Amplifiers

It’s been a long time since Naim Audio Ltd. initially opened its doors in a Wiltshire backstreet in 1973, and since then, the company has grown in popularity and reputation. Julian Vereker, the firm’s founder, once stated that he started the company to manufacture hi-fi equipment that he and his friends would enjoy listening to. […]

Who would have guessed? Oppo Digital Inc., a California-based spin-off of an obscure Chinese optical disc player firm, launches a high-end hi-fi product line. It’s not your normal hi-fi success story, but with each new product launch, the tale becomes more credible. The business now has its own matching DAC/preamp/headphone amp – in the very

The Quad II is one of the most well-known British power amplifiers, with a legendary reputation and a definite and iconic valve design. It was first released in 1953, and a corresponding preamplifier – the QC 22 – was added in 1959, just as stereo microgroove recordings became available. However, the early Quad IIs were

Back in 1995, the globe was a completely different place. We were assaulted by a slew of black pressed steel-cased transistor amplifiers and CD players in hi-fi; Audiolab’s 8000a reigned supreme on the showroom floor, and HDCD was the buzz of the day. Valve amplifiers were slowly re-entering the public consciousness, but they were still

Cyrus Audio’s ONE integrated amplifier, which debuted at the 2016 Munich High End Show, is a Class D design that employs the company’s hybrid Class D technology’s third iteration. When headphones are plugged in, the power supply rails switch to powering the Class AB headphone stage, claiming 100W RMS per channel into 6 ohms. As

Hitachi’s discovery and production of MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Silicon Field Effect Transistor) had a major role in the hi-fi world that was just around the corner in the mid-1970s. The world had only been in solid-state for fifteen years and was still on a long and steep learning curve. However, Hitachi’s new power MOSFET output

Tube amplification was viewed as an extreme niche in hi-fi in the late 1990s, similar to how most petrolheads thought of kit cars (i.e. “interesting, but not for me”). So maybe it’s a sign of the times that we’re suddenly getting more new valve items than transistor products. Icon Audio happened to be in the

This was a superb affordable audiophile valve amplifier that was launched in 2012 for the princely sum of £1,700. “The original Stereo 40 was born in 2000, and was at the heart of what we do, top quality amplifiers at a reasonable price,” said chief designer David Shaw. This is a jumble of ideas with

The famous 845 power triode began life as a radio transmitting vacuum tube, with a physically huge anode dissipation of 75 watts and an anode voltage of 1,250V. Because the thoriated tungsten filament – which shined like a lightbulb – was powered at 10 Volts and 3.25 Amps, any transmitter running a large number of

We’ve all heard about how fantastic the Leak Stereo 20 is. It was a superbly designed ‘do-it-all’ stereo valve power amplifier with enough power to drive most loudspeakers of the time when it was introduced in 1958. It was a development of the original mono TL12 Point One, using the same fundamental circuit as Harold