The Rowland Model 625 Stereo amplifier started to ship in December 2010.
M625 is a single chassis class A/B design; Power rating is 300W at 8 Ohms, 550W at 4 Ohms; Input impedance 10K Ohms; damping factor: 200. maximum current ratings have not yet been published. M625 is fully balanced in the input and output stages. As far as I know, both input stages and output stages are transformer coupled, probably using Lundahl transformers. The power conversion stage uses no global feedback. The bias adjusts itself upward as the unit warms up, moving more toward class A. The most interesting bit on the M625 page asserts that M625 "Features a unique composite circuit architecture incorporating separate Class AB voltage and current gain blocks with no overall negative feedback." The amp uses a high speed SMPS prefixed by a PFC-based rectifier, instead of a toroidal supply. As typical for Rowland devices, the silver-only chassis is milled from an Aluminum block by Vertek in Colorado Springs. The heat sinks are massive and work extremely well to regulate and dissipate heat: whenever I touched M625 in Denver, temperature appeared to be identical all over the chassis.
In Denver at RMAF, the evening of Friday October 15th, a brand new M625 amp replaced a pair of very well broken in Rowland M301 monoblocks in the Rowland suite, and was used until the end of the show. It was my distinct impression that M625 immediately exceeded the performance of M301, and continued to sweeten and open up until Sunday afternoon. I have not heard a well broken in M625 yet, nor have auditioned one in my own system, so I will leave it to actual owners to comment on its sound in detail.... Yet, the little I heard was already momentous.
The product section of the new Rowland site has photos, features and specs, including the metalwork done by Vertek at:
http://jeffrowland.com/websitepublisher/amplifiers-model-625.html
The complete M625 Owner's Manual can be downloaded at:
http://jeffrowlandgroup.com/kb/getattachment.php?data=NDc5fEpSREdfTTYyNV9NQU5VQUxfUkVWQjEtMS5wZGY=
US price: $14,500.
M625 is a single chassis class A/B design; Power rating is 300W at 8 Ohms, 550W at 4 Ohms; Input impedance 10K Ohms; damping factor: 200. maximum current ratings have not yet been published. M625 is fully balanced in the input and output stages. As far as I know, both input stages and output stages are transformer coupled, probably using Lundahl transformers. The power conversion stage uses no global feedback. The bias adjusts itself upward as the unit warms up, moving more toward class A. The most interesting bit on the M625 page asserts that M625 "Features a unique composite circuit architecture incorporating separate Class AB voltage and current gain blocks with no overall negative feedback." The amp uses a high speed SMPS prefixed by a PFC-based rectifier, instead of a toroidal supply. As typical for Rowland devices, the silver-only chassis is milled from an Aluminum block by Vertek in Colorado Springs. The heat sinks are massive and work extremely well to regulate and dissipate heat: whenever I touched M625 in Denver, temperature appeared to be identical all over the chassis.
In Denver at RMAF, the evening of Friday October 15th, a brand new M625 amp replaced a pair of very well broken in Rowland M301 monoblocks in the Rowland suite, and was used until the end of the show. It was my distinct impression that M625 immediately exceeded the performance of M301, and continued to sweeten and open up until Sunday afternoon. I have not heard a well broken in M625 yet, nor have auditioned one in my own system, so I will leave it to actual owners to comment on its sound in detail.... Yet, the little I heard was already momentous.
The product section of the new Rowland site has photos, features and specs, including the metalwork done by Vertek at:
http://jeffrowland.com/websitepublisher/amplifiers-model-625.html
The complete M625 Owner's Manual can be downloaded at:
http://jeffrowlandgroup.com/kb/getattachment.php?data=NDc5fEpSREdfTTYyNV9NQU5VQUxfUkVWQjEtMS5wZGY=
US price: $14,500.
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