UHF 56 - Roksan Caspian amplifier

     This amplifier does so many things right that I paid less attention to its drawbacks. It amplified complex music passages with great control and clarity and painted, with the organ, a background of medium-to-low notes in rich separate layers.
     This stability is rare, and I therefore paid less attention to the extremes of loud brass, where the sound became hard and thin. I did notice also a lack of contrast in some selections. What I mean, in this case, is not a difference in volume levels, but rather this special quality which gives instruments a rounded physical presence, in contrast to the rest of the musical stage.
     There was a good sense of reliability with this amplifier, however, and I just knew that, most of the time, the musical essence had been preserved in each selection. We fed it relentless rhythm, we gave it thundering bass and it gave us back music. We played challenging voices and it gave us back songs. That's reliability.
—Albert Simon

     Whenever I see a company known for one kind of component--such as a turntable, CD player or loudspeaker--make some other category of component-- such as an amplifier--I get wary. Is it anything more than just a commercial move, suggested by the company bean counter? Will wild expansion lead the company over the precipice?
     In this case I need not have worried. Roksan may not be known as an amplifier specialist, but you can't tell that from this honey of an amp. It fills perfectly the gap left by the others: the super integrateds costing considerably more, and the cheaper ones, most of which are not as tenth this good.
     The Roksan Caspian doesn't do everything perfectly, but it does even the most difficult things at least passably. You'll be choosing the records you play, not the amp designer. And you'll always hear music. Is that worth the Roksan's modest price? Is it ever!
—Gerard Rejskind

     Comparing this integrated amplifier with our reference I was more than a little surprised by its performance. Not that it's perfect, but everything is there, even if there is a little less of it.
     For instance, the separation of instrumental timbres is a little less clear, the bottom end is a little less solid (at least with the organ--the bass drum is still mighty impressive). In short, despite some shortcomings--with which one can well live--this Roksan is equipped to give its owner a lot of pleasure. And it costs a lot less than our reference!
—Reine Lessard



			Roksan Caspian Amplifier We have to add the word “amp,” because it has exactly the same name as the CD player. Would it be as impressive? (Reprinted from issue 56 of UHF Magazine. To purchase the issue, click here. Or click here to subscribe to UHF)
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			Yes, Roksan still makes turntables, the product thatoriginally made it famous, but it also makes other things. Such as the CD player we reviewed (with gusto and enthusiasm, you'll recall) in UHF No. 55. And such as a full line of electronics, including this medium-priced integrated amplifier. Speaking of our CD player review, we said at that time that Roksan had, a few years back, gotten into trouble to the point where it had closed before it was snapped up by the Verity Group conglomerate. It never did in fact close, though the effect for many consumers was much the same. More important is the fact that it was repurchased from Verity by the very people who had founded the company in the first place. The new incarnation of the company doesn't go in for intricate model names, or indeed any model names at all. Four components--the CD player reviewed in the last issue, plus an amp, preamp and this integrated amp--are called ...Caspian." They couldn't remember the names of any other seas? Naturally, the four are similarly-styled, so that they look good stacked together. We were less than taken with the finish on the (otherwise excellent) CD player because of its blurry screen and its less than tight loading door. There's nothing like that on the amplifier, which is nicely put together. There's a nice traditional look to the Roksan, with two large black knobs flanking a central row of small illuminated indicators. They have traditional roles too: input selector and volume control. The selector handles only electronic commands, however. The indicators light up as appropriate. There are five high level inputs (no phono stage is available) plus a tape loop. An extra indicator, labelled "mode," (a front panel button is labelled the same way) has several functions. It glows green normally, red when the amplifier is on standby (to save power), and orange when it is muted ("mute" doesn't mean silent, it means 20 dB down, for answering the phone). A nice touch: when the amplifier "wakes up" from standby, it remembers the input it was on, whether the tape monitor was active, and whether it had been muted. Of course, an electronically-controlled amplifier can be remote-controlled, and this one is. The remote is a chubby little soap bar that fits the hand nicely, and has only five buttons. That's all you need unless you also own the Roksan CD player, in which case the player's remote can also control the amp. The rear panel is a busy one, bristling with 20 RCA jacks! Among them are two pairs of outputs for the preamp section, and one pair of inputs for the power amplifier. The two can thus be completely separated, or linked by a video processor, say, and a second amplifier can be added for biamplification. By the way, each jack pair is labelled twice, once right side up, and once more upside down...for the benefit of those who bend over the equipment to hook it up. We don't want to seem ungrateful, but we would have liked a label printed backwards...so we could see it in a mirror. The fuse is accessible from the outside. The Caspian uses a standard IEC power cord, but with only two prongs not three. The reason: it's double-insulated, like a power drill. Our Roksan amplifier was a demo unit which had already seen a number of hours of use, but just in case we ran a few more dozen hours on it, and then dropped it into our Alpha system for the formal listening session. We began the listening session with Almighty God from the HDCD version of Antiphone Blues (FIM CD003). The church organ in this amazing recording often sounds too thin with amplifiers that are on the edge of breathlessness. Not with the Caspian. The low notes rumbled realistically, with good distance from Arne Domnérus's saxophone, with no confusion. This is a tough test, however, not only because of the low-frequency content and the great depth (the recording was made in a church with a pair of microphones) but also because of the saxophone's varied inflections. It was by listening to the sax that we could tell we were no longer listening to our reference electronics. The higher notes were just a little hard, losing some of the delicious silkiness, and with it some of the magic. But we've heard worse, and indeed Albert asked that the volume be turned up a little, because the organ seemed distant. "But it's better than an amplifier you always to turn down," he said. Our second recording (Golden String GSCD031) had only one instrument--a Steinway grand piano--but it is as big a challenge as any recording we own. That's partly because this excellent recording captures the Steinway's distinctive tone with nearly unparalleled realism. And it is also because pianist Hyperion Knight, in the Cavatina from The Barber of Seville, uses shifts in tempo and dynamics to suggest the sly humor of Rossini's original music. Just reproducing the notes doesn't do it. The Roksan amplifier did amazingly well, doing justice to the piano tone, without the added hardness we have heard from lesser amplifiers. The rhythm was very good, and most of the fun was preserved. The sound was not totally identical to that of our reference, however. Despite the recognizable tone, the lower midrange lacked a little of its familiar richness, which made some of the more complex chords seem a little less majestic. And Albert noted that the dynamic variations were less evident. Now we brought out the big guns: The Firebird from the Minnesota Orchestra's now famous Stravinsky disc (Reference Recordings RR-70CD). Much of the magic of this superb ballet suite came through intact, against all odds. In the soft "sunrise" sequence, the strings, woodwinds and harp lent their magic to this breathtaking tableau. As the brass came in, near the end, the sound grew somewhat harsher, but we weren't surprised: it isn't easy to make this untamed brass sequence sound smooth. The celebrated bass drum came through with impact, and also with precision, without the "disembodied" sound it has with some amplifiers. That perhaps requires a little explanation. There is a lot of very low frequency energy in the finale of this recording, especially if your CD player can decode the hidden HDCD information. That energy will make its way through any amplifier and move your woofer, and unless a fuse blows what you hear is going to be loud. However even a drumbeat is not an instantaneous event. If the leading edge of the drumbeat upsets the amplifier enough to knock it out of its normal operating conditions, it is going to deliver the signal considerably altered. And unless it settles down quickly after that disturbance, the reverberant sound that follows is going to be a mess as well. So you can't judge an amplifier by whether the bass drum sounds loud...you can bet it will. You should judge it by whether you hear the actual impact, and then the ripples of sound bouncing off the walls and other concert hall surfaces. The Roksan Caspian, we're happy to say, passed the test. What would happen if we played that ending really loud? Well...nothing too awful. The bass drum was still intelligible, but the brass got rather shrill. The amplifier was clearly overloading, but it was doing so quite gracefully for a solid state amplifier. We ended the session with La chanson du rossignol from the wonderful ¡Viva la Zarzuela! disc (Auvidis V4765). The sound was a little more shrill than with our reference, but not enough to sabotage the voices of the superb singers in this entertaining Spanish operetta. The Roksan transmitted the subtle inflections of the singers accurately, without the graininess added by some amps. There was enough bass to express the power of Placindo Domingo's voice, and soprano Maria Bayo was still wonderful, her voice rising through the octaves to meet the sound of a high-pitched bell. The experience was astonishing, despite minor complaints about the high end. The Roksan met its published power rating of maximum of 70 watts into 8 ohms, at a frequency of 1 kHz, both channels driven. Oddly, it has even more headroom (78 watts) at 20 Hz, but it could manage no more than 63.2 watts at 20 kHz, a very minor weakness. We found no anomalies at the other end of the dynamic range. Noise is low, with only small infrasonic disturbances (below 5 Hz) now and then. Crosstalk between adjacent inputs was very low, at 76 dB in midband, rising to a quite reasonable 60 dB at 10 kHz. Even if this amplifier cost a few hundred dollars more, it would belong on the shopping list of numerous audiophiles looking for musical satisfaction. At its current selling price, it is an unqualified bargain. Indeed, Roksan is throwing down a challenge: this is what you have to beat if you want to sell an amp for more money than ours. A lot of competitors won't want to pick up that gauntlet. Model: Roksan Caspian Price (in Canada): $2100 Dimensions (cm): 44 x 34 x 8 Warranty: 2 years, transferable Most liked: Astonishing musicality for the money Least liked: A little hard now and then in the higher frequencies Verdict: The quality-to-price ratio works for us This amplifier does so many things right that I paid less attention to its drawbacks. It amplified complex music passages with great control and clarity and painted, with the organ, a background of medium-to-low notes in rich separate layers. This stability is rare, and I therefore paid less attention to the extremes of loud brass, where the sound became hard and thin. I did notice also a lack of contrast in some selections. What I mean, in this case, is not a difference in volume levels, but rather this special quality which gives instruments a rounded physical presence, in contrast to the rest of the musical stage. There was a good sense of reliability with this amplifier, however, and I just knew that, most of the time, the musical essence had been preserved in each selection. We fed it relentless rhythm, we gave it thundering bass and it gave us back music. We played challenging voices and it gave us back songs. That's reliability. —Albert Simon Whenever I see a company known for one kind of component--such as a turntable, CD player or loudspeaker--make some other category of component-- such as an amplifier--I get wary. Is it anything more than just a commercial move, suggested by the company bean counter? Will wild expansion lead the company over the precipice? In this case I need not have worried. Roksan may not be known as an amplifier specialist, but you can't tell that from this honey of an amp. It fills perfectly the gap left by the others: the super integrateds costing considerably more, and the cheaper ones, most of which are not as tenth this good. The Roksan Caspian doesn't do everything perfectly, but it does even the most difficult things at least passably. You'll be choosing the records you play, not the amp designer. And you'll always hear music. Is that worth the Roksan's modest price? Is it ever! —Gerard Rejskind Comparing this integrated amplifier with our reference I was more than a little surprised by its performance. Not that it's perfect, but everything is there, even if there is a little less of it. For instance, the separation of instrumental timbres is a little less clear, the bottom end is a little less solid (at least with the organ--the bass drum is still mighty impressive). In short, despite some shortcomings--with which one can well live--this Roksan is equipped to give its owner a lot of pleasure. And it costs a lot less than our reference! —Reine Lessard FULL TEXT: Totem Forest, State of the Art PARTIAL TEXT: The Video Revolution, Power & Current, SimAudio Moon I-5, Myryad MI 120, Vecteur Club 10, NVA AP10, Four Phono Stages, Five Cables. [READING ROOM] [BUY THIS ISSUE] [HOME PAGE]