Integrated Amplifiers

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.

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.

PrimaLuna Prologue Two Basic on the features front, but beautifully built and an excellent choice for lovers of human voice Designed in Holland and made in China, PrimaLuna’s amps are essentially classic valve designs, but they bring distinctive aesthetics and a few modern design touches to the party. One such notable feature in this amp is ‘Adaptive auto bias’. Bias is a long-standing pain in the neck of valve amps: quite simply it’s the DC (‘standing’) current in the valves under conditions of no audio signal and it’s critical. Usually amps either have manually adjusted bias, which may even require test equipment to set, or auto-bias (also called ‘self-bias’), which does what it says but, in the traditional implementation, reduces maximum output power.

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.

The new romantic Emille brings modern, digital inputs to old-fashioned valves in its most affordable amplifier ever as Ed Selley finds his top pick of 2011 so far Emillé takes its name from a giant, ornate bell that is considered a national treasure in its native Korea. Its range of well thought-out integrated, pre/power amplifiers and phono stages is entirely valve-based and has worn commensurately high-end price tags up until now. The £2,450 Ara is not exactly cheap, but is comfortably Emillé’s least expensive integrated amp ever and targets a rather more accessible and competitive price point. The good news is that there is little sign of cost-cutting.

Creek Destiny 2 The Destiny 2 is a worthy contender in the upmarket stakes and a sublime performer to boot Creek describes this model as its ‘high-end’ offering: that’s relative, of course, but it’s certainly true that this is the fanciest and most highly specified model ever made by the stalwart of sensible audio that is Creek. It’s a very solid device externally, quite slimline, surprisingly heavy, and very smart, thanks to its use of brushed aluminium for top, front and side panels. Fit and finish are excellent throughout and although it lacks the super-thick front panel that’s the usual fitment for true high-end audio, it otherwise looks the part to an admirable degree. It’s heavy because there’s a lot going on inside.

Roksan Caspian M2 With its tuneful performance and natural detail, the Caspian M2 is lined up to be the perfect hi-fi partner Roksan started out in turntables, but quickly diversified into amplifiers and the Caspian name goes back a long way in the company’s history. This particular iteration is in outline specification, your completely average integrated amplifier circa 2010, with six line inputs, an 85-watt nominal output and no funny business at all, unless you count the deeply funky touch-screen remote control. The appearance is distinctive, though, with that stainless steel top panel and as you’ll expect if you know the maker, there are a few interesting touches inside. The most obvious of those, after removing the cover, is the pair of mains transformers which between them take up the left half of the chassis.