ACCUPHASE E-5000
Integrated amplifiers
What would you like to know about the all new Accuphase? Clean and sweet treble – ticked. Rich and colorful mids – ticked. Wide and deep soundstage – ticked. But these are not new things, rather a usual Accuphase list of traits. So, is the E-5000 different? It is – it improves over its predecessors by how sophisticated and transparent it is sounding, as well as by its bass performance. To me, this Accuphase is a completely new league by company’s standards.
Function and form
Accuphase keeps its lines of Class A and Class AB amps separated. While – in integrated amplifiers – the Class A is crowned by E-800, in the Class AB it is the E-5000 that sits on the top. The E-5000 was conceived to celebrate Accuphase’s 50th anniversary and did so with grace and power at the same time. As usual, the amplifier is a strictly balanced design based on bipolar devices and two large 40 000 μF filtering capacitors. The amp employs the latest version of the brand’s renowned AAVA volume control – I find intriguing that the engineers in Accuphase attach importance to such things like “audiophile sensation when turning the volume knob”. Fortunately, I can confirm that the knob feels amazing when touched and turned. The E-5000 improves over its predecessor, the E-480, in power, now providing 2x 240W/8 Ω and 2x 320W/4 Ω of continuous power in the specifications. Those familiar with company’s specification know, that real continuous power will be ca 20% than specified. So there is a lot of power and I could hear it during my review.
The external look of the E-5000 is not that much different from other Accuphase’s line-up. The VU meters were redesigned and they are more sensitive too, as well as the trimming of rotary knobs is now gold and looks viciously luxurious. In the standards, the E-5000 provides a headphone preamplifier and many functions, hidden behind the panel under the display. These include A/B speaker set selector, phase invertor, mono, mode switch, display off, MC/MM selector, balance, and subtly working tone corrections. Most functions are available on the ergonomical remote controller.
Bass management
Earlier I have made the remark about the bass management of the new E-5000. The bass and the bass dynamics were always a soft spot of Accuphase, as I can attest by spending many months (E-210, A-60, A-70, A-200) or many days (E-270, E-450, E-560, E-800) with their models. Over the course of last years there was a clear effort to address it and that reflected in the damping factor crawling up. Still, it is the new E-5000 that is the very first brand’s amplifier with really convincing bass performance. In Cassandra Wilson’s Come On in My Kitchen and Patricia Barber’s Mashup I could finally hear depth, power, and texture of it. It is maybe not the stellar performance of great Class D designs, yet it is quite close already. The acoustic double bass of McBride in It’s Your Thing was real size and real punch, which elevates the Accuphase E-5000 to new heights for the brand.
Clarity & delicacy
The mids and treble are just perfect, very few brands can compete with the tonal saturation of the Accuphase. Especially the treble had so many brilliant color shades, as heard on gongs and cymbals, that I did not know was possible. Other Accuphase amps are good in that aspect too, but with the E-5000 it was married to the new level of transparency – I could simply hear better into recording ambience, tone decays, and into silence. Sparsely instrumented acoustic music was hilarious, like Youn Sun Nah’s voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar in No Other Name. Through the E-5000 the rendition of the guitar was among the best I ever heard, and the instrument was in the room. It was marvellous.
Tonal accuracy
There is no need to discuss whether the E-5000 can play the chamber and symphonic music – it was built for it. On the contrary, I was interested whether the amplifier can be used for un-audiophile music as there is large number of audiophiles that recruit from rock, metal, and dance music fans. Progres 2’s Dialog s vesmírem is an amazing conceptual prog-rock album and the track V zajetí počítačů kicks-off with an electric guitar solo. The E-5000 made it a live experience, as if the speakers were replaced by a guitar combo. Then keyboards and a bass guitar join, and the E-5000 just sings. And it sings better than the E-800 that I reviewed last year, especially at higher loudness levels, when the E-800 was short of breath.
Sober Assault is a Slovenian thrash-death assault on ears. The album Heralds of The Disclaimed swept the room without any sign of ‘softening’ or ‘forgiving’. The sound was hard and abrasive as it is on the record. Swedish Dynazty and their Breath With Me was a slick, polished, and pompous experience, Reverber and Wood of Suicides was a thrashfest full of Metallica-like staccatos. Whatever torture test I used the E-5000 succeeded.
Spatial resolution
Electrified is from the other side of music spectrum – it is Boris Blank of Yello at his best and the title track was served with energy, expansiveness, and hyper-accurate sound. Although the E-5000 could portray the warmth and body of analogue synths, it was once again the full and punchy bass that made this track a stand-out. Ditto for The Love Thieves of Depeche Mode, with so seductive Gahan’s vocal on top.
The Accuphase E-5000 is a fantastic integrated amplifier. Should I criticize something, it is the absence of MM/MC and DAC modules in the package. These are available at additional costs and make the already expensive amplifier less attractive for those who need to play records and stream. Other than that, I feel the E-5000 is the best integrated amplifier ever built by Accuphase.
Recommended resellers
Perfect Sound Group, Praha, tel. +420 722 960 690
Manufacturer's website: http://www.accuphase.com
Associated components
- Sources: xDuoo XT10T II, Musical Fidelity M6scd (DAC)
- Amplifiers: Accuphase E-5000
- Interconnects and speaker cables: AAI Maestoso, InAkustik Toslink, Nordost Frey
- Loudspeakers: Fyne Audio F501, F500SP, F1-5
- Power conditioning: Nordost Qb8, Nordost Valhalla V2, IsoTek Extreme
Gallery
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What would you like to know about the all new Accuphase? Clean and sweet treble – ticked. Rich and colorful mids – ticked. Wide and deep soundstage – ticked. But these are not new things, rather a usual Accuphase list of traits. So, ...
Recommended resellers
Perfect Sound Group, Praha, tel. +420 722 960 690
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