Amplifiers

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

Farad Azima, his brother Henry, and Stan Curtis were the founding directors of Mission Electronics, which was founded in 1977. Another intriguing new British hi-fi firm to emerge from the ‘Silicon Fen’ around Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire – the UK’s equivalent of Silicon Valley, if you will – it quickly established itself with the likes of A&R