CREEK EVOLUTION 50A

This new amplifier forms part of the next generation EVOLUTION 50 range of products. Housed in a slim case with engraved front panel and solid HiFi Choice Awardcontrol knobs, it’s finished in either black or silver brushed aluminium. An ingenious new push button design has been developed for it, offering excellent tactile feel and backlit optical indication of usable functions for optimum user-friendliness.

The 50 series is the first Creek product to feature an OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) display. This white on black display provides higher clarity and resolution than a normal display and offers a wide range of customised graphic symbols. Display brightness levels can be changed or turn off when not required via the menu system.

At the heart of any good amplifier lies a good power supply; The EVOLUTION 50A uses a massive 250 Watt toroidal mains transformer with separate windings for high and low current analogue and digital circuitry. This produces a good power to weight ratio and low magnetic interference. Creek’s policy of paralleling several low impedance capacitors together, to create an ultra-high specification capacitor, to smooth the DC also helps to produce a very powerful and accurate sound from such a relatively small amplifier.

Creek’s Senior Engineer – David Gamble – who has much experience in the audio industry developed a completely new bi-polar transistor power amplifier circuit especially for the EVOLUTION 50A with very high open-loop gain and low distortion. Featuring a pair of Sanken 15 Amp power transistors, with built-in thermal compensation for rapid bias tracking performance, the Power Amplifier circuit has very low output impedance and can produce high output current. This combination will provide exceptional speed and control with most loudspeakers.

David also developed a completely new analogue Pre-amp circuit, providing high levels of flexibility and control, via unbalanced or balanced inputs. It has multiple input options, switched electronically or via gold contact relays, plus electronic Volume, Balance and Tone controls. For Vinyl fans, a Sequel 2 Phono pre-amp can be plugged-in, substituting Line Input 1 for Phono. In addition, Line input 5 is located on a Smart- Slot removable panel. Should the user want to fit a Tuner or DAC module, Line 5 input can be removed and replaced by either the AMBIT tuner or RUBY module.

Excellent measured and sonic performance has been achieved with this analogue integrated amp, but when using digital input signals via the matching EVOLUTION 50CD, the analogue pre-amp can be bypassed completely. The EVOLUTION 50CD has a very high-end volume control in the digital domain and ‘Class-A’ balanced audio outputs. Connecting the output directly to the “Power amp direct” inputs elevates the performance to an even higher level.

 

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

• POWER OUTPUT :   >55 Watts into 8 Ohms
• POWER OUTPUT :   >85 Watts into 4 Ohms
• CONTINUOUS CURRENT :   >8.5 Amps (sine wave)
• MAX CURRENT :   >26 Amps, current burst into 0.5 Ohms
• OUTPUT IMPEDANCE :   <0.1 Ohms @ 1Khz
• THD :   < 0.005% 20Hz – 20Khz
• SNR :   >102dB
• FREQUENCY RESPONSE :  10Hz – 100KHz +/- 2dB Line
• GAIN :  33.3dB (x46) via power amp input
• INPUT SENSITIVITY :  410mV
• CROSSTALK :  -80dB at 1Khz
• DC OFFEST :  < ±10mV
• SLEW RATE  : > 30 V per µS
• PRE-AMP INPUTS :  5x RCA unbalanced – 1x Balanced XLR
• POWER-AMP INPUTS :  Input 3 & 4via RCA or XLR
• OUTPUTS :  1 Pair
• 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
• CONSUMPTION (AT FULL POWER) :  350 Watts
• WEIGHT :  7.5Kgs
• DIMENSIONS :  430x60x280mm W/H/D