Mytek Brooklyn Amp power amplifier

Designed in New York City, manufactured in Poland, and barely bigger than a thick paperback, the Brooklyn Amp ($2495) is Mytek’s first power amplifier. Like all of their products, it’s sleek to behold, with a powerful look that suggests the company’s pedigree: in addition to high-end consumer electronics, Mytek makes gear for the pro-audio market, where exceptional build quality and space-saving design are the norm.

Consistent with that last characteristic is the Brooklyn Amp’s output architecture: it operates in class-D, a technology that remains controversial. In my first review for Stereophile, I evaluated the Spec RPA-W7EX Real-Sound class-D power amplifier ($5995). That hefty silver box warmed my cockles with sound that was worthy of comparison to that of tubed amplifiers: delicious spatial performance and tonality that thoroughly surprised me. The mighty Spec warranted superlatives I usually reserve for my Shindo Laboratory Haut-Brion, coming as close to that amp’s humanness as one could wish for in a class-D amplifier.

The question: is class-D ready for prime time?

A demure beast designed in Brooklyn
Mytek occupies a former church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn—a building that, as recently as 2010, housed the studio of the artist Kehinde Wiley. From the street, the place looks like a crumbling homeless shelter. There I picked up not one but three Brooklyn Amps: the standard dual-mono stereo version, which produces 300Wpc; and two Amps set up in bridged mode, each working as a 600W monoblock. John Atkinson thought it made sense to listen to the Brooklyn Amp(s) hooked up to Mytek’s Brooklyn DAC Plus ($2195), so I made space for one of those, too, in my ever-ready LP backpack.

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Because, when in Greenpoint, record shopping is a must. This historically Polish neighborhood offers such vinyl hangs as Record Grouch, Academy Records Annex, The Thing, CO-OP 87, Captured Tracks, and, within a 10-minute walk to Williamsburg, Rough Trade. Excellent Polish bakeries abound, and Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop is an absolute treat. But I digress . . .

Deep below ground level, in the labyrinthine bowels of Mytek Central, is a fully operational recording studio. You know you’re in a pro-audio space by the powerful air-conditioning system that bathes the studio in lovely freezing air. A smaller, well-isolated studio holds a control console, and two pairs of speakers: massive Duntech Sovereigns (90dB sensitivity), and the smaller Wilson Audio Specialties Sabrinas (87dB). Two Brooklyn Amps in bridged-mono mode were driving the former. Effortless dynamics pounced on me like two hungry tigers.

“Duntechs, with their multiple drivers and complicated crossovers, are a very difficult load,” Mytek’s chief designer, Michal Jurewicz, told me. “Hypex [class-D modules] cannot drive it, the amps collapse, but this Brooklyn Amp does it with ease. This came out during months of design tests I did in 2016, when we were testing many different circuits.” Jurewicz also said that Mytek spent six months experimenting with more than 15 class-D amplifier modules from various OEMs, upgrading parts, adding capacitors, adjusting circuit parameters.

“Class-D is a relatively new technology, and there isn’t yet enough consensus in correlating circuit properties vs subjective sound quality,” Jurewicz wrote in response to my e-mailed questions. To get any such response, I had to use the journalistic equivalent of dentists’ pliers. There’s great competition among class-D designers, and the success of Mytek’s DACs and preamps—not to mention their Brooklyn DAC+ being one of the first fully functional MQA-ready D/A converters—has put Jurewicz in the catbird seat. He’d rather not answer any questions. Trade secrets.

Though Mytek ultimately chose an amplifier module from the Danish company Pascal A/S, it’s far from an off-the-shelf version. “We use one Pascal,” Jurewicz wrote, “but the module is heavily modified. Major parts are replaced, and they don’t sound anything like the originals (way better, more detailed and warmer). We’ve changed switching speeds, changed numerous parts in an attempt to significantly reduce distortion, and we beefed-up the power supplies. There are not really any classic transformers inside. It’s all well-executed switching technology. That’s why it’s so small and light.”

Inside and Out
Mytek’s familiar logo, which looks to me like a backlit Rorschach ink blot, appears in the upper-left corner of the Brooklyn Amp’s faceplate; a much larger version is formed by the ventilation holes punched in the top panel. The faceplate’s textured surface reminds me of an optical illusion in which the pattern seems to float free of the surface when stared at long enough. On it are only a single power button with a feel that made me want to press it and keep pressing it. I resisted. After the Amp is powered off, that Rorschach jack-o’-lantern on the front panel glows faintly.

On the Amp’s well-sorted, easily accessible hindquarters are: one pair each of gold-plated unbalanced (RCA) and balanced (XLR) analog input jacks, two pairs of large speaker binding posts, an IEC power inlet, a small jack for a 12V Power Up trigger, and a row of tiny DIP switches.

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Two of the DIPs control gain (0dB up, +6dB down) and mode (balanced up, unbalanced down), and two others work together: “When #7 is up the AMP works in a regular stereo mode,” notes the manual. “When #7 is down the AMP mode depends on dipswitch #8 setting; when #8 is up the AMP works in Bi-amp mode. When #8 is down the AMP works in a Bridge mode.”

When he explained to me the inner workings of the Brooklyn Amp, Jurewicz cracked open its lid to reveal a dual-mono configuration: a tightly spaced row of eight oversize capacitors on each of two circuit boards, and some similarly large chokes. Unlike DACs or amplifiers whose impressively big cases are mostly empty, the Brooklyn Amp, which measures 8.5″ wide by 1.73″ high by 9.5″ deep, leaves no part of its circuit boards unfilled.

Although the Amp’s current owner’s manual doesn’t provide operating instructions, an updated version will be available soon online, Jurewicz said.

MacDougal Street Setup
In past reviews I’ve complained until you, dear reader, are no doubt tired of hearing about the treacherous climb to my penthouse pad, in the New York City sky. The four Myteks were together no heavier than two bags of overpriced groceries from our soon-to-be-razed local supermarket. Who needs food when there are luxury condos to build? Gotta house those new-money 30-year-olds somewhere.

I used the single stereo and the two bridged-mono Brooklyn Amps in both of my systems: the smaller rig of Thorens TD 124 turntable, Jelco TS-350S tonearm, Ortofon Quintet Bronze cartridge, and Quad S2 speakers; and my big rig of Kuzma Stabi S turntable with Stogi S tonearm and Hana EL cartridge, PS Audio NuWave DAC, LG Blu-ray player, and DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/93 speakers.

Michal Jurewicz had loaned me a pair of Mytek Metropolis balanced interconnects to join DAC to Amps. Tellurium and Auditorium 23 speaker cables respectively snaked their ways into rigs small and big. TriodeWire Labs American interconnects also saw duty.

The Mytek Amps are small enough to fit anywhere, but when I placed one under the Brooklyn DAC+ in my small-rig rack, I was surprised when it ran relatively hot.

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