Integrated Amplifiers

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Hi-Fi Choice  |  Dec 27, 2017  |  0 comments
American brand, Belles (Power Modules Inc. ) is not one we come across often in these pages despite it being around for some 36 years – in fact the last time we saw anything from it was back in issue 325. David Belles has been behind a host of sensibly priced, high-quality amplifiers since 1978, both under the Belles brand and as a talented hired gun for other leading hi-fi companies. His prowess with electronics even played a part in the space race at mission control a little while ago, so he knows all about important signals getting through correctly.
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Jul 22, 2017  |  0 comments
Remember the seventies? Early on in that decade we saw a wave of new Japanese products begin to appear in the shops and on our roads. The result was that by the end of the decade, Honda, Datsun, Sony and Panasonic were household names and everyone who bought them couldn’t praise them enough. This same thing is now happening with China. It’s a work in progress I grant you, but some companies have an excellent track record and Mei Xing is one.
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Jul 15, 2016  |  0 comments
There’s something very reassuring about a high-end integrated amplifier. While stacks of black boxes might have been the done thing in the early eighties, in today’s world, the trend is to downsize, but music fans don’t want to hear anyless of their beloved recordings. The so-called ‘super-integrated’ breed ticks all these boxes; it’s big but not too big, and promises a sound to rival some more expensive pre/power amplifier combinations. Roksan, lest we forget, has always made fine-sounding amplification; it has a distinctly muscular-but-musical character that covers more bases than some rival designs, many of which tend to be one or the other.
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Apr 26, 2016  |  0 comments
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.
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Feb 25, 2016  |  0 comments
Alongside the vinyl boom, the growth in headphone sales has been one of the big drivers for the audio industry in recent years. As well as headphones themselves, their supporting ancillaries have been on the up, and the latest manufacturer to join the fray is Myryad with the Z40 headphone amplifier. As part of the Z Mini series, the Z40 is a half-width component representing Myryad’s entry level but with the functionality that matches its full-size components. Like its larger sibling it also sports the ‘DC5’ (Double Complementary Cross-Coupled Cascoded Current feedback) circuit used in a number of the company’s products and reworks it for headphone use.
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Apr 23, 2015  |  0 comments
In the not too distant past ‘proper hi-fi’ inevitably had to equate to stacks of similar sized and similar looking separates for it to be taken seriously by audiophiles. But with improvements in more efficient amplifier technologies – such as Class D – combined with the move to higher quality streaming from portable devices, compact hi-fino longer necessarily means compromised quality, as we’ve recently seen with Quad’s Vena (HFC 390) and NAD’s D 7050 (HFC 382) both of which come from companies with long-standing reputations for producing class-leading products. Like these two brands, PS Audio’s usual stomping ground also lies inthe high-end separates arena where its DACs and digital products sit alongside a selection of audio power plants. The Sprout is a different beast, representing the culmination of two and a half year’s work by sales director Scott McGowan, son of CEO and founder Paul McGowan.
 |  Feb 05, 2015  |  0 comments
It might not be a household name, but Hegel has a considerable reputationin its home country of Norway and is increasingly winning favour with dealers and customers further afield. The company has a strong technology pedigree and its approach to its extensive audio product range is to do things rather differently from the norm. Unsatisfied with some of the supposed limitations of digital signal handling and transistor amplification, Hegel has gone back to the drawing board for the manufacturing of the H80. This is an integrated amplifier and DAC in one box that is setting its stall out to offer convenience and quality.
 |  Jan 29, 2015  |  0 comments
The name says it all. In a Googled-up world that monitors your every online movement in order to better sell you things you want to buy, this new miniature Micromega box catches the zeitgeist perfectly. The MyAmp is your amp, because you’re an individual. It’s something that’s made for you – yes, just you, and everyone else like you! Well alright, I’ll excuse it the rather obvious name, because that’s theonly thing predictable about it.
 |  Jan 29, 2015  |  0 comments
Once upon a time if you mentioned the words computer and audiophile in the same sentence you would have been chased out of town. Those days are long gone and thanks to hi-res audio downloading there’s now a turf war going on for ownership of your desktop by hi-fi manufacturers eager to cash in with products that deliver maximum sonic satisfaction for those of us who like to listen as we learn or earn. Understanding hi-res formats can be more daunting than deciphering the Da Vinci code in Nooksack, but one thing that is incontrovertible is that owning DSD files and not having an external DAC is like owning an E-type and keeping it in the garage. One such example is the AI-301DA, which boasts a Burr-Brown PCM1795 DAC and an asynchronous USB input.
 |  Jan 28, 2015  |  0 comments
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).
 |  Jan 28, 2015  |  0 comments
Who remembers the early thirties? They contributed a lot to the world in which we live now. From Edward Elgar opening Abbey Road studios and the debut of what went on to become the Royal Ballet, to the issuing of The Highway Code and the pound coming off the Gold Standard, things would never be the same again. Meanwhile, in the United States, things were moving apace too – and in one little corner of RCA’s factory, a new and rather remarkable thermionic valve began manufacture. The 845 power triode started lifeas a radio transmitting vacuum tube; physically large and with an impressive anode dissipation of 75W, it ran 1,250V on the anode no less.
 |  Jan 21, 2015  |  0 comments
While two-channel audio has been staging something of a fight back of late, the bulk of new product has come from existing manufacturers returning to the category, while new arrivals have tended to be at slightly higher price points than ones we would define as entry level. This makes the duo you see here especially interesting. Not only is Vieta Audio returning to the UK after sufficiently long a period of time that it is new for many people (me included), but the products it is returning with are at the affordable end of the market. The range arriving in the UK is an extensive one.
Hi-Fi Choice  |  Jan 12, 2015  |  0 comments
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.
Ed Selley  |  Jun 20, 2012  |  0 comments
Tomorrow's world Peachtree Audio’s next-gen iDecco offers an amp, multi-input DAC, head amp and iPod dock all for £1,000 and Ed Selley just loves a good deal. . . Peachtree Audio has already graced the pages of Hi-Fi Choice, when we reviewed the Nova integrated amplifier and DAC.
Ed Selley  |  Mar 13, 2012  |  0 comments
Two's company Question: when's a tube amplifier not a tube amplifier? Answer: when it’s also solid-state. David Price meets Jolida’s hybrid JD1501BRC. . .

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