News about Audio visual/Hi-fi and audio/Amplifiers:
Review: Lehmann Black Cube Linear USB
Lehmann is a company that specialises in phono and headphone amplifiers. The Lehmann Audio Black Cube Linear USB is an unusual proposition in that it manages to be a headphone amplifier, a preamplifier and a DAC all at once.
Review: Unison Research S6
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?
Review: Triode Corporation TRV-88SE
Triode Corporation makes a range of amps, which presumably all use triode connection of the output devices – the TRV-88SE 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.
Review: Pure Sound A30
There are degrees of valve purism. Pure Sound, appropriately enough, takes things a step further than most by using valve rectifiers in the A30, as well as valve-amplifying components. Is there sense in this?
Valve rectifiers waste energy compared with solid-state diodes, they cost more and take up space and, like all valves, they have a finite useful life. Despite all that, they do have advantages in terms of turning AC into DC, with minimal high frequency noise generation.
Review: PrimaLuna Prologue Two
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 the PrimaLuna Prologue Two amp we are reviewing here 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.
Review: Icon Audio Stereo 60 Mk 3
Icon’s exuberant literature makes many claims for the Stereo 60 Mk 3 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.
Review: Consonance Cyber-100 Signature
There seem to be quite a few similarly-named amps in the Consonance range and the Cyber-100 Signature is equipped with KT88 output valves appears to be specific to the UK market.
It’s a classic design, both electronically and mechanically, and a very simple one in terms of its circuit.
Review: Cayin A55-T
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.
The Cayin A55-T 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.
Review: Onkyo M-3000R and M-5000R
Onkyo has been out of the high-end hi-fi market for almost twenty years – long enough for us to believe that they had left it for good. But the brand is back and it has come out shooting.
The components you see here are the M-3000R and M5000R amplifier pairing which are part of a new range of elite, flagship hi-fi products for 2011. This on its own would be good news.
Review: Primare R32
Primare’s new R32 has got to be the biggest phono stage on the market for under a grand. In fact, you could fit a dozen Dynavector P75 MkII stages inside it!
Size is not usually considered a bonus in such devices but it has two benefits: you get a component that matches the rest on your rack and it’s extremely well built. You also get plenty of space between the power supply and the internal circuitry.
Review: Consonance Cyber 10
How much power is necessary for most kinds of music given an average-sized room?
Well, the Consonance Cyber 10 Signature offers just 11 watts RMS at 1kHz, with harmonic distortion rated at about one per cent at seven watts.
Review: Creek OBH-21SE
Creek takes headphone-driving seriously, with two dedicated headphone amps in its lineup – three, if you regard the OBH-21 and -21SE as different models.
Although both employ the same circuit, they use different components at key points, including the op-amps that do the actual amplifying. The SE uses a fast and relatively high-current part that is well suited to the task, giving a maximum output of about 100mW into headphones between 30 and 200 ohms impedance – that’s most of them.
Review: Musical Fidelity V-CAN
A ton isn’t a lot to ask for a headphone amp and one might expect a few corners to have been cut internally.
The circuit board material is not the fanciest, but in fact the circuit mounted on it is not a million miles short of that used for other amps, featuring as it does a pair of medium-power transistors per channel in classic power amp configuration, driven by decent-grade op-amps. The rest of the components are nothing fancy, but are perfectly respectable.
Review: Lehmann Audio Rhinelander
Lehmann’s products always seem to be highly individual, and this amp is no exception. OK, it’s basically the same as other head amps in essential operation, but it can be reconfigured (by means of internal jumpers) to serve as a single-input preamp.
Review: Firestone Cute Beyond
Firestone specialises in miniature hi-fi, so the diminutive Cute is very much part of the overall range. Its features are very simple, though it does include a gain switch mounted at the rear, which gives 15dB extra boost – this could be of use when driving high-impedance headphones.
Review: Dynavector P-75 MkII
In many respects you would expect companies that make cartridges to be the best placed to design a phono stage, but this is still quite a rare practice (van den Hul and Rega are notable exceptions).
Dynavector is not just a cartridge maker of course, it has an electronics wing in New Zealand and used to make an amplifier with stereo-enhancing circuitry, there is also a discontinued head amplifier on its website.
Review: Cayin SP-30S preamp and SP-40S power amp
Cayin is the brand name of Zuhai Spark Electronic Equipment Co. – a Chinese company making good-value, high-end electronic products. The unashamedly retrolooking SP-30S and SP-40M tube pre/power amp is one of its tastier offerings, with the promise of excellent performance at a realistic price.
Review: Emillé Ara integrated valve amplifier
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.
Review: Sugden Mystro
We’re not sure how to pronounce the name, but we are sure that this is a Sugden unlike those we’re familiar with. For over four decades (!) the firm has been synonymous with low-power Class A amplifiers.
The Mystro changes everything, offering 50 watts of Class AB power from an all-new circuit. Mind you, in many ways it harks back to yesteryear, offering as it does a mere three-line inputs plus phono, single speaker outputs, no preamp or even ‘tape’ output, and remote control for volume only. Not the perfect hub for your budding multi-source, multiformat, multichannel system, then.
Review: Leema Acoustics Pulse III
As one of our listeners observed after the veil had been lifted on the amps, “That Pulse looks like a set-top box”. Maybe it does, too – and Leema mentions in its literature that the Pulse is intended to be for all the family.
Maybe, indeed, hi-fi with the easy familiarity of a set-top box is no bad thing in this day and age. It’s a bit of a deluxe STB, though, not least thanks to the milled-from solid aluminium front panel and solidly made casework.
Review: Creek Destiny 2
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.
Review: Resolution Audio Cantata 50 Amplifier
Last year we had some bad news. Resolution Audio discontinued one of our favourite CD players, the Opus 21. The good news, however, was that it replaced it with the Cantata Music Centre, which went on to win several Hi-Fi Choice awards in the 2010 Awards issue.
Review: Cyrus Mono X 300
Cyrus is not a brand that we associate with high power amplifiers. It made its name with compact integrated designs that were renowned for their agility and musicality rather than muscle.
But times clearly change and, while Cyrus still uses half-width magnesium casework, what it puts inside them is completely different. The Mono X 300 is a total refinement of the Mono X that preceded it.
Review: Peachtree Audio Nova
You certainly seem to get your money’s worth with the Peachtree Nova: a valve and solid-state preamplifier, a Class A headphone amplifier, 80 watts of power amplification and a high-quality DAC, all in a single, art deco-style enclosure with a swish wooden surround in a piano black, Rosewood (pictured) or Cherry finish.
Review: Electrocompaniet ECI5 MkII
The ECI5 MkII replaces the ECI5, which in turn replaced the ECI4.7. Rather confusingly, the changes involved in going from the 4.7 to the 5 were generally considered detail ones, but warranted a new model number.
In contrast, the MkII has virtually no components in common with the MkI, but retains the model number! This might prove a challenge to dealers and customers, but we are sure everyone will manage.
Review: Musical Fidelity M6PRE pre and M6PRX power amplifer
Musical Fidelity is taking on the high end at its own game, whilst lowering the price of entry. Take the new M6PRE and M6PRX preamp and power amp combo, for example: balanced inputs and outputs (including USB); high-quality MM/ MC phono inputs; 260 watts per channel; a regulated power supply system and (claimed) low distortion levels are impressive credits indeed.
Review: Musical Fidelity M1 HPA
Musical Fidelity’s Antony Michaelson is a huge fan of headphones and regularly uses them at home for critical/recreational listening. Hence, the company’s legacy of high-quality headphone amplifiers in its product line up.
Review: Unison Research Unico Nuovo
The Unico Nuovo (‘New’ in Italian) is a second generation integrated amplifier. For those familiar with the breed, the Nuovo is based on the original Unico 80 hybrid that was introduced as far back as 2001.
Despite its relative antiquity, the original amplifier had a timeless aesthetic quality that has hardly needed updating for the second decade of the millennium. It was a modern amplifier then, albeit one with classic qualities, and it remains so today.
Review: Mark Levinson No.326S Pre-amplifier
What better time than the new era of austerity for us to discover how much difference a really good pre-amplifier can make to an already impressive high-end system. Mark Levinson was one of the first to build seriously engineered high-end amplifiers. We don’t mean excessively large or massively powerful, although it was ahead of the power game, we mean Rolls Royce or SME-style build quality.
Review: Audio Research DS450
Given its penchant for producing large, heavy, behemoths, Audio Research’s launching of a Class D power amp, the new DS450, is more than slightly surprising.
While Pure Class A still sets a benchmark when the highest quality results take precedence, there are many practical drawbacks – excessive heat, large size, high price, massive power consumption – need one go on?
Review: Musical Fidelity M3i
Over the last fifteen years, Musical Fidelity products have literally come in all shapes and sizes. They have sported both extremely high and comparatively low power outputs and frequently mixed a variety of valves into the mix.
Review: XTZ AP-100
XTZ hails from Sweden and is responsible for the room acoustics measurement system we reviewed a while back. The company’s range isn’t huge, but it includes an integrated amp, a CD player, a variety of speakers and some home cinema-oriented electronics and speakers, too.
Review: Tsakiridis Devices Alexander/Artemis
New to us in the UK it may be, but Tsakiridis Devices is a brand with over two decades of history. A family-run outfit from Greece, it makes valve-based audio with the emphasis very much on affordability.
Many of the basic themes will be familiar to valve aficionados, including the use of simple circuits with little or no feedback, thus ensuring that the valves’ character is unchecked, for better or worse.
Review: Rotel RC-1580/RB-1582
Like NAD, Rotel has for many years steered a careful course somewhere between the vast multi-nationals (Sony, Yamaha) and the small specialists, as well as managing to maintain a profile associated with distinctive products of good performance and value.
Review: Parasound P3/A23
Parasound is a name which will be familiar to those interested in American audio, but historically it’s not had much visibility in the UK. The P3 preamp and A23 power amp are part of the company’s ‘Halo’ range, value audiophile products designed in America but built in Taiwan.
Review: NAD C165BEE/C275BEE
From the original kings of budget audiophilia, comes a particularly well-equipped preamp and a strikingly powerful power amp, all tastefully presented in traditional NAD charcoal black.
NAD is one of only very few brands to include tone controls, although they might be making a comeback!
Review: Cyrus Pre XP d/8 Power
Built, as ever, into the famous Cyrus die-cast chassis, the Pre XP d preamp and 8 Power amp units are picked from among the comprehensive range of pre and power amplifiers in the company’s catalogue.
To some extent we’ve chosen an unusual pairing as the preamp significantly exceeds the power amp in price and its usual partner would be the X Power, but apart from anything else, Cyrus offers an upgrade path to take the 8 to X status, so the model chosen initially matters less than usual.
Review: Astin Trew AT1000/AT5000
Astin Trew is a young company which we’ve watched develop with increasing admiration and it’s new AT1000 pre-amp and AT5000 power-amp were very welcome pieces of review kit in the Hi-Fi Choice office.
We’ll come to the all-important sound performance in a few paragraphs, of course, but we would be remiss if we didn’t praise the company for the highly professional look and finish of its amplifiers: these are really very smartly made units that, clichés aside, genuinely transcend their price tag.
