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Amplid Singular 2022-2023 Snowboard Review

Tested and selected for our top 100 snowboard products of the year: the Amplid Singular

  • Price: €660, $660
  • Category: All-Mountain
  • Sizes: 144, 149, 154, 158, 162, 166
  • Flex: 6/10
  • Shape: Directional Twin
  • Profile: Camber
  • 3D: No
  • Base: Sintered

Why We Chose The Amplid Singular: When a company like Amplid says it’s cracked the true all-purpose Swiss Army Knife, it’s time to sit up and pay attention.

The name says it all: the Amplid Singular aims to go full Marie Kondo on your board bag. Never mind the quiver approach; just get one of these all-terrain vehicles in there, and prepare to spark a whole load of joy.

This message is only slightly undermined by the fact that there are actually *two* Singulars – this one, and a true twin version.

“As well as being equipped for all terrain and conditions, the range of sizes caters for everyone from Sophie up to the BFG”

Who Is The Amplid Singular For?

Everyone! Again, that’s not just marketing spiel; as well as being equipped for all terrain and conditions, the range of sizes caters for everyone from Sophie up to the BFG. Park nuts will obviously want to look at the true twin version, but this would see them right as well.

MORE INFO:
AMPLIDSNOWBOARDS.COM

 

Shape, Profile and Sidecut

The folks at Amplid haven’t thrown up too many surprises in the shape department, which makes sense. When it comes to making something with versatility, you can forget about oddball outlines.

SHOP ALL SNOWBOARDS ON

 

While relatively conventional, there’s a lot of clever stuff going on with the shape of the Amplid Singular. The tail, for example, is slightly flatter than the nose in order to improve its float in powder. That’s useful when you’re lucky enough to need it, but essentially anonymous when you’re on the groomers or in the park.

Its mid-wide status provides a solid platform even for big-hoofed riders, without overdoing it, and the sidecut uses computer-aided Bézier curves to create a perfect compliment to the board’s flex profile. Meanwhile the low-rise camber earns the Singular some more mass-appeal points, delivering a smoother, less twitchy ride on the hard stuff. Usually that’d mean a drop in pop, but the addition of a carbon rod down the middle of the board has taken care of that.

“While relatively conventional, there’s a lot of clever stuff going on with the shape”

Construction and Materials

With so little wiggle room in terms of shape design, Amplid has poured most of its efforts into what’s under the hood. No crowd-pleaser board could be made stiff enough to handle rough chop, so the solution is to give a mellower-flexing board the ability to handle a rough ride. Two squiggly lines of Viscodamp (a type of relatively soft polyurethane) sit in the nose of the board, absorbing the vibrations that occur when you’re blasting across uneven terrain. Another channel sits right in the middle, and extends further towards the tip.

None of this gets in the way of Amplid’s popular Hexo2 tech, which replaces sections of the poplar core at the extremities and between the bindings with a honeycomb structure, made from recycled paper. The resultant reduction in swing weight is something you can appreciate whether at ground level, or spinning to win.

Similarly, torsionally rigid triax fibreglass is out of the question, so what you’ll find here is Amplid’s own quadrax blend. 90-degree biax fibreglass intersects with thinner strands that cut across at 30-degree angles. This Goldilocks flavour of torsional twistability is (you guessed it) ideal for the widest range of conditions, not to mention built to last. The effect is bolstered by basalt strips that run from the binding inserts out to the contact points.

“Two squiggly lines of ‘Viscodamp’ sit in the nose, absorbing the vibrations that occur when you’re blasting across uneven terrain”

Roundup

Let’s face it: the ‘perfect’ all-mountain board is no more attainable than the ‘perfect’ pop song. However, the Amplid Singular is definitely up in ‘Ain’t Nobody’ territory. All the right ingredients are there, painstakingly assembled by masters of their craft, with an end result that’s full of surprises and leaves you high on life. If you’re anything like us, you’ll want to put this one on repeat.

Pros:

  • Buying just the one ‘quiver killer’ means more cash for shred trips, and less hassle from the budget airline baggage handlers
  • Amplid has a fine track record of developing clever tech to solve common problems, so you’re in safe hands here

Cons:

  • A jack-of-all-trades board inherently carries the danger of coming up short when the situation – be it a perfect park, immaculate corduroy or loaded pow field – calls for something specialist

Tester’s Verdict

Joy Dutch – Wordsmith, Whitelines

“I’ve somehow never ridden an Amplid board before, but from what I knew of the brand, I had thought it wouldn’t be my cup of tea. I had assumed they made super stiff boards for really aggressive riders, and that’s about as far from my riding style as possible.

I couldn’t have been more wrong, this was my biggest shock and possibly favourite board of the week. I ended up riding this for longer than I should have considering how many we had to get through but I just couldn’t bring myself to switch.

The Singular Directional felt really intuitive for me, it seemed to know what the snow was like and be able to adapt to it. The morning was bulletproof, super icy and sketchy but I felt like I had enough bite and grip through the length to be confident enough to bomb it. Later in the day as the snow softened up, it was able to blast through chop and slop and felt super stable hitting uneven terrain. Fook me, this was the fastest snowboard of the season (possibly ever?) for me, I’m no skin tight speed suit fan but I felt like bloody Bradley Wiggins pinning it round the velodrome.

I found it really quick edge to edge, with a really nimble and agile tail that can slash in and out of turns and hold carves right up until you’re ready to release. Despite its prowess on piste, it still felt pretty playful for presses and butters, a little too stiff personally for me for full on jibbing but it’s not out of the realm of possibility for the right rider. 9.5/10 for me, I can easily see myself picking one of these up for winter and relegating the rest of my quiver to the garage.”

Tester’s Verdict

The Whitelines Pro Team

“I’ll be honest, for all the riding I do, I’m shockingly bad at keeping up with the latest gear trends and newest products on the market. The Singular wasn’t the most exciting product to look at, but f*ck me, this things rips. I won’t say which brand I’ve been riding for the past few years, but my P45 may be coming in the post from then soon. I could happily just ride this board for the rest of my life.

It’s not only incredibly light and agile, but it does that thing few boards in this weight category can do, which is stay super stable and feel on lock when you’re giving it full beans. There wasn’t anywhere on the mountain I took this that I felt a specialist weapon would have fared better.

This was the most clearcut verdict of the whole Test Week for me: Amplid have created my new all time favourite snowbaord. No more park boards and suffering in powder for me anymore – get me a Singular!”

Trade Secrets

Peter Bauer – Founder & Head of RnD, Amplid

“Following the intrinsic search for the „perfect daily driver“, we feel it was our obligation to create the top notch swiss army knife for the true all-mountain performance, with the smallest compromise restrictions (a.k.a. “close to none”). Carving early morning groomers at mach 5, attaining freestyle cred in the park or plowing effortless through waist-deep powder – the habitat of this new wonderboard is simply in every terrain and all snow conditions. Sounds highly promising, almost too good to be true. But it’s true. HEX02 honey comb in tip and tail for less swing weight, VISCO DAMP 2.0 for maximum vibration dampening, sintered base for the highest speed – the Singular is simply the best One-For-All choice for the rider who wants to conquer the entire mountain with one snowboard. Available in a directional and twin version.”

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