Chord Electronics ULTIMA
Immense power meets rare finesse in the ULTIMA monoblocks, delivering iron-fisted speaker control, deep articulate bass and a vast, quiet soundstage. HiFi News heard commanding slam, speed and subtlety, while Edgar Kramer praised its smooth, richly textured resolution. With 780W into 8 ohms, this is reference amplification for demanding loudspeakers and large-scale musical drama.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
95/100
Build Quality
97/100
Value for Money
88/100
Pros
Exceptional grip, speed and dynamic headroom drive demanding loudspeakers with powerful, tightly controlled bass.
Extremely low noise floor reveals subtle ambient cues and low-level detail without forcing them forward.
Spacious, precisely separated presentation combines natural tonal richness with stable imaging.
Immaculate CNC-machined construction and sophisticated high-current engineering feel genuinely flagship-grade.
Cons
Requires warm-up before it delivers its most richly detailed and satisfying performance.
Its highly clean, controlled balance can occasionally trade a little lushness for precision.
WATT RECOMMENDS
Save your favorites. Compare them anytime.
Create a free HiFi Hub account to save products to your Wishlist and compare your favorites side by side.
What Reviewers Are Saying
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 95/100
Reviews describe an exceptionally quiet, highly resolved and spacious presentation allied to unusually substantial power and speaker control. Its character is fundamentally natural and refined rather than merely forceful, although one reviewer found it overly clean at times and noted that it needs warming up before sounding its best.
Transparency Resolution
96/100
SoundStage reviewers heard a vanishingly low noise floor that exposed ambient cues, subtle instrumental detail and piano timbre without forcing those details forward. The Ultima 2 review likewise praised its intensely black background, vast resolution and smooth handling of low-level information.
Tonal Balance Musicality
92/100
Reviewers found voices, piano and acoustic instruments richly textured, natural and full-bodied, with no fatigue over extended listening. Hi-Fi News did note a slightly laid-back balance and said the amplifier can occasionally sound a little too clean, while also finding its overall presentation richly detailed and satisfying once warm.
Dynamics
97/100
This is a defining strength: reviewers repeatedly describe immense control, speed, slam and seemingly boundless headroom. It held demanding Wilson and Bowers & Wilkins speakers in command, delivered frightening crescendos and drum impacts without smearing, and combined large-scale force with subtle transient precision.
Soundstage Imaging
95/100
Reviewers heard a broad stage extending beyond the speakers, massive room-filling scale and a superb sense of recorded acoustic. Images were described as tightly locked in place, while separation remained unusually clear without sacrificing smoothness or textural richness.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
97/100
The Ultima is repeatedly described as superbly engineered and exceptionally finished, from its CNC-machined aluminium construction and immaculate assembly to its advanced MOSFET output stage. Its balanced and single-ended connections, dual speaker terminals, trigger provision, extensive heatsinking and high-current mono architecture support its genuinely heavyweight execution.
Value for Money
88/100
At roughly £30,000 per monoblock, the Ultima is firmly a cost-no-object purchase rather than an accessible high-end bargain. Nevertheless, reviewers consider its power, control and engineering difficult to dispute at this level, with SoundStage placing the related Ultima 6 among the best available short of more extreme ultra-high-end territory.
Reviews & Sources
Professional reviews and sources for this product's Watt'n Potatoes analysis.
Online Reviews & Mentions
YouTube Reviews
Forum Mentions
No forum mentions found yet
Specifications
- Output power
- 780 W RMS per channel into 8 Ω 1,405 W RMS per channel into 4 Ω
- Power consumption
- Full power – 3,500 W Standby – 10 W
- THD
- 0.005 %
- Frequency response
- -1 dB @ 0.2 Hz to 46 kHz and -3 dB 0.1 Hz to 200 kHz
- Signal to noise ratio
- Better than -90 dB
- Input impedance
- 100 kΩ Unbalanced/Balanced
- Output impedance
- 0.04 Ω
- Gain
- 30 dB
- Dimensions with included Integra legs
- 30.5 cm (H) x 48 cm (W) x 75 cm (D)
- Dimensions with optional side blocks
- 28.5 cm (H) x 42 cm (W) x 75 cm (D)
- Weight
- 66.7 kg
Manufacturer's Description — Chord Electronics
The ULTIMA mono power amplifiers have been conceived for the very finest high-end audio systems, those which by their very nature, tend to have the most demanding and most difficult-to-drive large loudspeakers. They deliver unsurpassed power and are capable of effortlessly driving any speaker.
ULTIMA is the company’s most accomplished amplifier in its 34-year history and one that draws on Chord Electronics’ three decades of proprietary-technology amplifier manufacturing. It features an all-new circuit topology, the first completely new design since the company’s inception. The new dual-feed forward error-correction amplifier technology is a progression of Dr Malcolm J Hawksford’s (emeritus professor at Essex University) technical paper, refined by Bob Cordell of Bell Labs.
ULTIMA contains Chord Electronics’ next-generation amplifier tech, a design which features Cordell’s advanced dual-feedforward error-correction topology, with the important addition of John Franks’ own advanced concepts in ultra-high-frequency power supplies.
The ULTIMA mono amplifier unit has an incredible 64 proprietary MOSFET power devices that demand the most advanced and refined drive circuitry, suitably devoid of sound-degrading components. The drive circuitry features an ultra-low-distortion, high-voltage amplifier operating at very high speed: 300 volts-per-microsecond technologies with advanced feed-forward and feedback compensation techniques.
ULTIMA is incredibly powerful and offers 780 watts into 8 ohms, 1,400 watts into 4 ohms and 2,500 watts (!) into 2 ohms. ULTIMA’s peak output current exceeds 500 amps, an extremely high current differentiated by the speed at which the dynamic peaks can be delivered, bringing astonishing dynamics, timing accuracy and unrivalled musicality.
ULTIMA is truly an unprecedented amplifier design with exceptional performance and is one of the most advanced hi-fi amplifiers in the world.
Other accessories & custom options
Raw aluminium Integra leg option.
Black anodised aluminium Integra leg option.
Inputs:
1x Balanced XLR Inverted Input
1x Balanced XLR Non-inverted Input
1x Gold Plated Unbalanced RCA Inverted Input
1x Gold Plated Unbalanced RCA Non-inverted Input
1x 12v Trigger Input – Chord Electronics Auto Start
Output:
2x Pair of High Quality, High Current, Gold Plated Type Speaker Terminals (Bi-wireable)
Key Features
780w into 8Ω
Class AB Sliding Bias
Dual feed-forward error correction
HF Switch Mode Power Supply
Proprietary Chord MOSFETs
Fully Balanced Circuitry
Convection Cooled
Balanced XLR Inverted Input
Balanced XLR Non-inverted Input
Unbalanced RCA Inverted Input
Unbalanced RCA Non-inverted Input
12v Trigger On/Off Input
Dimmable feature lighting
Included Top Light Ring
Solid Aluminium Chassis
Included Accessories
ULTIMA Quickstart guide
Safety instructions
15A Mains IEC cable
Verified Dealers
Online Dealers
All Dealers
Zoom out the map to see more dealers
Authorized dealers for Chord Electronics ULTIMA
- Absoulute Audio plus Video — in-store — Aiken, South Carolina, United States (website)
- In Living Stereo — in-store — New York City, New York, United States (website)
- The Music Room — online and in-store — Erie, Colorado, United States (website)
- 110Hz — online and in-store — Kielce, Województwo świętokrzyskie, Poland (website)
- Accent On Music — in-store — Mount Kisco, New York, United States (website)
- Acoustic Designs Inc. — in-store — Scottsdale, Arizona, United States (website)
- Acoustic Sounds — online and in-store — Salina, Kansas, United States (website)
- Acoustic Streams — in-store — Lower Drift, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Acoustica — online and in-store — Chester, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Ajasom — online and in-store — Amadora, Lisboa, Portugal (website)
and 202 more verified dealers