Integrated Amplifiers

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Ed Selley  |  Nov 30, 2011  |  0 comments
Musical update This Creek amp claims a variety of technical improvements over the original. Richard Black investigates how this works out in sonic terms Rather to our surprise, we find it’s over five years since we first set eyes and ears on the original Creek Evolution amp. Amplifier design may not have made any revolutionary leaps in that time (at least, conventional amplifier design like Creek’s – switching amps have progressed rather more), but it’s natural that a manufacturer would find a few tweaks to apply that could justify adding a ‘2’ to the model name. Extra, extra One of the changes is a practical one, adding an ‘AV direct’ inputwhich bypasses the volume control, allowing the Evo 2 to be used as a power amp.
Ed Selley  |  Nov 30, 2011  |  0 comments
Swell new bel From America comes a switching amp that’s big on digital inputs. Richard Black thinks it might be the most exciting thing he’s heard in a while Don’t be too hard on yourself if you haven’t heard of Bel Canto. We’d had very limited exposure to the firm’s products and only a rather hazy idea about what the range consists of. In fact, the company can sort you out a complete hi-fi system (minus speakers) from its product list, which includes predictable things like a CD player and a handful of DACs, as well as an FM tuner with partly digital processing and a digital output.
Ed Selley  |  Nov 29, 2011  |  0 comments
Beauty and the beat Who said you can't have beautiful hi-fi and keen pricing? Richard Black looks at Primare's new £1,250-per-box CD and matching integrated Primare doesn’t launch new products every day, so we were excited to be offered the first chance to try these newcomers. Replacing the CD21 and I21, they are the company’s budget models, though obviously that’s a relative term. Still, £1,250 is a keen price although we can’t think of much hi-fi that looks this impressive for that kind of sum. The sound’s the thing, of course, but there’s also no denying that visually, these units just ooze class.
Ed Selley  |  Nov 29, 2011  |  0 comments
Brio benchmark Rega's new compact Brio-R amp uses a circuit design originally conceived in the late sixties. Jason Kennedy examines the modern classic The Brio-R is new in more ways than its remote handset, for a start it’s a totally new circuit, albeit one that was originally conceived in the late sixties. Rega designer Terry Bateman discovered the circuit as a result of buying and reading a large collection of second-hand Wireless World magazines and noticing that the previous owner, engineer Mike Howell, had circled particular articles. These articles led him to a design which was published in 1970, but to Terry’s knowledge never put into production.
Ed Selley  |  Sep 27, 2011  |  0 comments
Moon I3. 3 Lots of upgrade options, great build and we liked the internal DAC, but a little expensive taken just as an amp This is one of a growing number of integrated amps to include a digital input, either as standard or, as in this case, as an optional extra. It makes a lot of sense: you don’t need a huge amount of circuitry to make a pretty decent DAC and if you’ve got a case and power supply already it’s quite a simple addition. Electrical, optical and USB connections are provided, with the actual conversion being done by a good-quality, recent DAC chip supported by good passive components and onboard supply regulation.
Ed Selley  |  Sep 27, 2011  |  0 comments
Rega Elicit The latest amp under this name is a sophisticated performer with singularly purposeful rhythmic flow The original Elicit, we were astonished to be reminded, appeared in 1990. Any resemblance to the current amp is superficial at most, as this design is new in concept, specification and design. It’s an 80-watt-rated amp built into a familiar-looking Rega case. In common with most current Rega electronics, it incorporates a heatsink on the underside: but since that’s not adequate in that position for two 80-watt channels there are also internal heatsinks at each side of the chassis.
Ed Selley  |  Sep 27, 2011  |  0 comments
Electrocompaniet ECI 5 MkII Big and powerful, but calm and unfussed almost to a near-Buddhist extent It’s certainly imposing, and its non-standard width of 470mm may require some thought about siting it, but then maybe that’s just indicative of the Electrocompaniet way of doing things – not by anyone else’s book. The company has a long history of being original, going back to the days in the 1970s, when its genesis lay in Matti Otala’s documenting of TID: Transient Intermodulation Distortion. TID is now largely water under the bridge, component and design developments having ensured its demise as an issue in any decent audio amp, but Electrocompaniet continues to take an individual line on audio electronics and has a strong following as a result. Control of the unit is individual, too.
Ed Selley  |  Sep 06, 2011  |  0 comments
Audiophile Airplay The first integrated amp to work with Apple Airplay is the claim, but is it audiophile? Jason Kennedy fires up his iTunes to find out Streaming digital music from your computer is a great idea, but it’s also a challenging one for the non-technical. Setting up such systems is getting a lot easier, but Apple’s Airplay is about as easy as streaming can be. All you need is an Apple touchscreen device or computer and an Airplay receiver, then you can play whatever is on the source wirelessly through the receiver. By combining the interface with the source cuts out a whole stage from regular wi-fi streaming systems.
Ed Selley  |  Sep 06, 2011  |  0 comments
Chip off the old block The long-awaited successor to the legendary 8000A is here: Richard Black finds out how it compares to the class of 2011 Audiolab: the brand that launched a thousand hi-fis. Many thousand, indeed. For many years towards the end of the 20th century, the Audiolab 8000A was the integrated amp to own as part of a decent-to-aspirational system and indeed plenty are still doing sterling service. After the success of the 8200CD (see HFC 340), we were even more keen to meet the successor to the 8000A; the 8200A.
Ed Selley  |  Aug 07, 2011  |  0 comments
Multi-purpose Could Onkyo's TX-NR609 receiver be the best-featured audio tool on the planet? Ed Selley thinks he's found a great way to spend £500 It’s been a good few years since we featured an AV receiver in Hi-Fi Choice. But following Onkyo’s recent return to hi-fi (HFC 345) we were made aware of a truly ground-breaking new product with an astonishing spec-list, one that we felt should be put through its paces. The TX-NR609 is a seven-channel AV receiver with 160 watts (albeit into six ohms) per channel and six-HDMI inputs able to receive 3D video and every audio format you can think of. Additionally more conventional digital and analogue inputs are fitted, as well as an internal tuner.
Ed Selley  |  Aug 07, 2011  |  0 comments
Sound Ethos With high output power, balanced inputs, a DAC and USB ports, could the striking new hybrid Ethos be all things to all men? asks Jimmy Hughes The increased use of music sources other than CD has led to the need for hi-fi components with a broader range of options. In particular, the ability to accept digital source material stored on computer hard drives has become an added factor. With the Ethos, Pathos has created a powerful hybrid tube/transistor integrated amplifier capable of accepting a wide range of sources – from balanced analogue via XLR, to digital via USB (via an optional DAC). Here’s an amplifier that meets the needs of two-channel purists, while catering for those interested in using digital sources.
Ed Selley  |  Jul 07, 2011  |  0 comments
Irresistible force The latest single-ended Unison S6 offers audiophiles pure Class A operation and a honey-rich glow says a smitten Jimmy Hughes Although solid-state amplifiers offer many practical benefits – smaller size for a given power output, cooler running, higher maximum power output and potentially lower noise – tube amplifiers promise a certain extra ‘something’ that many audiophiles seem to find irresistible. But is it all imagination and hype? While tube amps might seem to hark back to the golden era of high-fidelity, do they really offer any tangible benefits over a good transistor design? With its pure Class A output stage, the Unison Research S6 has all the right credentials. It undoubtedly talks the talk, but does it walk the walk? Gutsy sound Like most modern amplifiers, the S6 keeps things simple. It offers five unbalanced line inputs, a set of tape outputs and a single set of loudspeaker outputs.
Ed Selley  |  Jun 27, 2011  |  0 comments
Triode Corporation TRV-88SE Striking to behold, very agile – but doesn’t quite knit everything together as one would like Triode Corporation makes a range of amps, which presumably all use triode connection of the output devices – this one certainly does. In many ways it’s a fairly conventional push-pull design, though the external finish is certainly among the best, with and wooden side cheeks. The removable valve cover is exceptionally resonant, but the cover over the transformers appears to be filled with resin and is completely dead, acoustically. Internal construction uses a mix of circuit boards.
Ed Selley  |  Jun 27, 2011  |  0 comments
Cayin Audio A-55T The name may be new, but the build quality and technology show all the signs of experience Cayin is one brand name of Zuhai Spark, a Chinese hi-fi specialist operation. Its amps are all valve-based designs running the gamut from relatively pedestrian valves, like the KT88 and EL34, to the exotic-looking GU29. This is one of the most comfortingly traditional models in the range, using a familiar line-up of four KT88 valves, plus two each of the ECC82 and ECC83. Like many current pentode/tetrode amps, this one has a choice of operational modes: ultralinear or triode.
Ed Selley  |  Jun 27, 2011  |  0 comments
Icon Audio Stereo 60 Mk 3 More powerful than most and built the old-fashioned way: no printed circuit boards here! Icon’s exuberant literature makes many claims for this amp, including higher output power than most KT88 models can muster: 65-watt ultralinear or 35-watt triode. There’s nothing outrageous about that, though, and indeed we’ve seen 100-watt amps using just a pair of KT88s. The relatively high output power is partly responsible for the considerable weight of this amp, but the chassis is very substantially built too, complete with a solid copper top-plate around the valve area. Unusually, all the valves are octal-base types, including the small-signal valves and voltage regulator.

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