ST-500 mkII
 

I have a Wyred ST-500 mkII at home. It is up in the loft playing away. EJ recommends 500 hours to do a full break in of the amplifier.

First impression is purely cosmetic. The fit and finish is outstanding. Very well made, obviously Wyred does not cut corners. Top quality connectors. The amplifier looks very nice with the other W4S equipment.

I like that all of the Wyred equipment is fully balanced which is nice when they are all connected together with XLRs. I also like the way the pre-amplifier can trigger the power on the amplifier!

First listen sound pretty darn nice, clear, tight. Way to early to do any kind of comparisons or shot out if you will. The reviews talk about how neutral, un-colored the Wyred amps are. To early to tell, so we will see.

Enjoy the break in, Randy!

Thanks Michael. I think it will be interesting. In pure sound quality I feel the Job will probably win, but in all the other considerations I believe the Wyred will win. So will let it burn in for a while (I got a resistor type box loaned to me to let the amplifier continue burning with a real load on it when not listening to it).

After about 60 hour breakin the Wyred is showing it is a dam good amplifier. I do belive the Job might be taking an edge in the shoot out though. Just a very music, accurate amplifier.

That's good news!

When will you become a paid gear reviewer? ;)

:).... There's an idea.... well the amp definitely needs a good 200-300 hours before we can truly judge it. All of the incidentals are very much in the Wyred 4 Sound favor. Look and feel, build quality, warranty, full balanced through out, very cool operation, way more power than I could ever need, fully digital which definitely bods well with my full digital aura :D...., matching my other components, integrating with the pre-amplifier's control, etc., etc.

So if when it gets broken in the sound competes well (to my ancient ears) with the Job then I will be happy...

what do you mean, fully digital? Is it a class D amp, too?

Yes Wyred 4 Sound has always been Class D amplifiers. They use the same output stages as Bel Canto and Jeff Rowland amplifiers, the B&O ICEPower. The input section and layout are customized by EJ and crew, from my understanding. I have read some very good reviews including 6moons and The Absolute Sound (which gave them an Editor's Choice Award).

Got some serious comparisons to do after getting a reasonable burn in :)....

It will be hard for a class D to beat an A or A/B in my opinion. I tried the Audio Research class D amps in my system and they were sterile sounding. Tubes destroyed them. I always wondered why ARC doesn't make solid state A/B amps. Weird.

I was not familiar with the different type amps. I have been doing a lot of reading and it sounds like their are good examples in various types of amplifiers. It seems as if the class in and of itself is no longer the determining factor, but more so how it is put together and design throughout. Anyway, the Wyred seems to be on of the very good Class D along with several others. But my ears have got to the the determining factor in this shoot out since all the extraneous factors are in the W4S favor at this point.