Includes Ruby 2 DAC valued at $825
To maintain a family resemblance with the lower powered amplifier, the EVOLUTION 100A is housed in a similar slim case with engraved front panel and solid metal control knobs as the EVOLUTION 50A. It is available with either a Black or Silver brushed aluminium front panel and uses the same ingenious soft push button design as the EVOLUTION 50 series, offering excellent tactile feel and backlit optical indication of functions, for optimum user-friendliness.
The front panel features a large OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display. The white on black display provides higher clarity and resolution than a normal display and has a wide range of customised graphic symbols. Display brightness levels can be changed or turned-off, if not required, via the menu system.
In addition to greatly increased performance, thanks to ingenious new circuit design, the EVOLUTION 100A has been equipped with 2 sets of high quality loudspeaker binding posts, with local and remote switching for A & B outputs. Optional extras include the ability to plug the Sequel mk2 Phono pre-amp inside and add the AMBIT FM/AM radio or RUBY DAC/Bluetooth/FM radio module to the expansion slot on the rear panel.
At the heart of any high-end amplifier there must be a good power supply; The EVOLUTION 100A uses a massive 360 Watt, low profile, toroidal mains transformer, with multiple windings for high and low voltages and current, to separate the power amp, pre-amp and digital circuitry. Creek’s long-standing design policy of paralleling several small capacitors in the power supply creates an ultra-high specification capacitor, with low inductance and ultra low impedance. This significantly improves filtering and helps produce a very powerful and accurate sound from such a relatively small amplifier.
After testing several methods of building a high performance and high efficiency power amplifier, suitable for this new model, David Gamble – Creek Audio’s Senior Engineer – created a unique Class G circuit especially for the EVOLUTION 100A. David chose to use four Sanken STD03 complimentary power Darlington transistors per channel, as used in the EVOLUTION 50A, which feature built-in thermal compensation. Compared to the EVOLUTION 50A, he improved the performance of the voltage gain circuitry, which, in combination with the output stage, now achieves extremely high open-loop gain and exceptionally low distortion, without sacrificing stability. The result is an exceptional power amplifier circuit with very low output impedance and high output current capability. This combination provides exceptional speed and control suitable for driving most loudspeakers.
To increase the power output of the smaller EVOLUTION 50A, yet still retain the same case size, David Gamble developed a cunning Class G circuit which runs normally at a lower voltage for power levels up to 25 Watts into 8 Ohms. When required to produce more than 25 Watts, the amp automatically swings to a higher secondary voltage, to increase the output power capability to over 100 Watts into 8 Ohms.
Statistically, average audio signals are mostly below half the maximum voltage swing available, which incidentally is only one quarter of the power. As the dissipation of lossy ‘idle current’ in a Class A/B amp (in the form of heat) is much lower for a 25 Watt amp than the potential 100 Watts in the EVOLUTION 100A, this solution dramatically improves the amplifier’s thermal efficiency and helps to keep it slim and attractive.
RUBY 2 DAC
The RUBY2 DAC module is the latest version which contains 4 x SPDIF inputs for both optical and co-axial connection. In addition it has a USB 2 input, to stream high resolution audio content to the amplifier from a computer or streaming device and can be controlled via the EVO remote control.
To maintain the best sound quality from your amplifier, the RUBY2 DAC module uses a top of the range Wolfson WM8742 DAC chip, designed in Scotland.
For mobile applications, the RUBY 2 DAC also adds the highly useful feature of Bluetooth connectivity to the amp, via the RUBY 2 DAC. So smart phones or tablets can be synced to the amp and your favourite music streamed wirelessly.In addition to this surprising amount of connectivity in such a small module, Creek have also incorporated the same FM tuner circuit, used in the brilliant AMBIT module, to provide FM connectivity to the RUBY 2 DAC. Sound quality is further improved over the AMBIT module by selecting the tuner’s digital output and converting that to analogue via the RUBY 2’s own high-end DAC.
Technical Specification Evolution 100a
| Power Output |
>110 Watts into 8 Ohms |
| Power Output |
>170 Watts into 4 Ohms |
| Continuous Current |
>8.5 Amps (sine wave) |
| Max Current |
+/- 26 Amps, current burst into 0.5 Ohms |
| Output Impedance |
<0.05 Ohms – 20Hz to 20KHz |
| THD |
< 0.002% |
| SNR |
>102dB – Line Input |
| Frequency Response |
10Hz – 100KHz +/- 2dB Line |
| Gain |
33.3dB (x46) via power amp input |
| Input Sensitivity |
650mV |
| Crosstalk |
-80dB at 1Khz |
| DC Offest |
< +/-10mV |
| Pre-amp Inputs |
5x RCA unbalanced – 1x Balanced XLR |
| Power-amp Inputs |
Input 3 & 4via RCA or XLR |
| Optional Tuner |
AMBIT FM/AM plug-in module |
| Optional DAC |
RUBY DAC – USB,SPDIF,Toslink, Bluetooth & FM Tuner |
| Outputs |
2 Pairs |
| Headphone output |
Dedicated low impedance amp (<50 Ohms) |
| IR Bus |
Powered output for IR repeater |
| Operating Voltages |
110V/230V Switchable |
| Consumption (at idle) |
<20 Watts (no standby) |
Consumption
(at full power)
|
500 Watts |
| Weight |
9Kgs |
| Dimensions |
430x60x280mm W/H/D
|
