Blaupunkt Velocity VA 275

A two channel amplifier from the Velocity stable. It is rated both in the normal maximum method and by RMS, which in the manual only, is made reference to being compliant with the excellent Consumer Electronics Association’s (CEA) 2006 rating system. This was brought in to make amplifiers more comparable and to stop the lies being told by some makers of poor quality kit. It is an important standard and if I was Blaupunkt’s marketing guy I would want the ‘CEA 2006 Compliant’ logo that I have seen on other boxes also printed on my one. The amp is unusual in that it has a regular extruded heatsink, yet wears a side cheek of plastic on each side that prevent the ends from being as sharp and able to rip luggage as normal amplifiers. Other than that is it a fairly sensible and normal arrangement of the power and speaker connections on one side and the RCA, high level and the special 3.5mm mini-jack input are all on the opposite side of the heatsink slice. The controls are a regular fare of simple up or down or off switch for the crossovers and a gain knob as well as one for the bass boost control. We are not told what frequency this is fixed at. I was thinking about using the AudioControl SA-3055 RTA or real time analyser but realise the difference is about whether it is 40Hz or 45Hz and the room acoustics would make it impossible to tell easily it’ll likely be one or the other. I reckon it’ll be 45Hz. The top panel has a black sheet of another metal with the Velocity logo picked out in a silvery colour. It isn’t especially weighty and seems about right for a clean 2×75 watter. Lets’ go find out
– Class AB
– 2 x 75w RMS @ 4 Ohms (CEA 2006 Compliant)
– 2 x 105w RMS @ 2 Ohms (CEA 2006 Compliant)
– 1 x 210w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged (CEA 2006 Compliant)
– Extruded brushed Aluminium heatsink with inlaid ‘Velocity’ logo panel and polymer side cheeks
– Large crosshead screw down terminals for power and smaller ones for the speakers’ connection
– RCA and high level (speaker) input connection, plus 3.5mm stereo mini jack input for direct MP3 player (or Blaupunkt Lucca) connection
– 0 to 12dB Bass Boost (frequency not stated)
– Adjustable input sensitivity: 0.3V to 8V
– Stereo & Mono operation
– Frequency response 10Hz to 35kHz
– Signal to Noise Ratio >95dB
– Channel separation not quoted
– High Pass Filter 50Hz to 250Hz
– Low Pass Filter 50Hz to 250Hz
– Fuse Rating 30A x1
– HxWxD(mm) 54 x 240 x 258mm
– Complete with fixing screws, high level input wire to plug assembly, EMMA publicity sheet and Blaupunkt-sponsored EMMA official ESPL competition CD and manual
Review by Adam Rayner
What a cutie this amplifier is! There are those who would dismiss this as being a mere commodity ‘me too’ item made so that shops doing systems can sell them on assumption closes with an ‘of course you’ll want an amp with that’ comment. They would be wrong, so wrong.
For what we have here is a slice of smart and effective, yet madly high quality for the money amplification. It was flung into the same test rig as was used for the recent slew of four channel amplifiers, fully eighteen in all. (You can find them as a group that meant that I could try it running at four Ohms and then also at two. A known good headunit source was fed into the amplifier through a set of JL Audio RCA cables and hooked into the first pair of test speakers ( a ‘secret’ brand set of three-way ovals with horn loaded tweeters and oversized bass motors) to see how they sounded.
I tried the crossovers and found that the slope was a bit gentle and was really about speaker protective filtering, rather than audiophile sound-walls. There was a knob for both highpass and also lowpass crossovers, although you can only activate one way at a time by using the classic HPF/flat/LPF three way switch.
I loved the bass boost. It was full and fat and yet didn’t simply instantly cripple the output with daft demands on the amplifier. You get that a lot with amps where the bass boost circuit is designed for the most badass amp in their range. This one can drill up to a silly extra 12dB (which is great for the nutters) and yet the output managed to cope with most things before it could be heard to be reaching a bass limit.
The controls are all smooth and while there’s nothing that would be likely to be able to accidentally adjust them by being in the wrong place, it is lovely to have proper knobs attached to your potentiometers. You are being treated like grown ups by Blaupunkt. The end user, not just the installer can dare to mess about with the controls.
I powered the rig down it was running on the Odyssey PC925 battery through StreetWires cables outta BBG’s parts bin (cheers guys!) and hooked the Morel Supremo 6 components up to the same terminals. Thus we have two 4 Ohm loads in parallel, (like sleepers across the tracks that are the speaker wire’s positive and negative marked sides) and thus was showing the amp a two Ohm load.
It didn’t seem to mind at all and as the surface area of the speakers was all the greater, the level was considerably higher too.
The track was the one with the ‘Ting! Ting!’ percussion in it from Spirit of Sound #6 the now cult Talk Audio test CD and it was impressive. OK, you can tell that this was not the same sound as an �800 of State of the Art four channel DLS Ultimate A4 but what it did do for less than a sixth the cost was provide far more of the high end quality of sound than price would suggest it had any damn right to.
I was getting a slice of the high rise time tinging triangles stuff as well as the fat richness of swelling strings and the bulbous yet taut bass of the weight of the big strings. The ones you have to sit down at to play.
The stop and start of the techno ‘Zatisfactionne!!’ track was impressive too. Not as breathtakingly major as an exotic amplifier can do, but you would have to have some speakers very nearly as savagely high quality (and cost) as the reference test jobs in the Talk Audio rig to be able to tell if you were using an amp any posher than this.
It is reassuringly sized for all its high performance-to-cost ratio. It isn’t trying to claim the world but it’ll bite tremendous value for money lumps out of it if you hook it up well.
Meanwhile, isn’t the whole thing about Blaupunkt getting behind EMMA tremendously exciting? The CD included is the official EMMA test CD and you get a little flyer in with each product as well that has the Blaupunkt, Velocity and EMMA logos upon it and says, ‘ For the ultimate sound experience we recommend the download of the official EMMA rule book.’ And the bottom, the url, www.emmanet.eu
If this amplifier is anything to indicate direction, then it looks like Blaupunkt are going to be the Teutonic Dragon awakening. And with the power and attitude of Robert Bosch behind them, if I were a competitor I’d feel that suddenly there was a new force to reckon with.
It might just be a small amp but it’s the vanguard of the ruddy future! You read it here first.
Overall 8.2
Sound Quality 8
Power Output 7
Features 8
Build Quality 8
Value For Money 10