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

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

There’s a bit of jargon to get your head around with the Asym MidBite Sidecut, but the execution is simply brilliant. The board performs as well on the piste as it does in the park, and you can fully commit to straight-up charging this thing along the edge. I’ve got slightly larger feet but felt like there was ample room underfoot, despite the sidecut drastically tightening up in at the waist.

“I wouldn’t make any claims of the Greats UnInc being a forgiving ride. It’s a board for big jumps, big turns and big balls!”

The stiffer, carbon-reinforced flex worked well for me, although even with the rocker in the nose and tail I wouldn’t make any claims of the Greats UnInc being a forgiving ride. It’s a board for big jumps, big turns and big balls!

It’s a board I could happily ride in most conditions and, in fact, I did. Even after scoring a pretty big overnight dump, I’d been getting on so well with the board I decided to keep the bindings on and give it a whirl in the freshies. It didn’t blow my mind, but it certainly didn’t disappoint either. Maybe not a standout area for the snowboard, but certainly another string to its bow that ticks off an impressive list of the board’s capabilities.”

Buy the Amplid Singular: £590 at Blue Tomato UK 

Buy the Amplid Singular: €660 at Blue Tomato EU