Integrated Amplifiers

Does the world need yet another new hi-fi brand? Luke Tyson, project director of Fell Audio, says: “definitely!” He argues that the spirit of British made entry-level audio has waned and needs reviving. “At a time when affordable, UK-built options are almost non-existent, we’re proud to offer a fresh take. We’d actually welcome more brands to take up the challenge of building something exceptional, affordable and homegrown,” he explains.

He has a point. Things are getting very expensive these days. “We have seen hi-fi prices rise, but a lot of it hasn’t really changed much to justify the price hikes. In some cases, it’s even lost a bit of what made it special. So, with Fell Audio, we wanted to bring back that balance of quality, specifications and value.”

It’s all very well talking the talk, but does this new brand walk the walk? The company has just launched its new budget entry-level integrated amp and CD player – the Fell Amp and Fell Disc you see before you, respectively. Coming soon after is the Fell Stream – a network music player, as its name suggests. That’s not all, as the company has big plans afoot.

Start-ups often create a blaze of publicity, only for things to fizzle out soon after. But in this case, Fell Audio has an edge – as Luke and his Managing Director uncle, Matthew, are both members of the Tyson family. This is well known in their native Carlisle for running a large specialist hi-fi dealership and ‘white goods’ store. Peter Tyson Hi-Fi has long been a leading UK Linn dealer for example, and sells many other high-end brands.

This means that the team has been able to benchmark the products against a wide range of competition, over a long period. “With our family hi-fi retail business, we’ve had the advantage of auditioning a wide range of brands and models, giving us the opportunity to learn from some of the best equipment out there. We also have a direct connection to our customers, so we understand what’s important to them and the features they want. Fell Audio is made for them.”

The company is what Luke calls: “a passion project,” and is proudly Cumbrian in its roots. ‘Fell’ is the local dialect word for a large hill or mountain, of which there are a great many in the Lake District, which Carlisle edges on to. The guys were emphatic that they wanted the products made in the UK, instead of being shipped from the Far East. “Manufacturing overseas was never an option, it didn’t align with our vision,” Luke explains. For this reason, the price of Fell Audio products is all the more surprising. Speak to many UK hi-fi manufacturers these days, and off the record they’ll tell you costs here are so high relative to China or even the USA that it’s hard to make things in Britain any more.

With the exception of some generic components, most of what makes up the Fell Amp and Fell Disc is British. That’s everything from the design work to the casing, component selection, printed circuit boards and packaging. Certain parts have also been custom engineered in the UK, and important things like the toroidal power transformers have additionally been sourced here.

Both the Fell Amp and Fell Disc are aimed at people getting into separates hi-fi for the first time, or those wanting to come back to it. It’s designed to do a good job in a fun and fuss-free way, giving a pleasant user-experience – which is just what old-school entry-level British hi-fi used to do. You can buy them separately or together as a bundle for £999, and they have features offering a degree of future upgradeability.

The Fell Disc is, as its name suggests, a CD player. It sports a slot-loading disc mechanism that’s CD, CD-R and CD-RW compatible and comes with an ESS ES9018 DAC that’s a popular fitment with modern mid-price silver disc spinners. As well as analogue line outputs via unbalanced RCA sockets, it sports optical and coaxial digital audio outs – in effect making it a CD transport.

It’s nice to use, and the crisp-looking green backlit display is pleasing in a world of blue LEDs that have hung around since the Noughties. It’s easy on the eye and matches the delicate capacitive-touch transport controls. The slimline, full-width pressed steel casework is good quality for the price. Smoothly finished, it’s available in a choice of black or silver.

The Fell Amp follows the same physical proportions as the Disc, but sports a volume knob on the left of the fascia and an on/off switch on the right. Between these is a row of capacitive-touch source selection switches. It’s very easy to use, with no fiddly sub-menus or cheap-feeling plastic switchgear. It sports a good quality moving-magnet phono input, Bluetooth 5.0, plus two digital and three analogue line inputs. Connectivity includes a preamp and subwoofer outputs, the former suggesting there may be the possibility of matching power amps coming one day. There’s also a ‘proper’ 6.35mm headphone socket.

Under the hood, this integrated puts out a claimed 89W RMS per channel into 8ohm and 79W RMS per side into 4 from its STMicroelectronics Class D power module. The fact that it’s said to output these figures is a testament to its high-quality 170VA toroidal power transformer – which isn’t a standard fitment on inexpensive amplifiers. Fell Audio says that high quality op-amps are fitted alongside special smoothing capacitors for the power supply. It sports an ESS Sabre ES9018 DAC built-in, like the CD player.

Sound quality
Is this a giant-slaying budget pairing that renders all other separates hi-fi obsolete? Not quite, but it’s a highly impressive budget CD spinner and integrated amplifier combination that’s going to give its price rivals a headache. This most capable combo harks back to the designs we used to get from the likes of NAD, Arcam and Creek Audio, back in hi-fi’s glory days. In other words, it’s a full size, grown-up CD and amp with handy features and decent sound, costing much less than you’d think.

As far as the listening goes, we’ll take the two separates together first, as this is how many will experience Fell Audio for the first time. It’s a surprisingly cosseting sounding combo, but that doesn’t mean bland. Tonally the amplifier especially is quite plump and fulsome by the standards of similarly priced entry-level rivals from Edwards Audio or Cambridge Audio. Cue up the prog rock of Looking For Someone by Genesis, and this pretty dry early Seventies recording sounds quite sweet with a sumptuous bassline, smooth midband vocal rendition and crisp but not bright hi-hat cymbals.

Along with its pleasing tonality, the other thing that stands out about this dinky duo is the expansive soundstaging. With suitably large-scale programme material, such as the thumping techno of Age of Love’s Age Of Love, the Fell Amp and Disc can appear almost larger than life. It’s certainly not the meek, mild and mousey sort of sound you’d expect at the price; the soundstage pushes very wide and the location of individual strands in the mix is pretty impressive.

Then there’s the hugely enjoyable musicality. Some budget separates can be fun to listen to thanks to their essential rawness; a forward midband and treble gives them added zest and zing. The Fell duo doesn’t work this way, though – instead of possessing a sting in its tail, it makes music fun by its fundamental grip and speed. Although the Fell Amp certainly doesn’t have the lightning transients of, say, a Rega Brio (HFC 446) at six times its price, it’s still fleet of foot enough to get a firm grasp of the bass, and serve up a tidy, detailed and orderly midband and treble. That’s why Gary Numan’s Cars is such a grin – there’s surprisingly deft footwork with the bassline and a lovely, sinewy sound, the main Poly Moog synth work being used to dramatic effect.

Overall, then, taken as a pair, these two punch way harder than you’d expect at the price. There’s nothing to criticise in sound quality terms relative to any of their immediate opposition. It’s only when you assess them against separates at several times the price that the Fell Amp’s slight softness, vagueness and lack of power become an issue. To my ears, it’s a surprisingly natural-sounding Class D implementation – most rivals seem more processed and less musically engaging. It has good current delivery into low speaker loads and kicks harder than an amp of its lowish power rating would suggest. But when you really push the volume up into inefficient, power-hungry small mini-monitors, it begins to sound breathless – just like all of its price rivals, of course.

The Fell Amp shares the same DAC (as an input) as the Fell Disc as an output, and it is very well implemented. The Disc playing via its analogue outputs is as good as any CD player we’ve come across at this low price, with a crisp, spacious, smooth and slightly bass-light sound. Feeding the Fell Amp’s digital input via the Disc’s digital output – in effect making the Disc a CD transport – the duo sounds better still, with the Amp’s generous bass adding a little more body down low. There’s a good detail of air and space, and a real interest shown in the music’s pace, rhythm and timing. The amp’s Bluetooth input is decent enough for semi-serious listening.

The Fell Amp also works very well through its analogue inputs; a Chord Electronics Qutest DAC (HFC 436) for example, comfortably upgrades the Disc CD player’s sound when plugged into its digital output, with more detail, grip, dynamics and energy. The phono stage is a nice surprise; you don’t expect miracles for £600, but it’s clear that trouble has been taken to make it work. It has standard 47k ohm, 100pf input loading which works nicely with a decent budget deck such as a Rega Planar 3 (HFC 493) tracking an Audio-Technica AT-VM95E (HFC 444) moving-magnet cartridge. It displays plenty of detail and insight, making classic rock analogue recordings such as a first pressing of Neil Young’s Harvest quite transfixing. Vinyl never fails to charm in the midband, and it’s great to hear Young’s distinctively fragile but impassioned vocals sing so sweetly.

Conclusion
Fell Audio has begun atop a high peak, if you pardon the pun. Right from the off, this new brand offers clever packaging, neat design, fine sound and ease-of use at really attractive prices – and it’s designed and made in the UK. Seasoned industry watchers and hi-fi fans alike cannot fail to be impressed. All the same, the competition is fierce at this end of the market, so Luke and Matthew Tyson still have something of a mountain to climb. NT    

DETAILS
Product: Fell Audio Fell Amp/Fell Disc
Type: Integrated amplifier/CD player

FEATURES
● Quoted power: 2x 89W RMS (8ohm), Class D
● ESS Sabre ES9018K2M DAC
● CD; CD-R; CD-RW playback

Read the full review in  Issue 521