Integrated Amplifiers

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.

Ming Da has been producing valve amplifiers for over 22 years and is gaining fans worldwide. Furthermore as with this example here, after the amp’s arrival in the UK, Malvern Audio Research upgrades key internal components, swaps in higher quality valves and adds a three year warranty. Taken altogether, this China/UK partnership feels highly compelling and without compromise. This Dynasty Duet 300 Plus is an incarnation of an existing Duet 300B triode amp design, but now employs zero feedback and claims many other audio improvements.

For Essex-based Monitor Audio the only way is not loudspeakers, which it can make and sell pretty much standing on its head. After dabbling in speaker docks and impressing with its W100 AirStream active desktop stereo speakers it is now entering the new world of amplification and streaming. Sporting AirPlay rather than Bluetooth, the A100 is very much aimed at the Apple crowd with their MacBooks, iPhones and iPads crammed with AAC, AIFF and ALAC files in iTunes. That’s not to say non-Apple devices are excluded from the party, PCs and DLNA sources connected to wireless routers canjoin in the fun if they can run iTunes (version 10 or later) and/or can be controlled by Monitor Audio’s remote control app (iOS and Android).

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.

Does the classic NAD 3020 integrated amplifier need any introduction? Most HFC readers will have owned one, heard one orat least known someone else who used one. It came out 35 years ago, for the princely sumof £59 in the UK, and was painfully uncool looking back then; its 3030 predecessor wasa far more fashionable beast with its broad expanse of brushed aluminium, inset with big chunky analogue power meters. By contrast, the 3020 had a dull charcoal grey plastic fascia, a miserly mono LED power meter,and precious few facilities by the standardsofthe day. Worse still, it put out a piffling 20W RMS of power into 8 ohms.

The third-generation integrated is more turntable friendly than ever