Amplifiers

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 […]

This would have been great if NAD had built a tube amplifier. It shared a lot of DNA with the ubiquitous 3020, having been designed by Peter Bath (who worked for Dolby, AR, and even NAD), and built by IEEE in Taipei (who used to build Cambridge Audio, Luxman, Proton, and NAD devices). While the

Despite being the company’s best-selling and possibly most-loved legacy product, few audiophiles in the United Kingdom paid attention to the launch of the Audio Research SP9 in 1987. It was a powerful – and technically creative – preamplifier that appealed to a British audience that was enamored with other trends at the time. If we’re

Creek has long been the king of low-cost British integrated amplifiers. The CAS4040, for example, is a delightful listen and one of the nicest things any wannabe audiophile could afford back in the day. It featured a rich, gripping sound that was detailed and melodic, and it delivered a lot of bang for your buck.

This monstrous integrated amplifier, which cost £3,499 when it was first released a decade ago, was a Sugden A21a on steroids. The IA-4 set out to provide that crystalline Class A sound to a larger audience, with significantly increased power and additional features. The biggest difference between it and its smaller A21a S2 sibling was

Sony CEO Akio Morita travelled to the United States in the early 1960s in an attempt to persuade Americans to listen to little transistor radios, as he relates in his brilliant autobiography Made In Japan. The consumer electronics business in the United States was initially skeptical that anyone would want to listen to something smaller

This Tellurium Q power amplifier, another example of a great British hi-fi ‘what-if,’ debuted on the scene in 2012, promising so much. This newish British startup isn’t prone to exaggeration; rather, the excitement sprang from the fact that it was designed by Colin Wonfor, formerly of Inca Tech and one of the industry’s many eccentric

It’s unfortunate that so many outstanding brands have faded away, from Leak and Garrard in the United Kingdom to Micro Seiki and Sansui in Japan. In the 1970s, the latter was one of the most well-known Nipponese brands, with a proud array of high-end, high-quality items with an uniquely slimline yet powerful sound. The Sansui

Until the 1983 release of the Naim NAIT, integrated amplifiers were thought to be something you bought before you could afford a ‘real’ preamplifier/power amplifier combo. It’s fair to assume that the breed was not well-liked. Instead of presenting low-cost circuitry in a costly cabinet adorned with acres of brushed aluminium and bouncing power meters,

California-based The Reference 8 and 9 monoblocs were NuForce’s first Class D amplifiers, which were introduced during the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The £635 Reference 8 single-ended input (RCA) and £700 Reference 8b balanced input (providing a claimed 100W RMS) were available, as well as the £935 Reference 9 having balanced and