Mutant Ascension 4

Another brand true to its name, for Mutant have certainly Mutated. Now they even have one sub-brand called Mutant XXX and the demo car for it is a bonkers Mazda RX that you can see in the CAS open day piece or in the show reports section video clip. The idea initially was to make a purely entry level brand with style yet this amplifier is a bit too costly for the earlier group of these four channel amplifier tests and is firmly in the ‘better’ kit bracket now. It has some smarts in the shape of some lit-up bits at the end (don’t know what shade yet, will tell all after it’s been played with) that you can just see the LEDs sitting inside of when powered down in daylight. The case is smooth but does have some mini-ribs underneath. The top has been beautifully computer-control-engraved with the handwritten-look logo and the smooth font brand name, Ascension, which kind of itself bears out my point about change and improvement.
This long piece of equipment uses its longest edge to mount all the stuff it needs and as ever good design demands that the RCA sockets and power inputs are as physically far apart as possible. You get a serious set of all four RCA outputs to feed another four channeler or whatever you wanted to do as well as the four input plug holes and yet there is no bass boost nor is there a high level (Speaker wire) input system.
What you do get is a paired set of HPF and LPF crossovers on each pair of channels marked as a bandpass filter as well as an extra lowpass filter for the bass alone. This makes it one of the more clever amplifiers we will see in this test as not many could be used to run say, a set of speaker components with subsonic filtering and a bandpass for the midrange. This one is a possible sleeper let’s find out
– Class AB – 4 x 85w RMS @ 4 Ohms (CEA 2006 Compliant)
– 4 x 140w RMS @ 2 Ohms
– 2 x 280w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged
– Smooth Aluminium heatsink with engraved logo and model with LED-lit clear plastic end layers beneath the end caps.
– 8Ga. (micrometer measured @ >8mm) Power Terminals with Allen headed grub screw bare wire socket connection
– 4Ch RCA input & 4Ch RCA output
– Adjustable input sensitivity: 300mV to 8V
– Stereo, Mono & Trimode operation
– Frequency response 10Hz to 40kHz
– Signal to Noise Ratio >90dB
– Channel separation 65dB
– High Pass Filter 12dB per Octave 40Hz to 4kHz
– Band Pass Filter 12dB per Octave 40Hz to 8kHz
– Low Pass Filter 12dB per Octave 40Hz to 4kHz
– Fuse Rating 25A x 3
– HxWxD(mm) 53 x 494 x 215mm
– Complete with colour printed manual
Review by Adam Rayner
Well I can tell you that the end pieces are lit with very bright white LEDs, so the look of the ends is kind of sexy. At first you mightnt even notice this little see through sandwich of clear Acrylic on the ends but it is simply lovely. And in a market awash with bling, utterly unique in my experience. Vibe amps have got clever end caps that use a sticky-out bit of clear plastic protruding from the amplifiers chassis beneath that bears some blue LEDs to illuminate their Black Box logo set into said end cap from within but this is a classy look and really adds to the products appeal somehow more than a lit up logotype. Even one that looks like its on an endless amplifier.
For a product sold under this brand I was utterly dumbfounded to discover that the crossovers were both very smooth sounding in operation and very clever indeed. Literally streets ahead of other makers products in terms of what has been crammed in function-wise. The main control of what is happening is governed by two four-position slide switches which are well ensconced between the sets of RCAs in and out so are less than likely to get accidentally switched while the amplifier is running. In theory it would be possible for this to happen and thus pop your tweeters, but a decent level of care will obviate the risk.
The sound was big, bold and brash but lacked the ease of the hissy Massive P400.4 and had none of the sweetness of the Genesis Profile Four. Perhaps a little hard but overall a sound that can only be described as Huge. The output is definitely meaty and the quoted power is entirely to be believed. Again, like the Harman Kardon CA470, it raised so much Cain that I had to increase the range of SPL measurement on the AudioControl SA-3055 RTA. It created an easy 126.9dB before it was noticeably starting to sound distorted.
Such a good looking product, this really has left the entire budget or entry level concept for dead as this is a decent and yet affordable highly featured single-footprint solution for a wide variety of possible users as the clever crossovers make for a flexible piece of kit.
Its not budget by price, sound or functionality and that makes it nutty value for money.
Overall 8.2
Sound Quality 7
Power Output 9
Features 8
Build Quality 8
Value For Money 9