Amplifiers

Whest Audio’s PS.30RDT was released in 2009 as a near descendant of the company’s flagship MC REF V, and it cost a whopping £2,799 when new. It comes in a single 430x280x72mm box with a Whest MC REF V Hybrid filter and an ultra low noise bipolar opamp DIP8 chip severely biased towards Class A. […]

In 2016, this £1,250 integrated amplifier was released. It features five line inputs, a moving magnet phono stage, and aptX wireless Bluetooth, however it lacks DAC functionality. Aside from the Bluetooth, which is unabashedly a convenience feature, this amplifier looks a lot like something from the 1980s. It’s a big, Class AB thug with a

When it was first released in 2010, this dual mono integrated Class AB powerhouse (claiming 125W into 8 Ohms) was a costly piece of kit at £5,750. It’s solidly constructed and polished, but it’s not a £6,000 Japanese device — there’s no luxuriously covered brushed aluminium, astonishing shutlines, or a plethora of elegantly performing buttons.

The golden period of Japanese hi-fi was probably from 1976 to 1981, when the Yen was severely undervalued on international markets, allowing Japanese manufacturers to produce items that Western businesses simply couldn’t match. Despite the fact that Japanese hi-fi became linked with value, all of the main brands had high-end sections. The items that came

Page after page of criticism and opinion – sometimes dressed up as fact, sometimes not – on how bad Japanese amplifiers were in 1980 could be found in any British hi-fi journal. They claimed this was especially true in the inexpensive sector, where all of their “frills” meant money wasn’t spent on items that would

Sony amplifiers had abandoned their unique but unstable V-FET output transistors by 1979, and were inventing in new ways – the goal was to bring an interesting twist to a standard design. As a result, Sony engineers placed the power transistors on the main circuit board from the center of the new TA-F range upwards

Class D, of course. I’m not a fan, but only “so far,” because I don’t have any philosophical issues with it. Experience has taught me that it’s not so much what you do as it is how you do it, and Bruno Putzeys seems to agree. You may not know who he is, but he

The tale of the Musical Fidelity A1 design is already well-known. Tim de Paravicini accepts the challenge. “I strive to be innovative, and if I can avoid it, I don’t duplicate anybody,” he explained. “It all started with a circuit on a breadboard that I created with low feedback and that acted like a valve

When the 3155 was introduced in January 1985, NAD touted it as “two products in one.” “As a preamplifier, it rivals the sound characteristics of most discrete audiophile preamps while outperforming them in terms of operating versatility.” It pushes even problematic loudspeakers to shockingly high volume levels with clean, substantial, full-bodied musical sound that is

Some may dismiss this as merely another of the many power amplifiers made by the Salisbury solid-state specialists over the years, but I believe it has something unique to offer in the grand scheme of things. Naim Audio rose to prominence with the NAC 32 and NAP 250, despite not being the company’s first preamp/power