one would expect. Heck you can’t even buy all the parts to build this amp for the money.

With the Klipsch speakers, the Yulong has a warm, musical midrange, and that tube sound seems to be there while it was lacking with the other two speakers I had tried. The Jungson and Aurum Cantus speakers are amazing, and I love them with medium to high powered solid state gear such as the Creek 4330SE, but with the Yulong they just did not pair up.

I do highly recommend this amp if you are on a tight budget, and have some relatively high efficiency speakers to spare. I think that is the key to getting good results with it.