Clarion APA 4360

The most powerful of the six affordably priced 4 channel amplifiers in the group and more than twice the output power at ninety watts per channel than the smallest offering in the group – the Kicker ZX200.4. At least twice the mass and bulk of the smaller Kicker product, it has a white powder coated heatsink with silvery Aluminium showing along the tops of the edge ground fins. Inset into the top is a slab of Aluminium that has the Clarion logo raised in it and has some square motifs marked in rows of three on the surface. Three of these shapes are in fact cut outs and show a row of three blue LEDs through once powered up.
The end panel with the power and speaker terminals has ‘Designed in the USA’ emblazoned upon it, giving the hint to the quality innards and they use gold plated cross headed grub screws to hold the wires in fat-bore solid machined metal sockets rather than screw-downs. High level input is taken care of via an edge connector protruding from each side of the control end drop (loom plugs supplied) and there are four RCA inputs but no ‘link’ outputs. Channel one and two alone get the use of the bass extender circuit which is sweepable up to a whopping +15dB at the normal 45Hz point. The crossovers go from 55Hz to 550Hz on these lower, bass-intended channels and you get a 10x multiplier switch for the third and fourth channels’ crossover such that it can then do 550Hz to 5.5kHz and so be perfect for component speakers’ active use. Very few amps can do this. Each pair of channels has but one filter (unlike the SPL Dynamics that has four) so you get a switch with each filter to choose LP/HP/Off. You can also choose via another switch to use just two of the four RCA inputs to feed the whole amplifier.
– Class AB
– 4 x 90w RMS @ 4 Ohms
– 4 x 130w RMS @ 2 Ohms
– 2 x 260w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged
– Aluminium extruded heatsink with white powder coat finish, cut and lacquered fin tops and inlaid Aluminium brand badge
– 8Ga. Power Terminals with cross headed grub screw bare wire socket connection
– High level connection via dual edge connectors looms supplied
– 4Ch RCA input
– 12dB per Octave high/low pass crossovers variable 55Hz to 550Hz
– 0 to 15dB Bass Boost @ 45Hz
– Input sensitivity: 0.2V to 0.6V
– End caps with neat tamper-proof engineering bolts securing
– Stereo & bridged operation
– Frequency response 10Hz to 50kHz
– Signal to Noise Ratio 100dB
– Channel separation not quoted
– Fuse Rating 30A x 2
– HxWxD(mm) 56 x 407 x 165mm
Review by Adam Rayner
Clarion are best known for their leading edge headunit technology and multimedia capabilities. When you think of Clarion you don’t tend to think of their amplifiers and this product proves that that is just so wrong. In fact I have spotted in the past that their amps are quietly possessed of improbably high specifications and that although they don’t make any donkey choker style kilowatt bass throb monsters, their regular power amplifier products have always been of the top quality and here’s the living proof. For one, it’s gorgeously well built. As metal is scarce in Japan the more of it that is used in any given product, the better it generally is. This is why high end Japanese HiFi components so often have absurdly thick front slabby panels. The piece that is inlaid into the top looks like it might be foil-thin when you first look at it as it is so shiny but when you look closer you see that it is a serious piece of Alu-mongery. I found the crossovers to be smooth and clean sounding and as soon as it fired up, you could tell that the sound quality was excellent.
A good bit more detail was audible than came through the SPL Dynamics. It was better in the high frequencies and less tiring. Smoother and sweeter but still with bags of impact. In fact once I cranked it up, it proved that the power claims must be factual as the Sound Pressure Level reached a whopping 126.5dB and a bit more at the window sill behind me! (As measured on the resident AudioControl SA-3055 RTA.) Stuff like ride cymbals were crisper and had some actual sizzle instead of a mere ‘pish’ as is so often the case. Bass impact was serious, with a sensation in your breast bone from the big cones of the Morel reference test speakers responding via their nuttily huge voice coils.
Still a tiny bit hard at times when driven with vigour but at sensible levels this is pure posh. I love the blue LEDs that light up on the top and I love the way the bass booster works, it is rich and fat and yet doesn’t sound like it is crippling the amplifier since the power reserves are there. This amp scores well for its madly big power at the price point ( I reckon Clarion are fighting back versus the competition with this thing’s pricing) is built like a cruise ship all white and svelte yet metal-solid and is of course quite incredible VFM.
This is enough, along with a decent feature count and the clean sound quality for it to garner enough kudos for a Talk Audio Recommended flag.
Good solid kit with fine antecedents.
Overall 8.8
Sound Quality 8
Power Output 10
Features 7
Build Quality 9
Value For Money 10