_Amplifier Reviews

Does anyone really review Naim gear or does Naim gear review us?

While I’m no fan of violence, someone needs to take the idea that 300B-based amps are soft and wooly out behind the barn and shoot it.

When you buy most anything, you’re paying for everything involved in designing, making, packaging, distributing, marketing and selling that thing. You’re certainly not, as some audiophiles appear to think, just paying for some parts.

Hybrids are half-loved by some because ideologies can outweigh outcomes. In the case of integrated amplifiers, the outcome I’m most interested in is how power can turn an electrical signal into waves of emotive sound energy as music.

I can count on one hand the number of integrated amplifiers that stand above and apart from all of the others I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. Here’s the list:

I know my way around some Bel Canto, having reviewed their e.One C6i DAC Integrated Amplifier and e.One Stream2 Network Bridge along with the more upscale E1X Integrated Amplifier.

When it comes to listening to music on the hifi, I’ve been wondering of late if a sense of refinement is innate or learned. In other words, do we know a refined sound or does the gear teach us about it.

The only thing I would change about the Audia Flight FL Three S, if I could change anything, is to have the volume knob stick out a bit more. Other than that, there’s nothing to criticize and everything to like. If not love.

A friend, whose ears and judgement I trust, pointed me to Java HiFi and their GaN FET-based amplifiers. I’d heard the buzz about GaN FETs, more than a murmur, as being able to offer Class D amplification without the sizzle.

The Octave V 16 is, as its name says, a single-ended design running a pair of KT120s (or KT150, KT88, or 8550) in triode mode for about 8 Watts of output power per channel, i.e. more than enough power for a few pair of speakers […]

I don’t know anyone who looks at glowing vacuum tubes and thinks—Damn! That’s ugly! My best guest is light, and heat, still touch most humans in places that are connected to survival.

Read just about any review of the Enleum AMP-23R and you’ll find likes and loves. This review will not stray from this well worn path of praise, so reader’s who just want to know whether or not I like the AMP-23R, you can stop reading […]

On September 6, 1976 a Russian fighter pilot decided to defect by landing his MIG-25 in Hokkaido, Japan. One relevant discovery found inside that MIG was the Russian 6C33C-B dual triode vacuum tube.

Power isn’t everything.