My Roksan Caspian M2 amplifier

[Dom]

I bought the 2nd hand amplifier off a gentleman for £960 from Ebay.
I was extremely excited at my purchase as the amplifier looked in mint condition, fresh from the factory floor.
I quickly unpackaged the machine and carefully plugged in the wires.

From the off I was very pleased with the sound, but then after a day or two it wouldn't turn on.
So I quickly messaged the gentleman and he quickly responded, the IEC fuse sometimes blows and that he would happily accept a return. 👍

So I quickly phoned Monitor Audio which recommend 3.15a fuse.

However the amplifier states 2 amps? 😕

Ignoring Monitor Audio, I tried 2 amp fuses until I found the Bussmann Helical 2 amp fuse which appears to work and that I did get the amplifier of my dreams and so I'd like to thank the gentleman, Ebay, Roksan, Monitor Audio and RSPro for my working Caspian M2 amplifier.

 

[abacus]

If it’s the glass type fuse then they come in anti-surge, slow-blow and quick-Blow, so make sure you have the correct version fitted.

Bill

 

[jayukguy147]

I've been tempted to buy one of these, 10 out of 10?

 

[plastic penguin]

I bought the 2nd hand amplifier off a gentleman for £960 from Ebay.
I was extremely excited at my purchase as the amplifier looked in mint condition, fresh from the factory floor.
I quickly unpackaged the machine and carefully plugged in the wires.

From the off I was very pleased with the sound, but then after a day or two it wouldn't turn on.
So I quickly messaged the gentleman and he quickly responded, the IEC fuse sometimes blows and that he would happily accept a return. 👍

So I quickly phoned Monitor Audio which recommend 3.15a fuse.

However the amplifier states 2 amps? 😕

Ignoring Monitor Audio, I tried 2 amp fuses until I found the Bussmann Helical 2 amp fuse which appears to work and that I did get the amplifier of my dreams and so I'd like to thank the gentleman, Ebay, Roksan, Monitor Audio and RSPro for my working Caspian M2 amplifier.

Hi Dom

Pleased it's sorted.

Is this something related to Roksans? I've never experienced that with any amps I've owned. I would look at what's causing it, otherwise this could be reoccurring.

 

[RoA]

If it happens again I'd either have it looked at or return to seller.

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

Ignoring Monitor Audio, I tried 2 amp fuses

Not at £4.2k, I hope!

 

[Dom]

Not at £4.2k, I hope!

QSA don't do a 2 amp fuse and even if they did It would probably be broken anyway and cost £42trillion.

 

[nopiano]

This sounds vaguely familiar. I’m too tired to google it but i think the spec was revised. However, as already advised above, do check you have the correct type.

 

[nopiano]

I lied. I wasn't too tired. And I did remember right. But you’ve got a short memory, Dom!

Question - Roksan Caspian M2 internal fuse rating?

Maybe someone could shed some light on this. There are two versions of this amplifier, one marked 2 amp and the other 3.15 amp internal fuse rating. My one is marked 2 amp and it blows the fuse. If I put in a 3.15 amp, its fine. What do you think?

forums.whathifi.com

 

[Dom]

I lied. I wasn't too tired. And I did remember right. But you’ve got a short memory, Dom!

Question - Roksan Caspian M2 internal fuse rating?

Maybe someone could shed some light on this. There are two versions of this amplifier, one marked 2 amp and the other 3.15 amp internal fuse rating. My one is marked 2 amp and it blows the fuse. If I put in a 3.15 amp, its fine. What do you think?

forums.whathifi.com

Thanks mate.
Yeah, I wanted to share my experiences with my amplifier, again, the Caspian amp is a fine beast.
Cheers for you nopiano.

 

[Gray]

The Caspian amp is a fine beast.

I bet it is Dom 👍
I had a Kandy on home loan for a while and it had a noticeably solid- sounding bass.

With more power, I can imagine your Caspian being even better.

 

[Dom]

I bet it is Dom 👍
I had a Kandy on home loan for a while and it had a noticeably solid- sounding bass.

With more power, I can imagine your Caspian being even better.

Interesting Grey, because the Kandy amplifiers are really good.
The Kandys K2 do things I have never heard before, like belt out sound at insane volume. Wind, strings or sax that just sound so sweet. They are incredibly good amplifiers.

So, the question is why would I go up the range to this, well lets start by saying its relaxing audio, pistol straight and soothing, that is until I turn up the volume and its party mode to my ears and brain.
Imagine, bass that's perfectly thumping out at super accurate levels and cymbals that show off the frankly frightening precision and of course the midrange that has been slightly recessed as not to damage the sound of my speakers, so its very psychedelic. Yet the composure is where its at, the Kandy's show off where the Caspian's don't.

Sometimes its so good I wonder if I'm dreaming.

 

[Dom]

I've been tempted to buy one of these, 10 out of 10?

I will give it 10/10 but it depends on many factors such as my PC and my DAC to sound insane.
BIOS, drivers changes for my PC, fuse changes for my DAC and I bought a cheeky mains cable from a nice seller at eBay for my amp, it clearly said buy me so I did, woh.

Building a PC is very hard and its very easy to make mistakes. I always choose Intel B motherboards as it has no overclocking features.

I looked at the voltage section in my BIOS and freaked out, I tried once messing with them and got nowhere.
RAM on the other hand is a breath of fresh air as the realtime calibrator and the Extreme memory profile settings makes life easy.

Windows 11 is just like throwing a dart at the map and seeing where it goes with the Intel TMP, Secure boot and virtualization technology's, but so far so good, well played.

And how can we forget Nvidia for my 1660ti which is incredible, however I did turn on some PCIe setting's for the OS and aggressive power settings for the 4TB HDD.

Also one setting that had me confused because of the famous GPU is the Above 4G decoding setting without Re-sizable BAR , because initially I didn't like the sound, but the Roksan K3 DAC demanded it so its on, its like my DAC throws a wobbly.

One more thing, I actually enabled software enabled Intel SGX and I have no idea what it does, it can slow down my computer, but there's no difference in performance.

The point is I don't know what I'm doing, so I'm just plugging away at this stuff hoping for a better audio experience.

 

[plastic penguin]

I bet it is Dom 👍
I had a Kandy on home loan for a while and it had a noticeably solid- sounding bass.

With more power, I can imagine your Caspian being even better.

There is quite a shortfall in power: the Kandys were either 120 or the later models 130 watts into 8 ohms. The Caspian is around 70 or 80 watts.

That said, how the Caspian delivers that power should be an improvement over the Kandys.

 

[RoA]

Yes, the Caspian is quite a bit better despite lower power.

The Attessa seems to have closed the gap with some of the power supply being taken from the M2.

 

[plastic penguin]

Yes, you dont need thumping power ratings, it really is quality over quantity.

Not sure where the Attessa sits in the Roksan range, but if it shares elements from the Caspian range, it should be rather good.

 

[Gray]

There is quite a shortfall in power: the Kandys were either 120 or the later models 130 watts into 8 ohms. The Caspian is around 70 or 80 watts.

Is that right?
It was 20 years ago that I had an early Kandy (as well as a Cyrus 8 and an Arcam A85) on home loans.
I always thought the Caspian was more expensive / was higher rated (at least in paper watts) than the Kandy.....being the other way round might explain the bass solidity I noticed on the Kandy.
Of the 3, the overall liveliness of the Cyrus easily won out for me - especially over the A85 - which I liked for its aesthetics.

 

[plastic penguin]

Is that right?
It was 20 years ago that I had an early Kandy (as well as a Cyrus 8 and an Arcam A85) on home loans.
I always thought the Caspian was more expensive / was higher rated (at least in paper watts) than the Kandy.....being the other way round might explain the bass solidity I noticed on the Kandy.
Of the 3, the overall liveliness of the Cyrus easily won out for me - especially over the A85 - which I liked for its aesthetics.

You are right, sir. The Caspian M1 was better quality but only had 70 watts per channel. The Kandy you heard back then was either Mk3 or later L3. They were both 120 watts. Thanks to What Hi-Fi, they came to my gaff with Reader Rescue in 2008. They also had Cyrus 8VS2.

The Caspian M1 I demoed and is in the same ballpark, both price-wise and sound quality, as the Leema.