Fletcher-Haynes Kokopele Monoblock Amplifiers

Mike Galusha and Brian Boehler have posted a review of the Fletcher-Haynes Kokopele monoblock amplifiers ($3500/pair) at StereoMojo. Their conclusions:

“The Fletcher-Haynes Kokopele Monoblock power amplifiers are, we believe, that a lot of people will love but just as many will not love. First, there is their decidedly vintage look. These will appeal to a lot of people who like the retro/vintage look but want up-to-date sound that real vintage amps just can’t deliver without some modding or at least updating. That’s often expensive.

At $3,500 per PAIR, you’re getting separate power amps for the price of many stereo, single chasis amps.

Fletcher-Haynes is made in Colorado, USA. Judging from the email we get, Americans at least seem to be growing more inclined toward domestic products.

Whether via the designer’s biases or not, we think these amps work better with music that leans more toward rock and jazz than classical string quartets, guitars rather than harpsichords. They do love to boogie!

If the Atma-Sphere is an audiophile’s amp, then the Fletcher-Haynes is a musician’s amp, it wants to play and wants you to play along.

With a 45 or so wpc power output, speakers of reasonable sensitivity and with fairly well-damped woofers are likely the best match. While it will drive multiple large woofers, some control is sacrificed and of course the ultimate level will be limited by the power demands of the speaker vs the power available from the amps. See what our publisher noted, but we would say at least 89dB sensitivity would be desirable.”

You can read the full review here.