Also read Part I, Part II

I never really planned for there to be a Part III of this review; I didn’t even plan to review it in my reference system, but it came before the Wayne Picquet’s Restored Quad ESL 57 and I wanted to break the XA30.8 in before the Quads showed up. I was so impressed by the amplifier that I made the decision to write what was called Part I of this three-part review. The Pass Labs XA30.8 continued to improve with time to the point that, now, I wanted to let you know my final assessment of this incredible amplifier.

In the last ten years I have listened to and in many cases reviewed amplifiers powering the Audio Note E and/or the Teresonic XR Silver. This included amps from the following companies, in alphabetical order they were: 47 Labs 4733 Midnight Blue, Allnic T1500 300B, Atma-Sphere M-60 Mk 3.1 OTL, Art Audio Diavolo TW Ref Signature, ASR Emitter I Exclusive, Audio Note, Audio Research, Bec Canto, Bob Carver “Black Magic” VTA20S, Cary, Conrad Johnson, deHavilland Aries 845-G, Electrocompaiet ECI-5 Mk II, Electra-Fidelity A3-500 300B, First Watt SIT-1, Genesis Advanced Technologies I60, Goldmund, Kora, Kore-eda PLA-1, Joule-Electra, McIntosh, Melody, Monarchy Audio SE-250, Oracle Audio Technologies SI1000, Pass Labs both XA.5, Plinius 9200, Quad, Rogue, Shindo Cortese F2A, Swissonor AM6441, TEAC, Tektron TK 211S, Teresonic Reference 2a3, Unison Research, and Wavac EC-300B.

All together I have listened to around 50 amps in the last 10 years and I’m glad to say most of them were really good amps. To be honest though, only four of them ever made me think they might be as good as my beloved Wavac EC-300B. Here’s the big surprise: Three of the four were transistor amps. The one tube amplifier was Teresonic’s own Reference 2a3 amp; the three transistor amps were the ASR Emitter I Exclusive Amplifier, the First Watt SIT-1 monoblock power amplifiers and now, the Pass Labs XA30.8.

Of the three transistor amps, the First Watt SIT-1 sounded the most like the Wavac EC-300B and I would be the first to admit that if I were buying them new I could not justify spending three times as much for amps that sounded so much alike. The ASR Emitter I Exclusive Amplifier and the Pass Labs 30.8 sound different from each other and the single-ended amps. Of the four amps the ASR sounds the most different. That could be good or bad continuing on your speakers. All four are great amps, though.

The ASR is the fastest and most transparent amplifier I have ever heard. Its speed and transparency extends into the frequency extremes. This results in the tightest bass with the most slam I have heard in my reference system. In my review of the ASR Emitter One Exclusive, I said, “It involves me emotionally better than any solid state gear I have ever used. As incredible as its midrange is, it just doesn’t have the magical way with voices that the Wavac EC-300B does, though it betters any push-pull tube amp I have heard in this area. In the area of PRaT, it also falls a little short of Wavac/Shindo combination.”

Now along comes the Pass Labs XA30.8. I know from the name it sounds like an update to the XA30.5, but it’s not. It’s a whole new amp; there is no way you could take a XA30.5 and upgrade it to a XA30.8. For example, the XA30.8 weighs about 25 pounds more than the XA30.5, the front end uses a mixture of four complementary JFET, MOSFET, and Toshiba bipolar devices on each channel and the power supply is an all new design that has more capacitance. The output stages of the larger Point 8 amplifiers bias more deeply into the Class A operating region. It stays in Class A up to 61 watts peak power. This larger push-pull Class A operating envelope delivers lower distortion and additional loudspeaker control. Again, it’s a whole new amp that is so much better that I think they should have given it a more distinctive new name.

It took me another couple of months after I wrote Part I of this review to realize the XA30.8 is one of the two most musical amps I have heard in my system. I wonder if there is any chance that playing the difficult load of the Quad 57 did a more effective job of breaking them in than my 103dB Teresonic Ingeniums? Anyway, this is amazing considering my Wavac EC-300B cost $30,000, the ASR Emitter One $20,000, the First Watt SIT-1 monoblocks are $10,000 and the Pass Labs XA30.8 comes in at $6,500. Having reread this, I know my credibility as a reviewer who has consistently always touted the superiority of single ended amps with no feedback is in jeopardy. Still, this review is good news for anyone who can get by on the most powerful 30 watts I have heard.

I should take a moment to tell you how I came to feel this way about the Pass Labs XA30.8 amplifier and it is all about how you feel when listening to music on my system with this amp. I listened to this amp for a little over two months with the Teresonic Ingeniums XR Silvers then I put the Wavac EC-300B back in for a few days during which time I finished and turned in Part I of the review. Then I put the XA30.8 back in and hooked up the Quads 57. After about a month of listening to that combo, I put the Teresonics back in and listened to them for about a week with the XA30.8. The next step is where the learning experience came to fruition. I then put the Wavac back in and immediately noticed that incredible holographic midrange, but after a few days I begin to missed the sound of my system with the Teresonics and the XA30.8. When I put it back in I was shocked to discover that I had that feeling that makes your mind say, “Ah! that feels so right.” Over the next two weeks I made this change a couple of times, always with the same result.

So what makes it along with the Wavac EC-300B one of the two most musical amp I have heard? Well, it’s the total package. When listening to the ASR and First Watt there were times when I missed the Wavac. With the Pass Labs XA30.8 I never missed the Wavac, but when I put the Wavac back in it only took a few days until I really missed the XA30.8. I missed the Pass Labs’ power; I missed its scale; I missed its incredible harmonics, its overall tonal balance and just how wonderfully and emotionally involving my system is with it is powering the speakers. The XA30.8 does all these wonderful things with a way that seems effortless and thus very enjoyable to listen to for very long sessions.

The Pass Labs XA30.8 may not be quite as transparent as the other three amps, I’m not sure but it’s close enough I never notice until I put the Wavac EC-300B back in. Then it may only be that they sound different. What I’m saying is the Pass Labs XA30.8 is transparent enough that never once when listening to it did I wish it was as transparent as the other amps. Its bass is not as fast, tight or have the slam as the ASR, but it’s better. The bass is harmonically more correct, it’s full but not the least bit loose, it possesses the very best of the bass we get from world class tube amps and world class transistor amps.

The Pass Labs XA30.8 plays the textures, colors, tones and harmonics of music more realistically than any of the other amps I’ve mentioned. Its timbre realism with individual instruments and voices is just so satisfying. It allows my system to play music with such a enjoyable life-like flow. It has great PRaT and great fullness at the same time. This is something I have never heard an amplifier achieve to this extent. I can’t believe I’m saying all this about a transistor amp.

In Part I of this review I pointed out that, “the XA30.8 is fundamentally different from the EC-300B and the First Watt SIT-1 in how it builds the sound. Both the EC-300B, an SET tube amp, and the First Watt SIT, a single-ended class A transistor amp, build the sound from the midrange out. It’s like the midrange is the main attraction, and the bass and treble are there to finish out the sound. The Pass Labs XA30.8 builds the sound on a foundation of bass, mid-bass and power.” I can now add to that statement that it does this while having an equally wonderful midrange, especially voices.

The longer I listened to the Pass Labs XA30.8, the more convinced I became that this is one of the main things that makes this amp so special, especially in my system. I think this tonal balance works in a very synergist relationship with the rest of my system. It compliments beautifully the tonal balance of the Teresonic speakers and the Soundsmith SG-220 Strain-Gauge cartridge. It does this in the mid-bass and bass. Still, it lets you experience the midrange and treble with no trace of grain. The result is that you experience the bass, midrange and treble as one performance in the same natural way. It doesn’t highlight one area of the frequency range but lets the whole range sound so right.

When listening to the XA30.8 playing the Quad 57, I was blown away by how each and every instrument or singer seemed whole in its own space. This was especially evident with how you could hear each back-up singer. For example, when listening to Elvis and the Jordanaires it was amazing how you could hear Gordon Stoker and Hoyt Hawkins in their very own space. Not their voices hanging in space but the players occupying space in the room.

I really thought this had more to do with the Quads than the amp, but when I hooked back up my Teresonics and put on the same song, I was shocked. The Quad 57 put them in a slightly bigger space than the Teresonics, and the Teresonics gives you a clearer window on their performance. Turns out when I was trying the Quads with other amps and the Teresonics with other amps there is no question that this special way with space and placement of holistic performers in the listening space is the special work of the Pass Labs XA30.8.

Are there any negatives with the XA30.8? Well, I haven’t heard any yet, but there are some that have nothing to do with sound. First is its size and weight, they could make putting it on many racks impossible. Second, if you have inefficient speakers, then you need to move up the .8 lineup; they take up more space and the cost nearly doubles for each time you move up to the next more powerful amp. Lastly, the Pass Labs XA30.8 draws a lot of current, enough that I can see it on my smart meter when I turn it on and off. I did not find it to run nearly as hot as the SIT-1 though, and no hotter that the Wavac. I know as you go to more chassis and more power the heat will become more significant.

Conclusion

While I thought the Pass Labs XA.5 series of amps were some of the very best if not the best transistor out there, they were just slightly more veiled and a little polite for my taste. They also still had a little bit of haze in the midrange compared to my Wavac EC-300B. So did the XA30.8 until it was fully broken in, but never nearly as much as the .5 amps. The Pass Labs XA30.8 has none of these weaknesses in my reference system with the AMG turntable, the SoundStage Strain Gauge system and the Teresonic Ingenium XR. I find the XA30.8 to be a total revelation. In my system clearly it is as musical involving, and even more so in the mid bass and bass than any amp I have used. It is equally as alive sounding as the Wavac EC-300B. I admit this came as a total shock to me as I have not owned a transistor amp in my main audio system in nearly 30 years.

I do think I need to say that with another speaker I might choose the Wavac over the Pass Labs, but with my speakers it’s a match made in heaven. Anyway, the Pass Labs XA30.8 is not only the best amp I have heard with my speakers, it is an incredible bargain to boot!

Vincent SA-94 stereo preamplifier

Well it’s happened. Frankly I was not expecting it, and certainly not with a pair of solid-state monoblocks made in China and pitched at not a lot more than a bargain-bin price point. But there you go.

What’s happened was a recalibration, an overturning of prejudices, a recognition that contrary to the usual pattern in audio, the law of diminishing returns doesn’t always apply. What caused this epiphany is a combination of products that doesn’t just provide a sonic return fairly reflected its RRP, but one that delivers more than it has a right to for the money.

If I dub the Vincent SA-94 preamplifier and SP-995 monoblocks a sonic bargain, then that should accurately set expectations for what follows. I liked them very much. In fact having lived with them for the best part of a month I was sorry to see them go. It would be useful to have them stick around – rather in the manner of a strong neighbour who’s always there to help on those occasions when you need a lift with something weighty, or in the case of the Vincents drive a difficult speaker load. But there you go. We can’t buy everything and a consolation of reviewing is that at least one gets to try some interesting stuff from time to time.

Vincent is owned by German audio company Sintron GmbH. Sintron managing director Uwe Bartel has built an impressive brand by pairing German design with Chinese manufacture. Sadly, Vincent declined to answer my direct questions about the design philosophy and component choices used in the amps, but that doesn’t detract from the gosh-darn-honest, get-what-you-pay-for deal offered to buyers of these products. For all I know, others in the family may be even better. I am grateful to Kyri K. Christofi at vincentshop.co.uk, the exclusive Vincent dealer in the UK, who loaned me the review combo.

So, what do we have here? The SA-94 is a truly dual-mono active preamplifier that switches six sources. Cased in solid black anodised aluminium it has a front panel that enables selection of source, and control of volume and mute. On the back is a pair of XLR inputs and five pairs of RCAs. A remote controller additionally allows gain and channel balance to be adjusted.

47 Labs Midnight Blue system:

Lens II Speaker: $3,250 (read Review)
 Midnight Blue Integrated Amplifier Model 4736: $2,500
 Midnight Blue CD Player Model 4735: $3,250 (read Review)
 *Midnight Blue Tuner Model 4730: $1,500 (read Review)
 47 Labs OTA Cable Kit Model 4708: $800

Also read the 47 Labs Model 4733 Midnight Blue headphone amplifier/preamplifier/USB DAC Review

I’ve reviewed each component in this system except for the integrated amp, and I’ve lived with the system for a while. This review focuses on the sound of the whole system. The new Midnight Blue Series from 47 Labs has made the aesthetics a little more typical looking and don’t require outboard power supplies. Trying to appeal to a broader range of music lovers, I guess. Even if they look a little more typical of audio equipment on the outside the well known 47 Labs approach to minimalism and quality remains obvious on the inside.

Technically, the Lens II bookshelf speakers aren’t part of the Midnight Blue System, but they seem the perfect mate so I thought I would review the system with them. I chose to use the integrated instead of the power amp because by the time I got around to doing this review I had returned the preamp. Personally in a system this simple, I prefer the integrated.

The sound of the system in the all-important midrange was clear, clean, and transparent. The system did a very good job of letting music come to life. Voices were simply beautiful, and it handles male and female singers equally well. The amount of inner detail was not quite up to par with a great vinyl setup, but it was more than good enough and only sounded lacking by direct comparison. The top end was very extended and very smooth. The overall sound of the 47 Labs Midnight Blue System was simple, exceptionally musical with emotionally involving midrange and top end.

The bass of this little system was a nice surprise. I’m not saying they plunge into the depths of bass. Truth is the system doesn’t play all that deep, but the bass it has is surprisingly engaging. It had nice tone in the lower midrange and upper bass. It had a very nice sense of air in the bass area as well as the midrange and top end. I have heard several systems using a single five-inch driver that didn’t play bass as well. Still, I could get better bass by using my $6,500 Teresonic Magus speakers and I could get better bass from the Lens II using the Pass Labs XA30.8 amp. Still, I thought there was something very special about the overall sound of the system using all 47 Labs.

Voices sounded very natural on the system and that was equally true for female and male vocals. I point this out because so many small speakers add too much warmth to male voices, because of their mid-bass hump. I found the overall sound of the human voice to be very believable on this great little system. Likewise, trumpets, saxophones, and clarinets all had nice tonality and were very enjoyable. One of the things about using the Lens II speakers in this system is you get the characteristic, wonderful tonality of alnico magnet speakers. This allowed the system to play music with great tone and soul. It also contributes why the system is never bright or edgy sounding. With horns and woodwinds, they are on the side of warmth and may not have the very last word in bite. Still, the sound was nicely alive and communicated the music in a very enjoyable manner.

If you choose to set the system up with the speakers on stands then it’s ability to produce a believable soundstage is about as good as it gets. Set up right, the soundstage extends way beyond the speakers and the soundstage appears totally behind the speakers and very deep. It’s that kind of soundstage where non-audiophiles want to know where the speakers are that are playing or are the speakers firing out the back. You can also hear the air between the instruments and the space where the recording was made very well.

The good news is if you choose to set the system up on a bookshelf with the speakers also on the bookshelf, you still get a very nice soundstage and maybe the best bookshelf system I have heard.

The overall sound of the system surprised me. Just looking at the equipment and I wasn’t surprised that the sound was transparent, clear and fast. What I wasn’t ready for was how very organic and tactile it sounded. The 47 Labs Midnight Blue system had rich tonal colors and a wonderful ease to its sound.

This system has some very interesting applications. I’ve been using it in a small den upstairs with everything sitting in an entertainment center and the speakers on each corner of the same top shelve the TV sits on. I also set it up downstairs where I could put the speakers on stands and set them about 4 feet from the rear wall and well off the side walls. In both locations, the system performed superbly, but with different strengths and weaknesses. I can see many different people who would find this system addressing both their space needs at home and their musical taste.

I think if you look at the system’s individual parts the two source components are the ones that give you value well above their price tag. The little 4730 Midnight Blue Tuner is a real throw back to the world of really good analogue tuners. This only matters if you live where you can receive good FM radio.

Both source components are of medias that seem to be a dying breed. Still, you can get CDs and get them really cheap used. The 4735 Midnight Blue CD Player is an exceptionally musical digital source. If you are like me and listen to something like 98 percent vinyl this player is perfect for playing the music I can’t get on vinyl. It’s reasonably priced, takes up very little space and sounds amazing for a digital source. Also, I don’t have to put a computer in the system.

Conclusion

I have not tried to rewrite each of the reviews that have already been published. This review is more of a conclusion to all the 47 Labs Midnight Blue reviews. The closing thought I would like to leave you with is this: I have heard many systems that did not sound nearly as good as this one, where nearly every piece in the system costs more than this whole system including cables cost. Heck, most of those systems spent more on cable than the 47 Labs Midnight Blue system. Nuff said.

Wells Audio Innamorata Signature stereo amplifier

The last few years has seen a bounty of great audio components coming through for review. The Pass Labs XA200.5 mono amplifiers, Triangle Arts Signature turntable, and the D’Agostino Momentum Integrated to name a few, have made indelible and long lasting impressions. The countless hours spent pouring over these great examples of the alchemy of great industrial design and cutting edge music making has been a joy. None of them sound all that similar yet each reaches deep down into a level of resolution that reveals the heart of music.

Added to that list is the latest from Wells Audio, the Innamorata Signature stereo amplifier. The word Innamorata means Mistress or to fall in love in Italian. Great name! Rated at 150 watts per channel into 8 Ohms, 210 watts into 4 Ohms seems right based on the performance of the amplifier.

Jeff has always loved music and have been fascinated with the electronic reproduction of it since he was a small boy. Along the way he found that he had a talent for system setup and combining equipment to deliver the best possible musical results. He was urged by friends and followers to use these talents professionally so he started the Audible Arts, a high-end audio retail store located in San Jose, Ca., with a colleague 20 years ago. Along the way he always felt that equipment was missing something and should be better. In 2010, he started Wells Audio, not because he wanted to be a manufacturer, but because he felt that he could offer something different and better. The statement that he stands by is the first time he heard the Innamorata, it was different than anything in high-end and he wanted to sell it not necessarily to make a living but because he believed every audiophile needed the opportunity to hear and own what he was listening to. Life is the cosmic scorekeeper. Because the high-end equipment sales arena is so incredibly crowded if he had been deluding himself then he would have disappeared quite quickly, but if he was correct then sales would vindicate him. Wells Audio is still around and doing better than ever.

The Wells Audio Innamorata Signature arrived on the heels of the D’Agostino Momentum Integrated, a product that has had me in a spell from day one. Trust me, I was not looking to review another amplifier at that time. But reviewers’ schedules often conflict and I was asked to help out, so of course I would give the Wells Audio a listen.

First off, the amplifier is really nice looking. The gold-rimmed round meter on the front panel gives the otherwise traditional black solid-state chassis a bit of bling. The review sample also had a transparent top plate. Being able to gaze at the innards was very cool.

Using the D’Agostino as an example of a component that makes an immediate impression in the best sense of the word, so does the Innamorata Signature, but in a very different way. So different in fact I had never really heard anything like it. No, the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature did not best the D’Agostino but it did reveal a bit of dryness in comparison. What the Innamorata has is a midrange and treble that is so creamy and liquid smooth without resulting in any darkness or muting. The overall effect is hard to describe. Textures are downright juicy, they are never harsh or overly bright. Horns in particular just pour out tone and texture. And vocals? Outstanding. Violin and Piano, two of the toughest instruments to get right are handled with such liquidity and proper tone, making for an incredibly seductive presentation.

The D’Agostino Momentum has a beguiling level of neutrality and resolution, particularly in the treble, resulting in every song unfolding into vast landscape to explore. There is simply more information passing through the D’Agostino. That said, the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature’s treble is so well integrated with the mid band making for a seamless presentation on par with the best, it leaves little on the table in the upper frequencies. Very sweet in tone, this is unapologetically beautiful sound. As for the comparison I have been making with the D’Agostino, I have not mentioned that it is nearly 5 times the price of the Innamorata Signature. As for choosing anything near the Innamorata’s price point I’m all over the Innamorata for center stage in my system.

Based on what I have described so far, you would not expect super tight and dry bass and you won’t get it. The bass pretty much follows in suit of the mid band and treble. That liquidity carries down through the mid bass giving stand up bass a densely rounded purring tone. Just lovely. Electric bass like that from Geddy Lee of Rush playing “YYZ,” emphasis is on tone and color and a little less on dynamic swing. Not to say that the track lagged in any way, it is just not as whip snap as it is through either the Pass Labs XA200.5 or the D’Agostino. It is the musicality of the bass that makes the listener really sink into bass heavy tracks. Like the mid band and treble the bass carries the tune with effortless ease. Different yes, wonderful? For sure.

Overall however, the dynamic life of the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature was excellent. Capable of a wide range of dynamic shading you really feel the breath and life of music. Vocal shading was truly excellent. Groups of vocalist had their own individual singer’s vocal shading easily differentiated from one another. Very sophisticated sound here. Again, there is a liquidity and slippery ease to the dynamic swings presented by the Innamorata. Like waves on the ocean, the listener is taken for a ride on an effortless dynamic tide. All of these great traits are the result of what appears to be a seriously low noise floor. I was able to really crank up this amplifier without any shift in tone or timbre or the addition of any glare or brightness. For me, this is really something I love as I have a big space and the sound’s volume must reach a critical level to properly lock into the room.

As for staging and imaging, the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature is a tad laid back with the stage starting a few feet further behind the speakers than either the Pass Labs or the D’Agostino. Everything had its place in space, though. It was not as see-through as the D’Agostino. Elements of production such as reverb and delays and the such are there, but with less emphasis.

I really wish I had more time with the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature, I would have liked to get to know it even better. However I certainly had enough time to confidently relay my experience with this wonderful amplifier. Coming up against my reference amplifier was a tall task, and the Innamorata put on a fantastic showing. Seductive in a way no other amp I have heard is, the Innamorata will please probably 90 percent of all audiophiles out there; so musically pleasing as to make much of the competition sound a bit a-musical. At the price of $15k the Wells Audio Innamorata Signature is a no brainier.

I have reviewed and or lived with dozens of amplifiers over the last 20 years of writing. I enjoy amplifiers on a different level than some other components. I have loved them from the early days of the Krell KSA150, Rowland amps, of which I love to this day, various tube designs right through to my currant references.

The Innamorata Signature is another milestone in my reviewing days. Sounding like no other amp I have heard, it has musical magic running through its veins. This amp really took me by surprise. Very Highly recommended.

This Review was published in February, 2007 originally.

Also see Audio Note Quest Silver monoblock amplifiers Review, Part 1

A few years ago while using a pair of ‘valve like’ solid state Mitchell Engineering Alecto monoblocks, I was keen to try out the real thing, and so made numerous requests for information and recommendations of valve amplification at online forums in order to make a shortlist.

Of relevance to my current review in particular is the following snippet of information which I’ve cut ‘n’ pasted here for your perusal.  It’s from a very amiable guy who offered his first hand experience of the Audio Note Quests compared to the EAR 509s I was enquiring about at the time.

It’ll give you all a brief respite from my own ramblings, but acknowledgements to ‘Lobo’ and the Audio Asylum are in order before reading on, and I quote;

“If you listen to solo female voice with guitar, the Audio Note would give you an exceptional seduce and pure voice like your beloved one whispering closely to your ears and draw you more into music. The 509 on the other hand, would give you a more live feel, with the explosive pace, dynamic and better rhythm of the guitar and you know you are in the good show. As I said before, a combination of both would be perfect from my view……the Audio Note Quests are very good 300B but I always dream of owning the Ongaku one day because I heard it. The Ongaku is the BEST SET which you will forget bass slam or other hifi parameters when you listen to it . Therefore I doubt I will put extra money on any modification like Border Patrol to my Quests. Alternatively I am thinking to buy a pair of those SILVER output from Audio note UK to replace the stock pairs in Quests and may give me a small slice of Ongaku sound.”

Five years have passed since that text was written, and what I would humbly suggest to Lobo after gaining first hand experience of the Quests is that when the speakers are Audio Note’s own 98dB sensitive AN-Es, the bass produced is sufficient to not leave me hankering after the E.A.R 509s which would, in fact, be a definite overkill.

This was highlighted when I was loaned a compilation 2CD set of classic rock tracks titled DAD Rocks! to download onto my personal MP3 player, and inevitably it found its way onto the Audio Note system.

In line with Audio Note’s philosophy of “comparison by contrast”, the differing qualities of bass reproduction between tracks was effortlessly highlighted and I’ll confess to quickly skipping through the individual track intro’s of whole album before settling down to serious evaluation, just marveling at how palpably real these oft heard classics now were.

The comforting hiss of analogue recorded masters preceded some of the most recognisable bass lines known to man from the likes of  Deep Purple to Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, Whitesnake, Rainbow, Thin Lizzie and Billy Idol among others, and make no mistake that my ears were left ringing with the volume of the M3 set just a tad past 12.00. Coincidentally, it was 12:00 midnight when the slightly miffed face of my girlfriend appeared around the side of the door to ask if I wanted a cup of tea before bed, but in consideration of the neighbours I hastened to mention that I had moved on to some more sedate jazz an hour earlier, followed by Eva Cassidy who was born and raised to be heard on an AN SET audio system.

Indeed, it was Eva Cassidy’s Live at Blues Alley that was the deciding factor in me first turning to an Audio Note DAC, rather than Sony’s finest SACD for my musical pleasure player all those years ago, and it shouldn’t be too long now before I am sampling (not over/upsampling!!) the delights of an AN transport and DAC which will finally complete a full Audio Note system review.

For now, my source is a quite engaging Myryad MXC6000 CD player, possessing a highly detailed, refined presentation which seems to compliment the AN system quite nicely. With fourteen individually designed power supplies, 24-bit/192kHz Delta-Sigma DACs, and DC-coupled, individually trimmed audio outputs, it is most definitely a league or two above the Toshiba SD-900E which, at the end of the day, is a DVD player with aspirations of superior audio performance.

Before carrying on, it may be of some interest to point out that because the review system is upstairs in the bedroom, away from the TV and home cinema, there was no dedicated equipment rack available to use.

Therefore, in the time-honoured tradition of Audio Note never seeming to use anything other than a foldaway decorator’s table to exhibit and demonstrate their wares at various shows around the UK, I had placed the amps on either side of the CD player on a wooden coffee table (see pics) with the M3 preamp sitting underneath on a piece of MDF, which itself rested on the carpeted wooden floor.

I mention this because I did initially have very obvious and distracting problems with microphonic ‘ringing’, the source of which was quickly identified to be the M3.

Placing three of Russ Andrews’ isolation oak cones under the M3 eliminated the ringing totally which, to be honest, was a pleasant surprise as I’d inserted them purely because they just happened to be within easy reach while I was wondering if I would have to buy another rack.

Of course, sitting the M3 more or less directly onto a wooden floor between speakers was asking for trouble, but through exaggeration, it did at least clearly demonstrate the effects of microphonics to me, and also how effective very simple devices were at dealing with those effects – or at least those which were clearly audible.

No doubt even better isolation would be more beneficial, although this wouldn’t necessarily require a megabucks equipment rack, and of course you could always opt for the aforementioned decorator’s table which has the benefit of being useful for when the wife decides you’ve spent enough time sitting on your backside listening to music – it’s time for you to paper the lounge!

Microphonics a thing of the paste then – I mean past, I was now experiencing a connection to musicians and their performances which sometimes really was like being transported back to another era, and despite the ‘limitations’ on paper of the Quest Silvers in terms of ultimate power, the music nonetheless continued to flow in such an effortless, unstrained manner that I again found myself regretting not having made the leap of faith to SETs much earlier in me and my system’s development.

Without having heard SETs from another manufacturer in my home environment, it is of course impossible to say whether the quality I’m enjoying now is attributable to Audio Note or to SETs in general, but when things are this good, I’ve no motivation or need to experiment although, of course, I have my suspisions (which is why I haven’t as yet tried to procure SET amplification from any other manufacturer for review….)

Similarly, for years now I’ve always used Kimber interconnects and speaker cables because I’ve never detected any shortcomings in what they do, and every upgrade I’ve made from one Kimber cable to another has yielded a clear increase in performance over it’s predecessor.

For the purpose of this review however, Audio Note supplied me with a full compliment of their Lexus LX interconnect and speaker cable which demonstrated that Audio Note’s total system synergy isn’t just confined to their components.

Despite being restricted to high purity copper construction when Audio Note’s preference is almost always to use silver as a conductor whenever possible, the Lexus possessed such a beautifully balanced character, that it was a few hours before it dawned on me to install my own reference Kimber KS-3035 speaker cables and KS-1030 interconnects at many times the price of the Lexus.

Already being in possession of the high purity silver Kimber Select cabling, I was duty bound to utilize them in the AN system and immediately there were gains in the low level detail and ambience which was similar to the kind of improvement I’d experienced when moving up from an Audio Note DAC3.1x to a DAC4.1x, which used more silver internally.

With the DACs, there’s also an increase in weight, separation and presence that comes from additional upgrades to the power supplies, but I used the comparison in preference to saying another veil had been lifted. You see what I mean now about the ‘Audio Nirvana’ inclusion?

So while the AN Lexus seem to be about as good as copper gets in my experience in terms of musicality and balance, the Quests, M3 and AN-E SPE HEs nonetheless love the finest silver conductors, which is hardly surprising considering their pedigree, which also has me wondering what AN’s own silver wires would be capable of, especially in an AN system?

Then again, why should I waste time wondering about such scenarios when the present reality is so good? As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush – even though it might poop on your wrist.

This Quest review can hopefully be considered something of a precursor to a review of the almost mythical all-Audio Note system, providing I can persuade an extremely busy Mr. Qvortrup to send an AN CDT transport/AN DAC combination my way, but I believe the Myryad CD player used for the bulk of this review has at least demonstrated that it isn’t absolutely necessary to have an AN source to enjoy the delights of an AN system; although after owning two AN DACs previously, I’d say it would definitely help…..

I could write another two thousand words before nightfall; but none would really add any more insight into what I’ve been experiencing this past few weeks, and let’s be honest, you really do have to audition for yourself to appreciate exactly what your own experiences would be in your own listening environment. I would however suggest that any system utilizing the AN-E’s in particular would not suffer from the usual room related excuses – I mean problems – as other designs so often used to explain poor sound.

Reviews are useful for whetting the appetite, piquing an interest and drawing up shortlists, but if, as a result of reading a review, you are tempted to listen to a component/system you wouldn’t normally have given the time of day, reviews can be invaluable.

Life is short, system building can be frustrating, costly and ultimately unrewarding, yet get it right and your life is enhanced by music from across the ages, whenever you have the time and inclination to pry open a CD case or coax a vinyl disc from it’s cover.

The system approach is one which I believe has the most direct path to where we all want to be; but reviews by necessity are component-based, which invariably means many of us tend to wander off on a tangent at some point, and in addition to straying from the right path, it’s even possible to lose sight of where we wanted to get to in the first place as our point of reference alters.

Stay tuned then and perhaps one day the final piece of the jigsaw will be delivered to my front door in the shape of an AN DAC, by a red-faced postman who by now must dread the AN logo embossed on the side of any parcel sitting in the back of his van.

Maybe I should invite him in one day for a listen, whereupon he might just forget about his slipped disc for a few hours?

Revox Joy S119 Network Receiver

Introduction

I have been an audio buff for over 40 years now and since those earliest of days when high quality audio reached my conscious being, the Swiss name Revox stood at the forefront. Of course, back then their mainstay was in the area of Reel-to- Reel tape machines. In fact, the A77, A700, B77, etc… were all well-known for being at the very top of the offerings of their respective days. A few select audio shops back then, we’re talking the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, usually had a Revox tape machine for their very best playback systems, since they offered sound quality, build quality, and innovation, that simply could not be matched by many turntable playback systems nor reel-to-reel systems of that time. In the professional recording studio world, Studer-Revox dominated with a line of professional tape machines, boards, mixers, etc.

In fact, back in the 80’s Revox even took a perhaps misguided stab at building turntables. The series of tables, B790, were direct drive units equipped with straight line tracking tonearms. My brief encounter with those units was positive as they offered a real alternative to the Technics and B&O units with which they were meant to compete.

Well, that was Revox back then. To be honest I had not heard a peep regarding Revox in many, many years. So, when my Editor called and asked if I would review an audio lifestyle system from Revox I was a little more than a bit skeptical that this was the Revox. As it turns out, the original Swiss company appears to be intact and has evolved into a modern day Home Theater and lifestyle products company! Their offerings include modular audio systems, multi-room systems, loudspeakers, etc. The entry level “Joy” lineup of system components which includes a series of network receivers, Audio Servers, speakers, CD player, and accessories is fairly new to the market. The line includes a series of three Network Receivers, the S118, S119, and S120. The middle-of-the-range S119 with a rated power output of 60 watts continuous per channel is the subject of this review.

Revox S119 power supply & amplifier

Installation and Set-up

By its very name, a Network Receiver should have a broad range of capabilities to connect and receive A/V data from a wide range of sources. In this regard, the Revox Joy range clearly does not disappoint. The S119 receiver offers up digital audio reception and input via a wide range of methods and sources such as Ethernet connection (RJ45), USB, Home WiFi/WLAN (via a supplied antenna), coax digital input and optical glass digital input from players. Analog inputs are also available (2) via RCA jacks.

Output capabilities are handled via a single stereo pair of speaker binding post connections, a single summed analog output is also available for use by a subwoofer. In addition there is an analog line output (RCA jack) as well as a digital output S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format). I am far from being a digital geek, and since the purpose of this review is for commentary on sound quality as it relates to entry-level high end, I did not perform exhaustive tests of the capabilities and ergonomics related to the integration to my home network. The brevity of the time period with this review sample did not warrant such in-depth analysis. I leave that to the more geeky-inclined sites to sort out. The specified power output of the S119 is a rather low 60 watts continuous per channel. The S119 came equipped with fully function remote control and charging station.

Since this is decidedly a “lifestyle”-type audio product, I would be remiss if I did not comment on how absolutely beautiful this diminutive black lacquered receiver actually is. Not only is it easy on the eyes, but sports an absolutely informative-yet-unobtrusive front panel display. This just really sealed the deal with matching it up to my equally stunning black lacquered Eficion F300M speakers.

For the purposes of this review, I created a second system in my sound room along the long wall, perpendicular to my reference system. This was the closest I could come to simulating an office/bedroom/dorm type of scenario which I believed to be the application for a 60 watt-per-channel receiver. I mated the Revox Joy S119 with my favorite in-house satellite speakers, the Eficion F300M. Cables employed were the excellent value priced MIT Styline Matrix SL-36i interconnects, SL-70s speaker cables, and Magnum ZIII power cord. Source inputs were limited to stereo analog output from the high resolution digital Pono Player (article pending), digital streaming from handheld devices, and from a dedicated computer running a Pono-based version of JRiver.

Thanks to the recent delivery of my crowd-funded Pono player, I happened to have a handful of albums available to me in high resolution digital file format, so I was able to put the Revox internal DAC’s to the test vs. the Pono Player. It is important to note that resolutions greater than 96 kHz cannot be streamed to this unit via wireless LAN, you must use the S/PDIF connection for that.

Configuring the Revox Joy S119 could not have been more intuitive. So thankfully very little time was wasted to acquaint the unit with the source inputs. As a relative newcomer to devices such as this one, I was overjoyed that it was so dummy-proof!

So What of the Sound?

Once the system was put together and source connections established, I decided that the unit probably could do with some warm up time. I had already been advised that the unit had seen a good amount of action as a demo unit at dealers and shows, so I didn’t really need to be concerned with break-in. I therefore started out by just playing the system for background music while I worked in another room. The system faced this other room, through two doorways and a 20-foot corridor. I set the Pono Player to play the new Patti Smith album Banga on auto repeat. At that time, I had only heard the album once, and that was in my car through the Pono player and in-car system.

After the first few songs, I was sufficiently impressed and distracted by what I was hearing in the other room. I set aside the work I was doing, went to the sound room to check it out. All I could do was sit down and nod my head with a sense of pure satisfaction. This little Revox has a very big, clean, and bold sound! Stoked that this was going to be a fun little system, I let it continue playing and went on with my business. I let the system do its thing for a few days and then I finally decided it was time to do some critical listening.

Since I had “cold-started” with Patti Smith’s Banga and was already familiar with its sound through my reference system as well as through the portable Pono Player, I decided that this was a reasonable way to start. My initial impressions of the small system, powered by the diminutive Revox were more than confirmed. The system really rocked. The bass was firm, if a bit fat. In this case, perfect for a small room setting and satellites. In fact, there was not a single clue indicating that the Revox was rated to produce a mere 60 watts per channel.

Switching gears a bit, still using the Pono Player as playback source, I listened to my free high definition download of Peter Gabriel’s album, New Blood. This is a superb recording that was done mostly live on location. This system, anchored by the diminutive Revox S112 receiver sounded large with an expansive soundstage, and Peter Gabriel retained his remarkable vocal presence that is so vividly captured in this recording. Overall, there was tad of added warmth to the upper bass and lower mid. However, this only served to enhance the overall sound of the system in this very intimate setting. Bass too, though perhaps a bit on the rich side, retained excellent tune and tone. The highs were clean, and present without much evidence of stress from the Revox regardless of the punishing dynamic range this record brings to the table. This 60 watt’r really knows how to strut!

Getting back to this particular recording, I was actually able to listen to this record played back both through the Pono player and Revox, by streaming it directly to the Revox. This led to some interesting results. The Pono Player and the Revox internal DAC’s sounded more similar than not; not a huge surprise to me at this point. In fact, the Revox did excel at retrieving a tad more focus of the detailed sound space that is captured by this recording, but this seemed at the expense of some bottom end weight that the Pono brought to the table. Still, the Revox proved to provide a closer approximation of the original analog record played back through my reference system.

Over the next couple of weeks, I streamed music to the Revox Joy S119 as I worked in my home office and the system never failed to surprise me at how good a small 60-watt digital system could actually sound.

Conclusion

I had set rather conservative expectations of the Revox S119 network receiver. After all, it is just a 60-watt stereo receiver. However, once I actually experienced it and heard it, my attitude shifted rather quickly. I found that Revox did in fact insert an element of joy into this product as the name indicates. The sound quality of the receiver is first rate. Add in the entire feature set that this receiver includes and you have a versatile, agile, and fully modern answer to the need for a high quality Hi Fi- grade lifestyle two-channel audio receiver. Perhaps the only thing that may overshadow or detract from that very notion is the suggested retail price of $2,349. The S208 remote adds yet another $329 to that price. Obviously, the value proposition will be a key decision that would need to be made by the prospective buyer. One thing is for sure, in every way that I can glean, Revox’s execution in the Joy S119 is flawless. It has a clean and elegant design, it is quiet in operation, and it proved to be a highly competent performer. Recommended.

Margules Audio U280-SC

Who is Margules Audio?

Julian Margules of Margules Audio has been delivering audio for over 40 years and is well known in Mexico and other parts of the world. Still, I had never heard of them until 2010 and never heard one of their products until one of the early California Audio Shows. Margules Audio is located, and their products are manufactured, in Mexico City.

Ben Goldman of Integrity High Fidelity Solutions is the American point man for these products. According to Ben, Margules has always been a family-owned organization that researches, designs, and manufactures amplifiers, preamplifiers and loudspeakers. The history of the family business dates back to 1926 when Jacobo Margules founded Emporio Electrico, specializing in electronic components for radio broadcasters, radio amateur operators, electronic service technicians and electronic students. The name of the company became Radio Surtidora S.A., which is the oldest organization in Mexico. Currently, Radio Surtidora specializes in electronic measurement equipment and industrial electronic components, while the Margules side handles the sound reproduction field and high fidelity business. So, you should feel good that you are dealing with a long established family business if you choose to purchase a product from Margules.

Description and Design

Simply put, the U280-SC 25th Anniversary amp is s a Class A tube amplifier that can operate in either ultra-linear or triode mode. Over the years, I have found time and time again that I much prefer Class A amps, whether they be tube or transistor. To me, Class A amps simply sound right, they sound much more like real music. The U280-SC is a Class A push-pull design, and it can also be used as a stereo amplifier, or if you purchase two they can be used as mono-blocks. In ultra-linear mode as a stereo amp, the Margules delivers 80 watts per channel into 8 ohms. If you use triode mode, it delivers 40 watts into 8 ohms. If you use two as mono-blocks, it doubles the power in both modes.

The U280-SC amp uses a Class-A output stage with what they refer to as “Active-Servo Bias.” The servo-bias actively tracks the input signal, permitting full class-A output, without overdriving the tubes. According to Mr. Margules, the “Active Servo Bias” also sets DC bias and AC drive levels. This assures that optimum electrical and sonic performance is provided by the amp at all time. It also means that throughout the useful life of the output tubes, no drive or bias adjustments are ever needed, regardless of what tubes you choose to use. The “Active Servo Bias” is implemented with semiconductors, which were designed for the aerospace industry. The New U280-SC 25th Anniversary Stereo Tube Amplifier includes a new and improved differential output as well, resulting in further reduction of THD and transient distortion. The input stages of the new 25th Anniversary version also include a special SHUNT power supply for the critical circuits. The shunt technology is there to provide an improvement in the Q damping, one of the key factors in regulating voltage for those stages.

The amp is switchable between triode and ultra linear operation. It also allows the outputs to be strapped, for twice the output; so you can use two as mono-block amps. This would allow you to use the triode operation at the same power level as the ultra linear on a single amp. There are separate gain controls for each channel, which make precision balancing easy to simplify further the setup of bi-amped systems. The U280-SC uses no negative feedback, which is a plus in my way of thinking.

There are a few very useful control features on the top of the amp, in front of the tubes. There is a toggle switch to the left of the output tubes to switch the operating mode from triode to ultra-linear. On the far left is a knob for selecting whether you want to use the amp as a stereo or mono amp. Then, there are selectors for the correct ohms for both channels. You might ask why would anyone need this but if you are vertically bi-amping, this might come in very handy. Lastly, there are two knobs for GAIN. I always appreciate amps that give you this option. It helps to get the best out of your preamp’s volume control. Also, with all the preamps that don’t have balance controls these days, it solves that problem as well.

The build quality of this beautiful amp is very nice. The Margules U280-SC is very heavy, with all the weight in the back. Be careful lifting or moving it. It has silver plated circuit boards and gold-plated switches. It is designed not to push the tubes hard so that you can expect long tube life. I also am very taken with the way it looks. It has a classic tube amp look without looking old-fashioned. Everything about it looks like it should cost at least twice its asking price.

Talking with Julian Margules

It was my privilege to spend some very pleasant time talking to Mr. Margules himself about his audio products. The first thing that I noticed was his passion for designing musical sounding equipment that portrays the emotions of music. The second thing I noticed, and he even spent more time talking about, was his even greater passion for classical music. This was not the passion of a sales person or an audio engineer, but of a man passionate about listening to music that moves him emotionally and spiritually.

Mr. Margules shared with me his love for Class A sound, and his ideas about the technical aspects of the amps designed to get the most out of a Class A amp. I shared most of what he had to say about this with you in the previous section. What he talked most about was his view about what he expected from the audio system he designs. He said a system need to “sing”! He shared that he believe art is the way we communicate with the human soul. This means that the art of music is all about how it makes you feel deep inside your soul. Thus, it is the job of an audio system to communicate to your soul how the music was meant to make you feel, the emotions of the performance both high and low.

Earlier this year I was approached by the North American distributor of Harmonix, Wynn Wong of Wynn Audio, to review the Reimyo KAP-777 Stereo Power amplifier and CAT-777 Mk-II Vacuum Tube Control Amplifier. Reimyo is the name given the audiophile stereo electronics line created by the Japanese firm Combak of Harmonix fame. That fact alone made this a no-brainer for me! At that point in time, I really had neither personal experience nor listening experience with Reimyo. However, just knowing its lineage, I knew that they were going to be a very interesting pairing of electronics to get to know. That said, I heartily agreed to the review invitation.

Getting Started

In this first installment, I will be focusing on the Reimyo KAP-777 stereo power amplifier, a product designed and manufactured under a cooperative program called “High Tech Fusion”. Essentially, this program combines the in-house knowledge of resonance conditioning technologies employed in Harmonix products, with recording studio technologies. Indeed, this power amplifier’s exterior exudes strength, quality, and extreme attention to detail. Heat sinks are machined from solid aluminum block, Harmonix tuning feet are integrated as footers for the chassis, the speaker connections, RCA jacks and XLR connectors are also bespoke designs for Reimyo. Under the cover, the Reimyo KAP-777 is equally impressive with custom-made componentry throughout as well as large toroidal transformers. A dual mono design, the KAP-777 produces a prodigious 200 watts continuous per channel into 8 ohms and 400 watts continuous per channel into 4 ohms from but a single MOSFET in the amplification stage.

The Reimyo KAP-777’s prodigious footprint required some modification to the space that was already occupied by the not-so-svelte mighty Pass Labs x350.5. Flanked on either side by the humungous Melody AN-845’s, the Reimyo nonetheless looked at home in that company. Indeed, I was excited at the prospect of comparing the solid state, 200-watt KAP-777 to the 150-watt Melody Audio “ big glass”AN-845. I had been advised that this particular Reimyo KAP-777 sample had already seen quite a bit of action, so I assumed that they were pretty well broken in. With the power switch hidden and out of the way underneath the front center of the chassis, I knew that these babies were meant to be left on at all times. Something I would do with any solid state device, anyway. Combak’s Reimyo electronics are highly tuned devices thanks to their Hamonix-based lineage. It therefore came as no great surprise that the power amplifier was supplied with a power cord that is specific to this amplifier, a Harmonix X-DC15SM-350. I began my listening sessions using this cord since it seemed specifically tuned to the amplifier. There were no further thoughts on tuning or configuration at this point. I simply placed the Reimyo on my spare VTI amplifier stand, swapped the amplifier in to my existing system, and replacing my Melody MN845 vacuum tube monoblocks. The rest of the system consisted of:

Merrill-Williams REAL 101.2 / Technics EPA-501M / ZYX Yatra record playback system
Zesto Audio Andros PS1 Phono Amp
Conrad Johnson UDP1 deluxe universal player
Pass Labs XP20 Line Stage
Eficion F300 full range AMT speakers
Enklein Aeros interconnects on the analog source through to power amplifier
Enklein T-Rex power cords on the mono blocks and the line stage
Enklein Taurus interconnect for digital source
Enklein Titan speaker cables

Listening Sessions

My first session with the Reimyo came at a time when I was already mid-audition on a newly updated amplifier I had reviewed and rated highly in the past. I cannot actually say which amp it was, since it was not “production”, but having it on hand at this point in time really laid the groundwork as to where in my mind the Reimyo KAP-777 figured in sonically. During the first several listening sessions, I played a wide variety of music, mainly LP’s, that are very well known to me sonically. If you follow my writings here on Dagogo, that usually means I played a mix of LP’s from 70’s to current that are well-recorded, and as such do an excellent job at exposing the strengths and short-comings of any component; besides, this is music I personally like to listen to, perhaps to the dismay of some really anal-retentive audiophiles. You know who you are!

To that end, I found the Reimyo to possess many of the seductive qualities I look for in an amplifier. The soundfield was clean, transparent, and devoid of any obvious artifacts or noise. The amplifier exhibited a relative freedom from dynamic compression and, in fact, sounded markedly “faster” and more “alive” than my reference solid-state amplifier, Pass Labs X350.5.

On live recordings such as one of my more recent go-to recordings, Tokyo Day Trip Live by Pat Metheny with Christian McBribe on upright bass, and Antonio Sanchez on percussion, the Reimyo KAP- 777 proved to be agile, of wide bandwidth, and transparent. The superbly recorded cymbals simply sounded spot on. McBride’s upright bass was right-sized and believable, if not quite as forceful and fast as I have become used to with the big Melody AN845 mono’s. In fact, I just couldn’t help but tinker with the set-up once I heard a head-to-head comparison between the Reimyo and the Melody. In an effort to rule out any chance that power cords would account for the difference in bass, I swapped out the bespoke Harmonix power cord and replaced it with the superb Enklein T-Rex cord. This change proved to be very interesting, indeed.

The addition of the T-Rex to the mix seemed to remove a layer of haze that was kind of nagging me in the prior comparison with the Melody AN-845. Differences between the two amplifiers in terms of transparency, in fact, had narrowed quite a bit. This transparency also seemed to have been enhanced by a reduction in noise floor. This later became particularly apparent when playing the superbly recorded and recently reissued LP, Live at Massey Hall by Neil Young. In this recording, the Reimyo KAP-777-Enklein T-Rex pairing yielded, simply put, a more believable and engaging listening experience. Even as I go through my notes and write this essay, I realize that these differences might be considered a “nit” to many. However, indeed to me, the differences were striking enough to mention and to proceed with the Enklein T-Rex power cord in place for the remainder of the time I had with the unit.

With the system now set in stone, I thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of that particular Neil Young album and marveled at the fact that this amplifier was accomplishing what it was doing with but a single MOSFET per channel! Neil’s voice and acoustic guitar are beautifully rendered, enabling the Eficion F300 to perform their magical disappearing act. In fact, I dare say that I’m not sure if I had heard a more believable reproduction of this album.

Another moment during the listening sessions that enabled me to clearly understand the signature and midrange poise of the Reimyo KAP-777 was the way it handled the self-titled debut album by The Roches. Yes, this is one of the albums I was alluding to earlier, an album recorded and produced by Robert Fripp in “audio verité” ( read: stark naked acoustic). When these three sisters harmonize over a single closely miked acoustic guitar, they wreak havoc on speakers, amplifiers, as well as phono playback systems. The Reimyo held its own and rendered the three sisters’ individual voices beautifully.

In fact, the only instance where there may have been some minor sign of strain in powering my Eficion F300 was in some really dynamic electronic recordings such as Daft Punk, or the tympani strikes on Peter Gabriel’s “Rhythm of the Heat” from the live-in-the-studio LP New Blood. I also may have been playing the system a bit louder than most would like. This 200-watt per channel power amplifier was definitely making a statement and setting a high mark for a solid-state, single chassis power amplifier.

The above impressions held true throughout the rest of the time this system remained together. The Reimyo KAP-777 performed extremely well regardless of the source. In recordings where it was present, the KAP-777 created a clean, transparent and right-sized soundfield without sacrificing sizing of individual images. More importantly, I didn’t miss my Melody AN845 when paired with the Pass Labs XP20 linestage. This observation was an interesting by-product of the component matching effort I engaged in during the review process. The Reimyo KAP-777 clearly favored the Pass Labs XP20 linestage over the Melody P2688 linestage. In the case of the Melody AN845 monoblocks, the opposite was clearly true. This is just another clear indication of the importance of careful component matching and cable selection.

At this point, I should mention that along with the Reimyo KAP-777, I received the companion vacuum tube-based Reimyo CAT-777 mk-II linestage, also in for review. The original intention was to review the pair together. However, the experiences I encountered with each individually were such that a simple pairing for purposes of review would have done each of them a disservice.

Summarizing

Let me just state that the Combak by Harmonix Reimyo KAP-777 is one of the most capable and musical power amplifiers I have had the pleasure of auditioning in my system. That said, of the trio of amplifiers I had on hand, the clear winner in terms of bang for the buck were the $15,000 Melody Valve MN-845 monoblocks. Of course, tubes and their prodigious heat and re-tubing costs are not for everyone. So, too, is the prodigious amount of heat that is generated by the quad of 845 tubes per channel. The Reimyo, by contrast runs ice cold, and I left it on continuously during the time it was here. The fact that it has but a single gain stage per channel may have something to do with its level of performance. Of course, this level of marvelous sonics and sophistication come at a price. With an MSRP of $28,000, this single chassis, single-MOSFET-per-channel amplifier is not exactly affordable to many. Putting it in those terms, it is easy to see why perhaps it handily out-performed the $11,500 Pass X350.5. It was not exactly an even comparison in terms of value. Perhaps a more even comparison would have been with a Pass ‘XA’ or a new “.8” series power amplifier.

Regardless, let me reiterate that the Reimyo KAP-777 is a superb amplifier and is indeed one of the best sounding solid-state amplifiers I have run across. Clearly, it is well made and much time and effort have been expended on its design. On its sonic merits I highly recommend this amplifier as a must audition. The value proposition may be just fine for some.

Do you find yourself absolutely in love with the midrange purity and three-dimensional soundstage that are the hallmark of low power, single-ended triode designs, but wishing for more power or more extension at the frequency extremes or even a lower noise floor? If so, then you may want to consider Ed Meitner’s newest creation, the MTRX amplifiers. According to the manufacturer, they are fully balanced; feature a bandwidth of DC to 500kHz at full power; have a damping factor of 1,000; deliver 1,500 watts at 4 ohms and 3,000 watts at 2 ohms; use a MOSFET output stage; and cost $130k the pair. Just to name a few specs.

Physically, they are imposing and weigh 220 pounds each. Each amp requires a dedicated 220 volt electrical service, although they may be ordered for 110. All of this would mean absolutely nothing were these amps not so exceptional sonically.

Prior to the arrival of these amps, it was necessary to install two 220 volt electrical circuits in my listening room. While this sounds fairly straightforward, it is not necessarily the case when you live, as I do, in a fifty-year-old house. In the end, the electrician installed a new electrical sub-panel, two 50’ runs of 8 gauge wire (which required cutting into an existing wall and subsequently re-sheet rocking and painting the wall), and installation of new Furutech RTX rhodium plated outlets terminated for Schuko plugs. Much of the “break in” which I detail in the remainder of this article may well have been the new wiring and not the amps.

The amps arrive

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. The EMM Labs MTRX amps arrived on an overcast day in early summer. Each was cradled in an aluminum flight case, which fortunately had wheels underneath to aid in movement. Once again, my son, a Marine, and one of his friends were kind enough to move the flight cases into my music room, then lift the amps out of the crates and install them between my speakers. The only recompense which they would accept was beer and pizza. A lot of beer, as it turned out. Later that evening after reading the user instructions, I engaged the ON switch on the rear of each (main power). The amps immediately went into standby mode as indicated by a band of red light visible underneath the front of each chassis. Initially, the light flashed but within seconds changed to a continuous state when the amps stabilized. I then pressed the front panel switch and the light quickly changed from red to a soft blue, again initially pulsing until the amp stabilized. At no time was there any noise, pops or other indication that the amp was stabilizing.

I was warned that even though the amps had been broken-in at the factory, it would take about 72 hours of continuous play for them to reach their best. While they were very good after about an hour, they improved rather markedly as they approached the 72-hour mark.  Improvements were most noticeable in the form of increased air around instruments, more top end extension and delicacy, and increased three-dimensionality.

Listening – the first 72 hours/no tweaks

As is often the case, my friend Earl attended the initial listening session. We have a weekly listening session on Wednesday evenings, but occasionally meet to listen at other times. On an ECM jazz recording by Colin Vallon, Le Vent, treble detail on cymbals was exceptional. We could immediately tell the location of the cymbal, what was striking it, and where on the cymbal, meaning edge, bell, center, etc, it was being struck. There was an incredible amount of detail. As we moved into the second cut, the music became more intense and increased in tempo. Both of us became more involved emotionally than on the first cut. There are some wonderful things that this drummer does with his snare and toms to push the music along (rim shots and several delicate bass configurations were extremely nice). The EMM Labs MTRX, even at this early point, were clearly superior in resolution of musical detail and leading edge definition to my reference, the Audio Note Kegon Balanced.

Next, we played Sarah McLaughlin’s Stumbling Toward Ecstasy (Classic Records, 45 rpm re-issue). The detail was stunning! The producer of the album was clearly playing some tricks with the sound to make it a bit of a mysterious jumble. The EMM Labs’ revealed all of his tricks. In spite of that, Sarah’s voice was not quite as sensual and sexy as it can be when everything is “right.” Subsequently, on a Wayne Shorter album, upper midrange detail was amazing with startlingly clean and clear wind choirs. However, the bass drum and the edge of the electric bass guitar were not quite as visceral as they can be and the kick of the bass was less pronounced, definitely there, but not as round and whole or with the metallic clarity of attack and string tone that I would normally expect.

The plot thickens

Just when you think that you know how something sounds, you make a slight change which has a significant impact on the sound. About three weeks into my listening, I was able to get my son to help me place Finite Elemente Cerabases under each of the EMM Labs MTRX. Until that point, the amps had rested directly on the floor on their own feet. Suddenly, there was more bass, perhaps too much on some things, but more importantly, the EMM Labs’ began to exhibit some of that magic which makes them so special. Again, in a joint listening session with Earl, we played Kurt Rosenwinkel’s The Remedy, Live at the Village Vanguard, which we have played on various systems numerous times. The bass was well balanced and the illusion created was remarkably close to live. Air and placement were superb! Next came a Swedish jazz CD by Solvieg named Silver. Again the sound was stunning, particularly in the highs. My only minor criticism was that the EMM Labs MTRX were so revealing that we could tell that the mix-down engineer had played a bit with Solvieg’s voice. The listening session ended with some Hugo Wolfe. There was some occasional very slight metallic hardness with the EMM Labs’, as there has always been with this recording, but less; while this was an improvement, it is difficult to say whether it was more accurate. “Realism” was as high as it gets and the strings were lush.

As I shut the system down, I thought to myself that almost anyone listening to these amps on the Acapella Triolons would be hard pressed to imagine that the sound could get much better or more realistic. The level of detail with the EMM Labs MTRX can, at times, be a bit overwhelming, and by this I do not want to suggest that some frequency bands are over emphasized, as the level of detail is consistent throughout the frequency range. The same can be said for dynamics. Unlike almost any other solid-state amp out there, no frequency band is dynamically favored over another.

The key to the EMM Labs MTRX’s performance is their ability, better than anything else that I have heard, to separate instrument and voice from orchestra and choir, and their consistent top-to-bottom revelation of detail. The EMM Labs have marvelous detail and give a tremendous sense of “being there” in many respects. However, I am occasionally bothered when very subtle bass cues seem to be missing on the MTRX. I am very aware of bass guitar and drums. I am hearing less of the palpable thud and thump of bass drums with the EMM Labs MTRX than I am used to hearing. There is a certain enjoyment in listening to a swing band and hearing a drummer who is very solid, tempo-wise, with a strong bass drum, because the bass guitar and drums are supposed to work together to be the rhythm section and there are few things as fun as standing with the drummer and getting right down in it such that the kicks are in sync.

Audion is a name in Audio that many people have heard of, though most haven’t heard their amps. The company was established in 1987 by David Chessell and Erik Anderson. The concept for Audion in those early days was to allow people to get an insight into audiophile high end without sacrificing their home or bank balance. During their vital early years from 1987 – 1990, Europe saw the release of two different audio triode amplifiers – the first of this kind from a western manufacturer. They were designed by Erik and produced under the direction of David. Before long, there developed a trend throughout the western world for triode amplifiers. In 1999, Graeme Holland took over the company and has been designing and improving their products for the last 16 years.

The new Audion Silver Night Special Edition 300B power amplifier is the 6th incarnation of this legendary amp. It has the same military grade aluminum uni-chassis as the previous version. The Silver Night Special Edition gets a new, cleaner look, with highlight features designed by the commercial designer Marko Schregardus and a completely new circuit by Audion’s cheif designer Graeme Holland. The front panel and top box are a champagne gold color, with a nice tactile knob. The top plate has a new mirror finish that both highlights and accentuates the tubes. It is truly beautiful with the amp is turned on.

On the inside, there are quite a few changes from the previous version of this amplifier. Audion has used new 3-watt flameproof power resistors. They worked hard keeping the wiring especially neat and flowing at different levels to keep hum and noise as low as possible. The entire signal path is wired with pure silver using Audion Blue Silver wire to an Alps Blue Velvet pot.

They also have used extra heavy duty, high amperage binding posts that are heavily gold plated. Audion says that high amperage binding posts ensures a quality connection between the speakers and the internal wiring of the amplifier. This keeps the connector from degrading the final output of the amplifier.

Another improvement is the custom-wound audio output transformers. Audion went a step further in the design process to improve the already very good output transformers. The new ones are made in house and are a result of over 3 years of research. They use a very high purity copper conductor, M6 grade silicon steel, and a slightly different dielectric internal substrate giving an extremely high bandwidth (typically <10Hz to >30Khz).

How Did My System Sound with the Audion Silver Night Special Editions 300B Amp?

Simply put, better than any 300B amp at this price has any right to. I have to admit my expectations were quite high because of the legacy of Audion products. That said, because I have spent most of the last ten years listening to a $29,000 Wavac EC300B, you can understand why I might have a few concerns about how pleased I would be listening to a 300B amp at approximately 1/6th the price. Keep in mind building a really good SET is an expensive proposition to start with.

What surprised me about this Audion amp was the special way it portrayed music in a very relaxed and liquid way, but not in one that was overly warm. Powered by the Audion Silver Night, there was plenty of detail and lots of life to the sound of my system. I found the sound in my listening and reviewing sessions almost effortless and great fun with this amp. It has plenty of that magical 300B bloom which allows music to come alive giving you an impressive emotional musical experience. It played music in my system with beautiful harmonics and texture. One of the things I love about good 300B amps is the magical way they play voices, and the Audion Silver Night does this really well on both male and female vocals. 

This Audion is one of the best 300B amps I have heard at retrieving and portraying detail. I never noticed any loss of detail from this 300B amp, which can be a problem with 300B amps in this price range and even considerably above this price. The best thing is that the great detail and information come alive while still sounding like a 300B amp. The music flows very naturally in the midrange. I was very impressed with how much information about the music I could hear with the Audion amp in my system. 

The sound of the Audion Silver Night Special Edition is very easy and fun to listen to. It never sounds like it’s trying to impress, it never sounds strained, best of all it’s very rhythmic and involving. It’s not as lightning fast as the Wavac EC300B, nor does it have the punch of the Wavac. Still, it is a very dynamic amp that can also play soft, whispering, and gentle music when it’s called for. It plays very beautifully at low volumes, and it has good scale. It also has beautiful bloom in the midrange, although in absolute terms, it doesn’t have the scale or the bloom of the Wavac.

The Audion Silver Night has an amazing way of just letting you relax and listen to music. Again it has that magical 300B way with voices that sometimes is almost scary realistic sounding. Voices not only sounded clear but had very good weight and mass to them. It made me feel as if there was a person singing and not just a voice floating in air. This is a very important trait to me. If a system can’t do this, it is much harder for me to listen with the same intensity and to become as emotionally involved. Emotional involvement is what the 300B experience is all about, and the Audion Silver Night Special Edition is no exception, in fact, it is better than most sub $10,000 300Bs in this area. This was true for voices, strings, and horns, which all sounded clean and with real body and weight. This makes the music sound very exciting. The micro-dynamics are very good but not as good as you can get from 300B amps that cost three or four times as much.

The top end was another place where the Audion Silver Night Special Edition really bettered my expectations for a 300B amp at this price point. It was open, sweet, and beautiful to listen to. It allowed the music to come to life in a way that sparkled within musical realism. While the top end was nicely extended, it was never analytical or etched in anyway. The sound of violins was so sweet and pretty that it made me want to just keep playing string music.

Soundstage and Imaging aren’t the most important thing to me when listening to music. Truth is sometimes the very things so many audiophiles go nuts about in this area, I find distracting from the music itself. If you go back and read my very first review for Dagogo, of the Shindo Aurieges-L, I talk about this. It is much more important to get the scale, depth, and space right than it is to have pinpoint imaging or hearing a voice or an instrument coming from a foot or two outside the speakers. The reason for this is that when I go to hear live music, which I often do, I seldom hear a soundstage or pinpoint imaging. In fact, as I have mentioned before, live music often sounds more like a good mono recording. I should say that I do not find this to be true with a symphony orchestra, the one place I clearly hear a great soundstage in real life. Still I do expect any good system to let the speakers disappear, and create what I call a coherent soundstage.

The Audion Silver Night Special Edition gave me the kind of soundstage I like in spades. It will let you hear the space around and even within instruments, the textures of the music and the passion of the musicians. It will also let you hear the size of an instrument and the size and swell as a horn gets both louder and larger because the musician keeps putting the horn closer and closer to the mic. I think this is what we should expect a good system to do.

One of my favorite recordings is Starker plays Kodaly. This is one of the most beautiful recordings of a cello I have ever heard.  The Audion Silver Night Special Edition played this performance with all of the emotion I have come to expect from this recording on a really great system. It was very involving to listen to. The cello was warm, beautiful, and quick with a sense of breath and space around and within it. It conveyed this warmth and life with very little bass hangover, but not as little as the Wavac EC 300B. It did a good job of letting me experience the sound of his bow being slowly pulled across the strings. I could hear layers and textures of the tones of the strings as I heard the differences they each make as the bow passes over them.

“Ella and Louis” is another one of my favorite LPs. When listening to “Isn’t This a Lovely Day,” the Audion Silver Night Special Edition did a good job of letting me hear the beauty and lushness of Ella and the gravelly power of Satchmo. The voices were very prominent, and the horn seemed a little too polite, but the overall experience was to make me want to listen more. I don’t want to overstate the case, but I sat down to listen to two cuts and ended up listening to the whole album.

Wrapping Things Up

The Audion Silver Night Special Edition gives a very nice balance of warmth and resolution. It has enough dynamics and resolution to sound alive and enough warmth to allow the listener to experience the emotions of the performance. The Audion Silver Night Special Edition is an amp that some would call a music lover’s amp, but it is more than that. It is an amp that lets you experience the soul of the music.

Comment from Gary Alpern of True Audiophile, U.S. Importer and Audion:

Thank you for the wonderful review. Just a few comments for reader benefit:

The Audion 300B Special Edition has a completely new driver section and redesigned output transformers that are the result of years of development. Audion has been making and winding their own audio transformers in house for nearly 8 years to exacting standards. So its no surprise this new design brings the most out of a 300B tube.

At the California Audio Show, where it was debuted, several industry exhibitors were surprised at how linear the new Silver Night Special Edition made the 300B tube.

I asked Audion to make a special driver section exclusively for the U.S. market that was more dynamic and impactful. Thus the U.S. version is different in that respect to the Euro version which has a softer sound.

It was an honor to have the amp compared to one costing six times its price. Its good for readers to know, as tested, the Audion 300B SE was a stock unit with stock JJ 300B tubes. Whereas, the Wavac EC-300B has vintage 300B tubes in it. Better tubes will naturally change the sonic structure of this amp with even greater weight and bloom.

This terrific review gives the reader an idea of how this amp could move to another level with comparable tubes. Audion just believes their models should perform impeccably with stock tubes aside from special NOS varieties so audiophiles get the most for their money in price/performance.

Read A Pass Labs Experience, Part 1

For the past five years I have used the Pass Labs XA100.5 monoblocks on various loudspeaker systems, and have come to rely on their beautiful, refined tonalities and their ability to exert dominance over all loudspeakers I put to them. Confidence in its control over various loudspeakers and operational reliability is what I had when using the monoblocks. It was my custom to leave the XA100.5 monoblocks amplifiers out of standby and on active use for speaker-burn-in for weeks and they remained stable, rising to face whatever challenges I put before them. In my regular auditioning tests, I also put the XA100.5 through extremely harsh duties beyond what their specs recommended and they remained dependable as a rock. The specs may say “100 watts per channel into 8 ohms,” but I knew it could drive anything and thus threw all kinds of speakers at them.

Pass Labs was founded in 1991 by Nelson Pass, who also founded and ran Threshold from 1974 to 1991 with his partners. Nelson’s numerous patented innovations and achievements in amplification designs garnered him a reputation as the forefront designer for high-output, high-performance and reliable, high-end audio amplifiers. His Threshold Stasis circuit, in particular, was licensed to Nakamichi for production in the 1980s. His Pass Labs’ Aleph series of amplifiers, produced in the early days of the company, remain a highly competitive product even in today’s marketplace. His latest series of amplifiers are the “XA.8” Pure Class “A” High Current Series (XA200.8, $42k/pair, XA160.8, $27.3k/pair, XA100.8, $20.3k/pair, XA60.8, $13.5k/pair, XA30.8, $6.8k stereo), and the High Voltage Series that is the “X.8” (X600.8, $27.3k/pair, X260.8, $13.5k/pair, X350.8, $14.2k stereo, X250.8, $10k stereo, X150.8, $6.75k stereo).

There is also the XP Series of preamplifiers, from the $5,250, single-chassis XP-10 with remote control to the $8,600, 2-chassis XP-20 and the $16,500, 3-chassis XP-30. This review of the XA200.8 is conducted with the Xs Preamp, the ultimate Pass Labs preamplification system with two large chassis.

In addition to the aforementioned models, there also exists the unprecedented Xs Series of products that is the result of the most colossal and indulgent engineering feats to date from Nelson and his gang. For those with means seeking the ultimate level of performance, they are the four-chassis power amplifiers of the Xs 300 ($85k/pair), the Xs 150 ($$65k/pair), the Xs Preamp ($38k) and the Xs Phono ($45k).

The Pass Labs XA200.8 are huge, measuring 19 inches wide, 27.5 inches deep and 11 inches high, thus considerably larger than any amplifier I’ve had in my system. We are talking about a pair of these. The most powerful unit in the company’s pure Class A high current series, the XA200.8 is capable of 400 watts into 4 ohms, and remains in Class A bias and peaks at 430 watts into 8 ohms! What better speaker to take advantage of the powerful Pass Labs than a pair of Magnepan 3.7i (86db/4 Ohm). My thanks to Wendell Diller of Magnepan for the special review arrangement.

In recreating conductor Claudio Abbado’s last recorded performance with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in a reading of the Bruckner Symphony No 9 via HDtracks 24/96 download, the XA200.8 was effortless in rendering wholesome tonal details and contrasting dynamics of orchestral instruments. The speed and directness of the music were reminiscent of a live performance. Timbre purity at this level as accorded by the music provided conclusive testimonial to how far Deutsche Grammophon has come in advancing the quality of its recordings. It was a delightful listening experience, one made the more intense by the accompanying, agile dynamic transients and dynamic realism.

A good recording makes one appreciate the care and insights of the recording engineering team, and this particular musical experience put me in awe of the preceding decades of strides we have achieved in bringing such insightfully rendered works of art into our home. The unprecedented insights of the reading, the amazing resolution of the music, the purity and power of the performance coalesced in my listening space. And I didn’t even want wine to make it rosier.

Whereas the smaller XA100.5 monoblocks were instrumental in conjuring three-dimensional spatiality from the Magnepan 3.7i, the flagship XA200.8 created an unveiling act on the music with the extra transparency throughout. While it speaks volume of the value of the Magnepan, this audition also bore testament to the prowess and virtues of super amplification designs. This alone defines amplification excellence.

The key to such performance must stem from the company’s consistent track record of utilizing minimal gain stages, specifically only three in the XA200.8. For the amplifier’s first two stages, namely the input stage and voltage gain stage, Pass Labs incorporated quad sets of JFET, Mosfet and Toshiba Bipolar devices. The Toshiba devices sport considerably larger heat sinks for high bias currents, with no capacitors in the amplifier circuit so that it is fundamentally stable and quiet. In addition, the gain stages are fed by a decoupled, massive power supply with interleaved layout techniques, effecting a reduction in the amplifier’s output noise by 10dB from the previous products; the ripple effect is now measurable only in microvolts, resulting in a peak-to-peak signal-to-noise ratio of 130dB! This is the kind of amplification that makes the music listening experience more rewarding, allowing us to discover more from our music collection.

Note that all the Toshiba devices are extinct superior parts, gone from us forever, but in otherwise abundant stock at Pass Labs. You have our thanks, Nelson and the gang.

Per Nelson in the “Point 8 Owner’s Manual,” the creation of the amplifier is in keeping with his insistence in delivering qualities of the single-stage “Zen Amp” that he pioneered in 1994. On this, he offers the following:

“The formula is simple: More hardware for more power with few stages and lower distortion with less feedback.. The redesigned output stages of the X.8 series takes the lessons learned from the Xs amplifiers — bigger hardware biased more deeply into the Class A operating region.”

Nelson spilled such considerable ink into the Manual that it is a delightful, engaging and worthy piece of writing on its own.

The XA200.8 was also the first amplifier in my memory to produce such dense spatiality and spectral extensions via a pair of large-panel speakers. I own a pair of Apogee Duetta Signature and had a pair of Magnepan IIB of old. Myriad amplifiers graced these speakers’ presence and it is irrefutable that the latest MIT Cables also contributed to what I’m hearing currently, but the sound of the Magnepan 3.7i as driven by the Pass Labs XA200.8 was a revelatory, lifetime experience. Pairing a brute-force amplifier with power hungry speakers has always been a risky scenario, making me long for the singular listening experience only attainable from meticulously tuned, high-synergy systems, and hoping for no mishaps in the form of amplifier breakdown or speaker burnout from overworking, distorting amplifiers. And it had better be beautiful sound not just for a year or two.

All I’ve written about the XA200.8 up to this point are based on the use of the factory-supplied generic power cables, which I subsequently  replaced with the MIT Cables Oracle AC II ($4,499, 2m) network power cables from the one and only Bruce Brisson. The amplifiers as powered by the MIT Cables delivered such signal to the speakers that the music took on a higher level of dynamic transients, spatiality and power. This was a new experience of high fidelity that caught me completely off guard. Retrospectively, the Pass Labs XA200.8’s sounded convoluted and restrained in retrospect when they were switched back from the MIT Cables to generic.

I’ve always opined that no competent designer would readily agree to the use of aftermarket, exotic power cables in order to bring out the beauty of his design. So again, I put Desmond Harrington, president of Pass Labs to the inquisition and he, in his typical, unflinching demeanor said he would not ship his products with anything other than UL-listed cords for consumer safety reasons. I am here to tell you that anyone who can afford a $42k pair of amplifiers will not use them with anything but exotic power cables, if only to put the fear of God into his visitors. For me, MIT Cable’s Oracle AC II is the genuine article, and they’ve made a believer in me that I don’t need Pass Labs’ Xs 150 ($$65k/pair) or the Xs 300 ($85k/pair) right away.

In conclusion, the ideal reviewing tool to me is one with the highest level of amplification power in the most refined and reliable form, and the Pass Labs XA200.8 is the materialization of that ideal.

System:

MIT Cables Z Powerbar

MIT Cables Oracle AC II network power cables

MIT Cables Oracle Matrix Super HD 120 speaker cables

MIT Cables Oracle MA-X SHD XLR

Esoteric K-03 SACD player (transport)

Bricasti M1 dual-mono DAC

Pass Labs Xs Preamp

Pass Labs XA200.8 monoblocks

Magnepan 3.7i ribbon magnetic planar speakers

Copy Editor: Laurence A. Borden

Star Wars attack High End Audio

There’s a new actor in the high end audio amplification field – THX.  The company is a technology spin-off from Lucasfilm, which originated the Star Wars movie series.

THX has patented a novel amplifier design, THX AAA Technology^TM and Benchmark Media Systems has turned it into a new power amplifier – AHB2. The design is called Achromatic Audio Amplifier. Achromatic may mean colorless or neutral or without modulation. The AHB2 is an attack on current amplifier design. It’s basically an AB amp with a class H power rail arrangement. AB amplifiers are more efficient than Class A by utilizing a push-pull transition.

Class AB has two circuits to increase efficiency over A – straight amplification – and class B where ½ of the signal is used.   Class H tracking rails deliver power on demand unlike linear power supplies that must have stand-by capacity.

The Dark Side in the amplifier war is distortion and heat. To win this battle the rebel alliance, i.e., THX and Benchmark, are trusting The Force (my name – not the official designation) in the shape of a low power Class A correction amplifier. The Force runs in parallel with the regular AB amplifier attack fleet and corrects mistakes and shores up any weakness caused by non-linearity in the transition stage. In addition, there’s a 3D amplifier that boosts the input signal in 3 selectable levels.

The Force also works on the H Class power rail system. Here again the battle is between efficiency and distortion. To provide high current on demand the H rails have to shift between stages which can ripple through as distortion. Benchmark’s clever design compensates for this with the Class A amplifier.

The AHB2 has a resonant zero-voltage switching power supply. The switching is carried out at frequencies well above the audio band to reduce any audible artifacts from the power supply. Switching power supplies are much more efficient, and smaller, than linear transformer based supplies but traditional designs (or wall-warts) are noisy and can affect power demand. The AHB2 power supply is regulated and very efficient in combination with the H Class rails. Benchmark claims that there is no sagging in internal voltage during high loads or when line voltage dips.

The AHB2 is a very compact and light weight amplifier. It’s exactly the size of a standard letter page – 8.5”x11” – and weighs 12.5 lbs. The output is rated as 100 W/channel into 8 Ohms, 190 W/channel into 4 Ohms and 380 W bridged Mono into 8 Ohms. Frequency response is a wide 0.1 Hz – 200 kHz +/- 3dB. Distortion – the key feature of the amplifier – is < -118 dB N+THD in Stereo Mode, while S/N is 132 dB A-weighted.

The AHB2 has balanced inputs only. Benchmark suggests adapters for single ended RCA cables. I tried my own XLR-RCA adapters but the result was less than excellent. The amp should really be fed a balanced signal for best performance – which is not a problem if your current equipment, including high-end cables, are balanced. Otherwise you may need to revise the upstream equipment.

I used Benchmark’s XLR cables which initially sounded questionable. After three days on my Cable Cooker they were actually quite nice – especially considering the price of $38 each or $76 per pair. The AHB2 responds well to cable upgrades but Benchmarks standard cables are a good starting point.

To recapitulate, the AHB2 is actually three amplifiers: a 3 stage input amp, an AB main amp and an amp to control and compensate for distortion.

The input amp has 3 levels of gain, 22 dBu, 14.2 dBu and 8.2 dBu for low, mid and high gain. The lowest gain is for studio equipment that have high input levels. Benchmark recommends using the lowest practical gain for optimum sound. I ran the AHB2 on the lowest gain which works well with the Benchmark DAC2 and also my Oppo BDP-105 which has volume output control. Most SACD and downloaded audio files had enough output voltage to play very loud. Switching to a higher gain is easy with the toggle switch on the back in case the recording is very quiet and needs higher volume is needed. On the opposite side there is a Bridge to Mono switch which can easily be mistaken for the gain switch.  The unit puts out only one channel on both speakers in this case. Play “Girl from Ipanema” and if Gertrud is MIA you are running mono (guess how I know…).

The AHB2 can be bridged and operated as a monoblock. The power output goes from 100 W/channel to 380 W single channel. Biamping is also possible but will require NL4 4-pole cables. Benchmark’s can make cables with bananas or spades on the speaker end against a special order. However, the mono switch should also work.

Auditioning

So has The Force succeeded in beating the Amplifier Empire? Did The Force awaken new audio capability in old AB design?  Can the AHB2 do the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs?

I tried a number of configurations:

Digital

I evaluated high resolution digital files through my Oppo BDP-105 which plays SACD, DVD-A and Blu-Ray discs, and digital files from a USB stick. The Oppo has a volume control and XLR stereo outputs so it worked well with the AHB2. I also had access to Benchmark’s DAC2 HGC for DSD and other high res files from my Dell laptop.

Naturally, a test with The Dark Side (of the Moon) was needed. The opening heartbeats of Pink Floyd’s masterpiece (Capitol 2003 SACD) nearly bounced me out of my chair. Certainly no lack of low end extension on the AHB2. “Money” spilled coins out of my speakers. There was a wonderful crispness of the attack on the electric guitar. Dire Strait’s “Brothers in Arms” (Mercury Records 2005 SACD) thundered authoritatively with the AHB2. Drums on “Money for Nothing” were well placed on the sound stage and had excellent dynamics.

Conclusion: the AHB2 will easily handle rock music. Round one to the Rebel Alliance.

The AHB2 is a class AB amp – but could easily be mistake for a class D with its very compact dimensions. The small size is made possible by the compact switching power supply. A regular switching power supply can induce noise that is easily audible, so I had concerns that this would be the case with the AHB2.

The amplifier has a spectacular frequency response of 0.4 Hz to 200 kHz. This means that the AHB2 will amplify the high frequencies present on high res digital files (after conversion to analog, of course). SACD/DSD has noise near the audible limit of 20 kHz. Even if this can’t be heard directly, I find it affects the sound field and can be irritating. If an amp has a lower frequency response it can filter out some of this noise – but it will affect the sound by limiting wanted frequencies as well.

The torture test for high frequency extension and coherence in an audio system is female voices in choral or opera pieces. It may even torture the listener depending on musical taste – but I’ll gladly take one for the team. Actually, soprano voices can be quite wonderful if your system is properly tuned and you avoid CD recordings. (I have eight different red book recordings of Beethoven’s 9^th to prove CDs are hopeless.)

The SACD Reges Terrae by Nordic Voices (Chandos Records 2007) is an a cappella recording of choral music from the sixteenth century performed by four sopranos and three male singers. It challenges any system with high frequency harmonies. It’s a good pick for the AHB2.

I should start this review with an apology for taking so long to get the review turned in. I had planned to do it when I reviewed the Margules Audio U280-SC 25th Anniversary tube amp and SF220.15 20th Anniversary tube line stage, but somehow got distracted. When I did the article about my three big surprises in 2015, I realized I had never written a review for this surprising phono preamp. So here it is, hopefully better late than not at all.

The Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB Phono Stage Preamplifier is a small black box with a nice slightly curved front panel. It looks nice enough, but mostly it looks business like. This is ok with me; while I like nice looking equipment, I also appreciate equipment that spends more on the inside than the outside, a category that includes Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB Phono Amplifier, and the Emia Remote Autoformer I use as my line stage reference. The Magenta has plenty of gain, 54dB with a maximum output voltage of 10V and a S/N ratio of 90 dB at maximum output. It uses a dual regulated power supply, and when you look inside you find a built-in internal DIP switch board that allows you to change the load with 16 different input impedances that vary from 27K to 390 K ohms. While some may feel that it’s a pain to have to remove the cover to use the switches, please remember the huge savings here and that you don’t have to do it often.

I used the Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB Phono Amplifier with the AMG Teatro and the Allnic Verito Z cartridges. In both cases, I used the Allnic SUT with it as well. Both of these cartridges are well out the league most people would use with the Margules phono stage, but I was using it with their amp and preamp, and they surely deserve a cartridge of this magnitude. I also used it in my reference system.

In each case, the Magenta’s tonal performance surprised me. It’s actually a little more tube like than the tube Allnic 301 that costs $3,000. Does it sound better than the Allnic?  It does, and way too close for my comfort. The Magenta has a wonderfully full and round sound. The bass is full but fast enough to never sound boomy.

The upper treble is luscious, but nicely defined. Unlike many inexpensive transistor phono stages and some very expensive ones for that matter, the Magenta was never aggressively in your face. For example, with cymbals, I could hear the bronzy sound they make that gave them a sound that felt so right. I could hear air in the top end, though not quite as much as I hear with more expensive phono stages. To my surprise, this never bothered me when using the Magenta in my system. There was just enough air to make the music sound nicely realistic.

It is in the midrange that solid state phono stages often disappoint me. Specifically, there are two flaws I hear in the midrange of most solid state phono stages that thankfully I do not hear with the Magenta. First is a thin, white-like sound; second, is exaggerated surface noise. Thankfully the Magenta has neither of these traits which make it a phono stage I could easily live with.

If you read my reviews, you know how much I value how my system reproduces voices. With the Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB, voices sounded nicely alive and full. Instruments like the piano will uncover many shortcomings in any component. Many less than state-of-the-art transistor phono stages may have a tendency to get the leading edge right or at worse add a tizzy shimmer to it, but many of theses just don’t give us the harmonics in a very convincing manner, leaving us with a sound we all know as a recording of a piano versus the illusion of a real piano. Thankfully, the Magenta provides beautiful harmonics. The leading edge is not quite as fast as some, but with the right recording it can give the illusion of a real piano.

Violins were sweet and with appropriate bite. The wonderful thing of the Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB was that on abrupt violin or cello bowing, I could hear the harmonics of the strings as the bow passed over them. Plucked strings had real weight and were plenty quick enough to make the experience emotionally involving. Whether listening to brass instruments or woodwinds, I never felt for a second  that I was sacrificing the enjoyment of the music by having a budget phono preamp in my system.

When it comes to scale, dynamics and size, the Magenta can compete with the big boys. Micro-dynamics are good enough to give it nice Pace, Rhythm and Timing, but it’s the scale and overall dynamics that are truly a standout. On the other hand, the Magenta’s ability to produce a holographic soundstage was dependent on the cartridge. With the AMG Teatro cartridge, the soundstage was very, very realistic, and I was never distracted or left wishing for a better soundstage with either cartridge. I do have to admit that the whole idea of a soundstage isn’t as important to me as it is to some, but I don’t think hardly anyone would be disappointed in this area.

Comparisons

I have reviewed a few bargain preamps, the discontinued Allnic H-1200 at $1,200, the Electrocompaniet ECP 1 at $1500, and the Allnic H 1201 at $2,950 (it does come with its own built-in step-up transformer). This makes the $799 Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB the least expensive, and I would say it easily bests the first two on the list. When compared to the $2,950 Allnic H-1201 it’s not so easy to say which is best. The Allnic certainly has a more holographic soundstage, better micro-dynamics and is quieter. On the other hand, I prefer the rich, robust tones of the Magenta, the big sound it has, and its ability to portray beautiful harmonic structure. The Allnic does most of the audiophile things better but both plays music in a wonderfully musical way, and they are both exceptionally good for the money.

A Few Faults

There are a few areas where the Margules Audio Magenta FZ47DB falls short of the very best. For one thing, it’s not as quiet as the very best, but the good news is it’s not very susceptible to hum. Second, the Magenta is not the most transparent phono preamp I have heard, but then I am kind of a transparency nut. Third, it doesn’t let you hear into the levels of detail in the music the way my Soundsmith SG-220 Strain-Gauge cartridge system does. Last, the Magenta is not the most refined sounding phono stage I have heard. Still, having pointed out these faults, this preamp really lets the music flow into my room.

Conclusion

I have used and reviewed many great phono stages, some costing over $30,000 when combined with a linestage, and one costing over $15,000 that had over twenty tubes and three huge chassis. The best stand alone phono preamp I have had in my system though was the Allnic Audio H-3000 LCR Reference Phono Preamplifier that now cost $14,900 and maybe I should have bought it. I’ve shared this with you to put this review in perspective. The little Magenta from Margules Audio isn’t better than any of those, but it is insanely good for the money, and it’s dang good for any price. If they had put it in an expensive chassis and priced it at $5,000, I would still be saying everything I’ve said. I for one, am glad they didn’t.

Copy editor: Laurence A. Borden

A goodly number of those hoity-toity, big gun amp makers have a serious problem, it’s class D, and its name is Red Dragon Audio, the maker of the S500 amp. No, the company’s products are not made in China, but rather in Utah. The S500 looks fairly nondescript, with a brushed, bright aluminum case and a back lit fire breathing dragon logo. It’s cheap as far as amps go in the High End, under $2,000 for this 500Wpc stereo brick of power. When I set up the Red Dragon S500 and can make any speaker I have perform superbly the question arises, why should anyone pay over $2K for excellent sound?

I have recently put the finishing touches on the TEO Audio Liquid Cable review, an exotic product with an equally exotic price tag. Consider that one pair of TEO Standard Liquid Speaker Cables costs more than five times the price of the Red Dragon S500! How did I dare recommend the TEO cables at such a price? Simple, I’ve heard no solid wire conductor to compare, and if the goal is the absolute best sound regardless of price, TEO Cables are the winner. Here, now, I write about a modestly priced class D amp that comes close to accomplishing a similar feat, but with an inverse relationship between price and performance.

Imagine an amp that is economically priced used alongside a set of cables that are astronomically priced, both of which in my systems are reference-worthy! Welcome to the wacky world of High End audio system building! When the sound quality is the ultimate arbiter of selection, the enthusiast needs be prepared to follow it into uncharted territory. Also, be prepared to receive scorn from those who are captive to their wallet or a particular technology.

As regards connections, having compared dozens of looms of cables, I found that some audacious systems could be built using cables representing a percentage of cost greater than the sum of the components. It’s anything but typical, but entirely achievable; not recommended, but doable. The primary difference with the TEO Liquid Cables is the distinct technological advantage, for which you pay dearly, and because of which you reap disproportionate rewards sonically.

12 pounds of almost unlimited power

After reviewing a few popular class D amps several years ago I concluded that they were not yet ready for prime time. Turning my attention to class D amplification this past year, I wanted to see what had transpired over the past three years. What I found is that Class D has developed to a level of performance I had not expected, to the point that the S500 performs better than the majority of Class A and A/B, as well as tube amps I have reviewed.

The Red Dragon is not the only shocker in terms of amps I have found lately; the Nelson Pass-designed First Watt J2 is also dreamy. At the other end of the power spectrum from the Red Dragon, a solid state JFET design, the J2 is a softer, slightly more laid back cousin to the S500. The valuation of these two pairs of amps means that the audiophile with the hankering for pricey stereo amp or pair of mono blocks can potentially do better x2. Not only can they have the high-power setup with the Red Dragons, they can have the lower power setup with the J2 – make that a pair of them. Consider, the pair of S500 is $3,800, and the pair of J2 tips the scales at $8K. If desired, one can have the capacity to assault reference sound at both ends of the power spectrum for less than many premium priced amps! I will be writing my own article discussing more intimately the First Watt J2, so for now the focus remains on the Red Dragon S500.

Yet another variety of surprising amplification is the newly arrived SST Son of Ampzilla II, which is a variation of the unusual push-pull solid-state design of the late James Boingiorno. Several years ago, I made a comparison between the Ayon Spirit Amplifier and a pair of the Pathos Classic One MkIII integrated amplifiers running in mono mode. I suggested that they each had its own particular legitimate flavor, one akin to salt and the other to pepper. Similarly, I find the Son of Ampzilla II and Red Dragon S500 to be dissimilar, but comparable in capabilities. The sound of these two is a great deal sweeter than those older amps, so perhaps I might suggest the S500 is like white sugar and the Son of Ampzilla II is like brown sugar. They are both super-sweet to the ear and intense, but the one has a darker, more syrupy presentation than the other.

The discovery of these products confirms that we are in a new era of sensational performance relative to cost in the hobby. With the advent of integrated DACs and the capacity of sub-$5K amps at my fingertips, I am building competitive systems to those using a more traditional chain of source, preamp, amp and speakers of yesteryear. Audiophiles both of long and short duration in the hobby should exult! The only ones who will lament are the makers of gear that have not developed new designs to accommodate technological changes.

Physical description

The Red Dragon S500’s aircraft-grade, extruded aluminum chassis measures 16”x7”x3″; two of them should fit neatly on a standard sized audio rack shelf or amp stand. The red illuminated fire breathing dragon logo ensconced on the front panel raises the fun factor of the amp. The back of the amp is cramped, with selectable XLR and RCA inputs for the proprietary Input Buffer Stage. It can be operated in stereo or mono mode; a recessed push button controls this function.

The S500 uses the latest Pascal module and the amp incorporates Power Factor Correction. Also included is a 12V DC trigger Input and Output via 3.5mm connections. The amp has short circuit, thermal, and over-current protection. Universal Mains operation ensures the amp will operate anywhere in the world. Small labeling of inputs and outputs, as well as some notation residing under the speaker posts necessitates having to grab a flashlight and lean in close to ensure proper connections. If the amp is in a tight spot, you can use the Owner’s Manual diagram and work to make connections by feel, which I did for many years on equipment when I had systems housed in my bulky entertainment unit.

The binding posts are WBT NextGen Pure Copper with gold coating. Thankfully, bi-wiring with two sets of spades when the amp is in mono mode is not problematic because the S500 does not use posts having plastic terminals with collars, a type of post I am coming to dislike. The amps are warrantied for five years. They are rated at 2×250 Watts at 8 Ohms and 2×500 Watts at 4 Ohms. In bridged mode at either four or eight Ohms the rating is 1,000 Watts. The minimum load is specified as 2 Ohms. If you are concerned about the S500 driving a particularly inefficient speaker, consult Red Dragon.

It is impossible to know from a name, or from how the founder of the company dresses for that matter, what a component will sound like. If one were to go by appearances only, the attire of James Bongiorno or the garish blue hue of his Ampzilla amplifier might be off-putting. James, now departed, was a vibrant individual who displayed that vibrancy in many ways. I recall seeing the Ampzilla at shows and I always wanted to review it, partly because of the sound it was making, and partly because of its looks!

It turned out the opportunity came to me when Constantine Soo, Publisher of Dagogo solicited the writers with the chance to review the components here presented. I was hesitant, though, and I will be honest about it; I noticed that Spread Spectrum Technologies, the company James Bongiorno started, was now in the hands of Wyred4Sound. I had sampled a Wyred4Sound amp previously in my room, but passed on it as a review candidate as it was not sufficiently enticing. I wondered if the mysterious Ampzilla II would capture my imagination beyond its name, so I took a chance on it.

It was a great move, as the Ampzilla II strikes my ear as radically different from the W4S amp I had used. I was pleased to see the thorough explanation contained on the “About” link at the SST homepage that EJ Sarmento, Wyred4Sound’s chief designer, is honoring the original design, retaining the larger schema but tweaking it, while toning down the blue color scheme to black. Thus far it seems the marriage of W4S and SST is working out.

Arrival and unpacking

The double boxed cartons with thick foam did the job protecting the Thoebe II and Son of Ampzilla II, and communication with Tony Holt of Wyred4Sound was timely and polite, a great customer service experience.

The components feature a flat, dull aluminum faceplate with matte gray cases. Gone is the vibrant, but somewhat off-putting garish blue color. The styling is understated, even generic along the lines of older NAD products. My first impression is of a subdued appearance, but thankfully without eyeball piercing LEDs. The stock feet are generously sized, so as to allow easy lifting, and the  weight is not prohibitive for most owners to handle alone.

These are the simple gear man’s delight, with throwback features such as BALANCE, BASS and TREBLE controls. I typically am disgruntled with contouring of the signal, but I found these controls deft and effective, liking the effect regardless of whatever potential degradation of the sound might occur from them being included.

The smallish remote looks better than most, but the nomenclature on the rear side of the components is far too small to be helpful. When a person has to peer over the side of a component at black lettering on a dark case using a flashlight, it is time to improve the experience.

Layout

The SST Thoebe II is a feature-rich preamp, having a collection of functions grouped in small touch buttons under a moderately sized display. Thankfully, bright green is used for the dimmable display, making it legible from a distance. To the left side of the display are two ¼” headphone outputs; the left one operates in conjunction with the speakers, but the right one mutes the Line function of the preamp while in use. To the far right is the VOLUME control knob. The other functions, duplicated on the adequately sized remote control, are from left to right STANDBY, INPUT UP or INPUT DOWN (Three pair unbalanced, one pair balanced), BASS, TREBLE, IR Sensor, BALANCE, PHASE, GAIN, DIM and MUTE.

The BASS and TREBLE controls adjust each from -5 to +5 in 1dB increments. Balance can be adjusted from +10L to +10R in 1dB increments. Phase is toggled between zero and 180 degrees, as is the Gain setting between High and Low.  The Phono stage requires an MM or high output MC cartridge, and it uses a new RIAA optimized topology. I only use file playback or streaming audio, so I will leave discussion of the Phono stage to others. The built-in DAC uses the ESS Sabre 9018 chip, has an Asynchronous, galvanically isolated USB input, and supports up to 32 bit 384kHz PCM and DSD4 and DSD128.

The backside of the unit is busy on the left side, with the optional Phono inputs above three sets of RCA inputs and one set of XLR. Fixed line level outputs occupy a black rectangle on the back plate alerting the owner to these potentially damaging outputs that are attenuated. A set of three RCA outputs and one set of XLR outputs follow. Above these are the Toslink, USB and Coaxial Inputs. Just off center of the back is a 12V Trigger output which when connected will turn on both the Thoebe II and Son of Ampzilla II. The 15A IEC sits off to the right with the power fuse compartment integral.

How about all those features?

In my room I have no need of balance control, as it is a perfect environment for listening. I did, however, test the Thoebe II’s BALANCE function and found it to shift the center image incrementally enough so as to allow for subtle manipulation. The indication of balance shifting is shown unusually by the display, but becomes intuitive quickly enough.

The BASS and TREBLE controls are the real stars of the user-friendly features of the Thoebe II. I found myself calling upon them whenever I set up a system with not quite enough top- or bottom-end. The value of an adjustable preamp with quality tonal controls can be enormous. If the audiophile does not wish to pursue adjustment of the system via cables, then the bass and treble controls are indispensable.

Any set of components and cables have an innate character, but when a new item is introduced into the system there is no telling precisely how and to what degree the sound quality will shift. One may be able to ball park the effect, but it may not be to full satisfaction. For instance, the Red Dragon S500 is a “cooler” sounding amplifier than the Son of Ampzilla II. If I were to construct the exact same system with the S500 I may deem the result too top-end emphasized. The Thoebe II’s treble control of only one or two steps down might bring a satisfactory lowering of the intensity on all music, not only particular tracks.

The BASS and TREBLE controls are readily available on the remote control, so I found that if a track was played with too heavy a bass footprint I could instantly lighten it; this is a very gratifying way to enjoy a piece of music at a higher level, but without the associated displeasure at the dynamic overload. Unlike tonal controls of the past, I found these to pose a very light burden on the signal, such that I did not mind the effect, and did not feel I was losing definition or detail for the sake of using it. This is one of the few tone controls I would use myself, and I did find myself taking advantage of it during the review without concerns for degradation of the sound. I like the combination of the cleanness of ESS Sabre chips in a DAC, yet having the configuration capacity of addressing any tonal issues.

I wonder how many audiophiles get caught on the “power escalator,” by which I do not mean the one at the mall, but the one in the listening room. Did you know you have an escalator in your audio room? Sure you do, if you have over time found yourself seeking an ever more powerful amp which you believe will yield better sound. I admit I have a very tall, long escalator in my room, one that extends back ten years and reaches 1,000 Watts high! I rode that escalator many times between the 200-Watt and 1,000-Watt floors, but it has been several years since I rode it down to the basement, the sub-100-Watt floor. With the review of the First Watt J2 JFET Amplifier and B1 Buffer Amp, it is time to descend.

It seems most audiophiles enter the hobby already well upward from the bottom steps of power by using either a receiver with at least 100Wpc or separates at the same, or higher, specification. It did not take me long to settle on enjoyment of big power. Among several others, I have reviewed two powerful amps from Pass Labs, the Class A XA160.5, and the Class A/B X600.5. I must admit that for all the beauty of the XA160.5 I felt drawn to the X600.5 for the vastness of the soundstage, the macrodynamic impact and utter ease at higher listening levels. I concluded I could capture the finesse the XA160.5 displayed through manipulating other aspects of the system such as the DAC or cables. However, the attributes provided by the power structure of the X600.5 seemed impossible to duplicate with the lower-powered amp.

I have spent a fair bit of time, too, with Class D amps offering from 200 to 1,000Wpc, another flavor of big sound. To date, the Red Dragon S500 is my Class D amp of choice, and it has been a particularly peachy performer with sultry sound in many systems. Given these experiences, what could possibly enthrall about a (relatively) puny “25 Watter” by First Watt? That is what I seek to explain in this article, along with my impressions of the difference between big power and relatively low power, and the practical implications for someone going the lower-power route.

First Watt B1 Buffered Preamp

The B1 Buffer Preamp is described by First Watt as a minimalist line stage for controlling listening levels without editorializing on the source signal. It is a small, lightweight but well built, pressed all-aluminum box featuring a center toggle switch on the faceplate to select between two pair of RCA inputs, and twin attenuation controls for Left and Right channels. On the backside, the unit is powered by a supplied DC power cord; the unit remains powered up when plugged in, as there is no On/Off switch.  Along with the two sets of single-ended inputs is a pair of single-ended outputs. That’s it – no muss, no fuss!

The purpose of the B1 Buffer is to address impedance mismatches between a volume control and an amp. Nelson Pass explains in the Owner’s Manual:

“Is impedance matching an issue? Passive volume controls do have to make a trade-off between input impedance and output impedance. If the input impedance is high, making the input to the volume control easy for the source to drive, then the output impedance is also high, possibly creating difficulty with the input impedance of the power amplifier. And vice versa: If your amplifier prefers low source impedance, then your signal source might have to look at low impedance in the volume control.

This suggests the possibility of using a high quality buffer in conjunction with a volume control. A buffer is still an active circuit using tubes or transistors, but it has no voltage gain – it only interposes itself to make a low impedance into a high impedance, or vice versa.

If you put a buffer in front of a volume control, the control’s low impedance looks like high impedance. If you put a buffer after a volume control, it makes the output impedance much lower. You can put buffers before and after a volume control if you want.

The goal for the First Watt B1 was to make a solid state buffer that was very neutral, with very low distortion and noise, and very wide bandwidth without using negative feedback. It has no voltage gain; its sole purpose is to either increase or lower impedance.”

With First Watt, you don’t just get a component, you get a Nelson Pass commentary and tutorial all in one. The B1 and J2 Owner’s Manuals read more like shoptalk to designers than directions for owners. Nelson attempts to make it lively by inserting analogies to explain the effect of gain in a system, such as driving a car at 55mph in a vehicle where the engine is barely working versus a car in which the engine is running at top speed. Vehicle analogies come in handy when discussing audio systems, and I can relate to this one. Having used everything from SET amps to high-power Class D, my ears have heard the sonic equivalent of what Nelson is saying. His assertion is that with the proper speakers the lower-powered amp can be every bit as stimulating to the hearer as the higher-powered.

Staying with the automotive analogy, the question I will seek to answer is; does one obtain the full driving experience with lower power? Or, similar to a four cylinder car, does one hear a “strain” or lack of torque, so to speak, with a lower-powered amp? Conversely, does a higher-powered amp always ensure more ease, or shall we say, “sound performance”? The two camps, low power and high power, often do not compare directly technically as the technologies can be quite different – consider a SET amp versus a Class D amp. Yet, assuming there is no mismatch of the amp to speaker, the listening experience is the acid test for the hobbyist, and is the focus of this article.

I have been using the Pass Labs XA30.8 as my reference amp for the last 14 months. When it came in for review, I was shocked at how good it was. After an agonizing audition period, I decided it had dethroned my $30,000 Wavac EC300B with Western Electric 300B tubes. The Wavac had held off all comers in my reference system since 2007; truth is I thought it was probably the best amp around at any price if you could get by with eight watts. So, the only question left was how would the mono-block version the XA30.8 sound?

At a quick glance, it seems that the XA60.8s are just two XA30.8s wired for mono instead of stereo. They are rated at 60 watts pure Class A into eight ohms and 120 watts pure Class A into four ohms. The XA60.8 doesn’t leave pure Class A until it reaches 122 peak watts. Then it moves into Class AB for unheard of headroom for a 60-watt amp. Since I have never been able to get the XA30.8 out of their Class A biasing range, it should be no surprise that it didn’t happen with the XA60.8s either.

Description

The look of the Pass Labs .8 series of amps has changed somewhat from the .5. The faceplate, in particular, is different. The .5 series had a two-part face plate; the front section had a circular opening framing the large round bias meter which was mounted on a second sub panel. I’ll be honest; I really thought the .5 looked very classy. The new XA.8 series also looks really nice, and I have heard several people say they like the new, cleaner look. Not me, though, I still liked the older look. The XA.8 series has a simple .75-inch front panel that is a single slab of aluminum with beveled edges and the large round bias meter centered on the front face. The meter shows the current draw of the amp. When a .8 amp is operating in Class A, the needle stays at 12 o’clock or very close to it. When the amp goes out of Class A, the pointer may move to the right. It never did this with any of the speakers I used, regardless of how loud I played them, and I like loud music.

Like the XA30.8, the XA60.8 is 19 inches wide and 21.25 inches deep. The difference is you now have two of these big and very heavy amps. One other point, be sure they have lots of room to breathe. Like all Class A amps, they run hot. A lot of the amp is taken up with heat sinks, but they still get very hot and draw enough power to cause your electric bill to go up. Be forewarned that the heat sinks are sharp, but I was prepared this time. So, unlike when setting up the XA30.8, I didn’t cut myself this time.

Setup and Break In

My reference system comprises the AMG Viella V12 turntable, DS Audio DW-1 Optical cartridge system, Emia Remote Autoformer, Teresonic Ingenium XR speakers with Lowther DX4 silver drivers, High Fidelity Cables CT-1 and CT-1 Ultimate Reference interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables plugged into an HB Cable Design PowerSlave Marble power distributor. With a shipping weight of 106 pounds each, the hardest thing about setting the Pass Labs XA60.8 up was unboxing them and getting into my listening room.

Before I put them in the system, I plugged an iPod into a linestage to use as a source and hooked them up to a pair of old speakers. I let them play in the workroom for over three weeks. I didn’t listen except in the background until they got around 400 hours on them. The reason for this was I had already discovered how much break-in was needed for the Pass .8 amps. The XA30.8 sounded great after 100 hours, but much better after 400 hours. Another thing I should mention is that they take about an hour to warm up after they have been off.

Practical Advantages and Disadvantages

There are several differences that do not relate to the sound so much as the fact that the XA60.8s are monoblocks. The advantages are that you can place them closer to the speakers, you can use shorter speaker cables, and they are an impressive sight. Disadvantages are you need two power cords. In the case of the High Fidelity CT-1 UR-Helix power cords, they up the price of the XA60.8 by almost $14,000 over the XA30.8. If you were using the really excellent Audience AU24 power cables, it would only add $2,400 to the price; but still, that is a disadvantage. Another couple of disadvantages are that they produce twice the heat and draw twice as much power compared to the single XA30.8.

Listening

This review will not be nearly as long as the review of the XA30.8 amp because you can and should read my articles of the XA30.8, and they will tell you nuch about the sound of the XA60.8. I think you would need to live with the XA30.8 and the XA60.8 for a few weeks to begin to grasp the difference in how they sound. I should also remind you, that the difference I hear in my system should not be a matter of power as my speakers are 104dB efficient and an 8-ohm load. Still, there are differences even if they are small differences.

Like the XA30.8, theses amps are powerful and really take control of the sound. The stereo and monoblocks both do this without ever sounding too controlled. In the review of the XA30.8, I said, “By control, I don’t mean a lack of dynamics. Still, even with 30 watts versus 10, the 30.8 is no more dynamic than the Wavac EC300B. The XA30.8 gets really big or really loud without losing control, but it does not have the same ability for the sound to swell and become bigger as well as louder in the same way the Wavac EC300B or the First Watt SIT-1 could.”

The reason for my sharing this quote is it mentions one of the areas where there is a difference between the two Pass Labs models. The XA30.8 comes a little closer to having the ability for the sound to swell and become bigger as well as louder like the Wavac EC300B. I have no idea why this is true. It seemed counter-intuitive to me, and I need to say again it’s a small difference. The XA30.8 and First Watt SIT-1 monoblocks are the only non-single-ended tube amps I have ever heard do this at all. For example, on Ella and Louie, Louie’s trumpet swells, comes to life and gets very loud without a hint of glare or edge. The Wavac and SIT-1 play this in an incredibly alive way. The XA30.8 comes really close to the single-ended tube amps here. The XA60.8 get really loud without losing any control, but they don’t allow the sound of his trumpet to swell spatially in quite the same way. They don’t sound quite as organic nor do they have quite the same big tone sound of the XA30.8.

Let me take another quote from the XA 30.8 review to illustrate how XA30.8 and XA60.8 sound differently. I said in the XA30.8 review, “Another way that the XA30.8 is fundamentally different from [others] is how it builds the sound. Both the EC 300B, a SET tube amp, and the First Watt SIT, a single-ended class A transistor amp, build the sound from the midrange out. It’s like the midrange is the main attraction, and the bass and treble are there to finish out the sound. The Pass Labs XA30.8 builds the sound on a foundation of bass, mid-bass, and power.”

This difference between the Pass Labs XA amps and the Wavac and First Watt single-ended amps is even more pronounced with the mono-blocks. It will be a matter of taste to which you think is better, but as a long-time SET lover, I gravitate more to the sound of the XA30.8.

There were some areas where I expected the monos to be superior. The most obvious was in soundstaging, and they were. They produced a slightly wider and deeper soundstage. The soundstage was also portrayed from a slightly quieter and slightly darker background. Overall the monos are slightly quieter. This also produces slightly more sparkle in the top-end and overall a little more detailed and transparent sound.

On macrodynamics, I couldn’t tell if the XA60.8 were more dynamic with my super-efficient Teresonic, but when using them with some less efficient speakers like the Fritz I recently reviewed, the Pass Labs seem slightly more so. However, the Teresonic produced slightly quicker microdynamics with the XA60.8 while producing bass that was faster and had more slam than the XA30.8.

Conclusion

Unless you need more power, I can’t imagine why you would need the monoblock Pass Labs over its stereo amp. Personally, I slightly prefer the XA30.8, but I know that many if not most systems and speakers will benefit from the extra power of  XA60.8 monoblocks. For this old single driver/SET lover, I’ll keep the stereo amp. I have a friend who has owned mega-buck amps from Audio Note, Burmester, and Goldmund, the other day I read a post he made on one of the forums where he said, “the 30.8 just might be the best amp on planet.” So far I agree, but there are speakers that need more power and the XA60.8 is the choice. For those of you who need even more power, there are bigger and bigger XA.8 amps.

Copy editor: Laurence A. Borden

Read the Exogal Comet DAC Review

We are entering a new era in digital audio, the era of the PowerDAC. What is a PowerDAC? It is a digital-to-analog converter that doubles as a power amplifier. It could be called an integrated DAC/amplifier, but PowerDAC sounds portentous. Let your mind trickle over the potential of a product… a DAC that also functions as a power amplifier. Do you understand the implications of the emergence of such a product? In an era where digital music is the medium of the masses, and where convenience scores higher on most people’s lists than sound quality, the PowerDAC will address both convenience and sound quality at a reasonable price. The Exogal Ion PowerDAC, the subject of this review, is small and light at only 9 pounds, aesthetically pleasing, is easily operated, controlled with personal devices such as phones and tablets, and breaks ground with a sound quality experienced by very few audiophiles in the solar system.

Technology creep and a harsh reality

Let’s begin by acknowledging the harsh reality associated with technology creep and the advent of new components. Technology creep is a phrase I have coined to portray the incessant march of technological development and how that development works its way into our lives. Over time our components, yea, the entire system that was at a very high level of performance years ago slips in terms of its performance relative to today’s standard. State-of-the-art sound is never a destination, but rather an incrementally moving target.

Unless an audiophile has been experiencing newer equipment and upper end systems, it is easy to think that there has not been that much change in terms of good sound. Our memories also fool us into thinking that the sound we heard many years ago was as fine as the sound we hear today. Neither is true. Once we set aside our nostalgia and take a measured look at the old systems, we see that they had significant shortcomings.

Eventually, all gear becomes obsolete, replaced by better products with much better sound. Witness the demise of the 8-track tape, cassette tape, and in more recent days the CD. As might be expected there is a sector of contemporarily challenged audiophiles who adhere to the notion that vintage gear is sonically better than new. No matter the topic, there will be some people who simply do not wish to move into the future and continue to claim that the past was better. There are not many human activities involving technology where that perspective survives. Do people lament that TV’s were better 30-40 years ago? How about cars? Computers? Bicycles? In almost no human activity involving technology is older better, except perhaps in terms of longevity. Technologies come, and technologies go, and now with the advent of a more affordable integrated digital amp in the Exogal Ion I predict that in the future we forward thinking audiophiles will no longer be using analogue amplifiers. Don’t scoff at that statement, as you haven’t heard the Ion – yet. When you hear it I predict you will nod your head, even if reluctantly, in agreement that the digital amp is the future.

Digital amps are the future, NOW

Four or five years ago I proclaimed class D amps were the future. Now, with the advent of the Exogal Ion PowerDAC I’m altering my proclamation; as of today the future belongs to digital amps. The Ion PowerDAC is forcing a rethink of my expectations, for just a year ago I was enthralled with the Red Dragon S500 class D amplifier. Here I am only several months later saying that a better technology is here. Technology creep is very disruptive. The digital world is changing with breathtaking speed and yet much of the HiFi industry seems stuck in a time capsule. Big, heavy analogue amps, tubes, vinyl – to persons under 25 these things make audiophiles seem incapable of integrating technological change. For a while the vinyl is cool, but that novelty wears off, worn thin by the demand for convenience.

Don’t misunderstand me; I can put together a wonderful sounding traditional system, as do thousands of listeners who love those products. The problem is that with new digital developments in terms of performance these others get left in the dust. The Exogal Ion races ahead of classic amplification components regardless of cost at such terrific speed it leaves a wake like a comet’s ion trail, for which it is named, of performance particulate to settle on these older, literally slower technologies. Am I suggesting that a solid-state amp or a DAC can be slow? Yes, they actually are “slow” when compared to the performance of the Comet and Ion, and that is what we shall explore.

The practical outcome of all this is with the advent of the Exogal Comet and Ion in terms of design and performance, your DAC and your amp have slipped decidedly toward becoming obsolete. Exogal has just killed their performance in a targeted strike. Thus I am the bearer of both bad and good news for you. The bad news is your amp and DAC have plummeted in terms of their performance relative to the new standard. It is tough enough to hear of one genre of component being eclipsed, but two simultaneously is quite painful. However, as the Comet and Ion are reasonably priced for their performance threshold you have an opportunity to own not only the best sound in the price category, but a best sound in the industry now, not five years from now as you wait for it to trickle down in cheaper products. The reason I say “a best sound” is that I have not been afforded the opportunity to compare the Comet and Ion to top end DACs as dcs or MSB or amps such as Boulder, Constellation or Soulution. That would be a very interesting comparison, one that I am open to if these other companies would like to send me their equipment. It is possible that these others would run circles around the Exogal combo, but I suspect not. From what I have heard of dcs, MSB, Boulder, Constellation and Soulution at shows I think the Exogal pairing would compare quite favorably. The Comet and Ion are priced for Millennials and sandwich generation music fans who don’t have a great deal of disposable income, but the Comet/Ion perform together more like components designed for “one percent” audiophiles.

Your amp and DAC are still operationally fine; you could run them for a considerable time. As long as you never hear the Comet and Ion you could be happy. However, your components have been made obsolete by the advancements found in the Exogal Comet and Ion, and those who gravitate toward them will have an  “out of this world” experience enjoying them. It will help to appreciate what has happened as you learn what the Comet and Ion are and what they are capable of when used together.

Passing the Law of Efficacy

Technology creep also presents us with plenty examples of insipid change promoted as monumental. As might be expected, Exogal is not the only company trying to upend the market. More recently we have seen the introduction of QOL, DEQX and MQA. Having heard the first two they were not inspiring enough to merit a review and the last seems stuck in development limbo. Perhaps you will believe me when I say that the performance advantage conferred by the Comet and Ion is such that they do not deserve to fade away, but rather be adopted by scores of audiophiles.

In 2010 NAD brought out the M2 Digital Amplifier based on PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) that was purported to sound very good. NAD seems to have reverted back to separates for their Masters series in the M12 Digital Preamp DAC ($3,499) and M22 Stereo Power Amplifier ($2999), an nCore hybrid Class D design. It would need to be a revolutionary development in Class D to be competitive with the Ion’s digital amplification. The M22 has what is called “Power Drive”, which senses a speaker’s impedance and adjusts the amplifier to suit the speaker. It might be an efficacious technology, but only a comparison would tell if the M22 would compare favorably to the Comet and Ion.

The Technics R1 Reference System was lately reviewed in The Absolute Sound and it has true digital amplification, but also carries a price tag of $26K for the electronics and $27K for the speakers – not accessible for most audiophiles. Conversely, here comes Exogal with an extreme resolution DAC and digital amplifier with real world pricing, $8K for both the Comet and Ion, as the Ion must be used only with the Comet. While this is not cheap it is much more affordable than the Technic’s $53K price tag including matching speakers. Regarding the radical difference in appearance of the R1 System and the Exogal products, people seem drawn to meters on amplifiers. I adjure the reader to not judge the Exogal products by their diminutive size and lack of fancy meters, as it is not the size of the case, or the meter that determines the sound. The technology employed in the Comet and Ion ultimately must result in performance worthy of the price. In a barrage of testing the performance of the Comet and Ion pass the Law of Efficacy easily.

Emotion in a Silver Jewel Box

Many months ago I was asked about reviewing the Esoteric Grandioso C1 preamp and M1 monoblocks. I had just started to remodel my home, including the listening room, so the review had to wait. I was about 3 weeks away from being done with the project when Scott Sefton of Esoteric contacted me about bringing the pre and amps over to my home. As it turned out, there were some remodel items that still needed a few more weeks to finish (and, of course, months of additional tweaking), most notably redoing the electrical outlets. Nonetheless, I determined that I was ready to start doing reviews again.

A preliminary word about this review. When I finally completed the first draft it was two and one-half times longer than it is in this final version. As you will see, I liked these components so much that I found myself stretching to find something wrong with them. I literally wrote a page on whether they sounded great because they did something “wrong” in the musical reproduction. I finally realized that the added verbiage created the misleading impression that there was something about these wonderful products that I didn’t like, so in the end I took it all out. So don’t be deceived by the shortness of this review. I and others spent many hours debating where the C1 and M1 fit in the pantheon of top-tier audio components.

Esoteric Is The Right Word

I’ve been very familiar with Esoteric’s digital products, having owned several in the past. However, I wasn’t sure what to expect from their preamps and amps, other than what I’ve heard at audio shows. I guess I expected something very detailed and nuanced, and just a shade on the analytical side. Boy was I wrong. Yes, what I received was highly detailed and nuanced, but there is no way you can apply the “analytical” label to the C1 or the M1.

The C1 and M1 are big, heavy and strikingly beautiful. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I suspect that 95%+ of the audiophile population will agree that these components fall into the beautiful category. You will definitely want to display them, as they absolutely beg to be shown off. In addition, their weight and construction are such that aftermarket feet/points are unnecessary. Though I positioned the C1 on a heavy and solid equipment rack and the M1’s on heavy amp stands, I suspect I could have placed them on the floor or on a lesser rack and still gotten excellent results.

Esoteric Grandioso C1 Line Stage Preamplifier

The setup was straightforward, with the only unusual aspect being the fact that the C1, which is a two-piece preamp, consists of a DC power supply and a separate control unit. The preamp’s DC power supply is a true dual-mono device, but in a single enclosure that requires two separate power cords to feed dual AC inputs that in turn translate into DC outputs that feed the C1 control unit via two multi-pin umbilical cords. For those of you interested, the C1 DC power unit uses five hefty power transformers and features high-capacity reservoir capacitors and silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky barrier diodes.

Quoting from Esoteric’s website, the control unit “consists of two monoblock preamplifier modules and a logic control module. The input and output sections of each preamplifier module are constructed on separate boards, which are arranged one above the other in order to minimize the lengths of the signal paths. These modules are mounted on a unique leaf spring suspension system that was originally developed for Esoteric’s leading lineup of SACD players. Its floating design helps achieve total left and right channel independence.”

The M1 monoblocks are the proverbial iron fist in a silk glove, with 300 watts into 8 ohms, 600 into 4 ohms, and a serious maximum power output of 1200 watts into 2 ohms. They have 28dB of gain, and accommodate both XLR and RCA connectors.

The functions and controls of the C1 are intuitive and are a pleasure to operate, so there is no reason to spend any time here explaining their operation. Suffice it to say that everything works as expected without even the hint of a hiccup.

I did have an initial glitch with the C1/M1 combo. I discovered that the M1s are sensitive to DC offset, which is a new issue I experienced after my recent home remodeling. This is not the place for a full discussion of DC offset (in my case apparently caused by the wall switches installed as part of a new LED lighting system), but it can cause transformers to develop a mechanical hum, and high-power amps generally have big transformers. Some amps are more susceptible than others, and the M1 appears to be susceptible. However, I was easily able to address this issue with a great product – the Emotiva CMX-2 Precision AC Line Restoration & Common Mode Filter System. This product is very good, not very expensive, and does exactly what it says. It probably deserves its own review, and perhaps I’ll do that in the coming months. Suffice it to say that this product completely eliminated the issue, so I was able to proceed with the review without any transformer hum.

Initial Configuration

I first tested the C1/M1 combo in the following configuration: My Qsonix Q-205 server’s digital output fed a Legacy Audio Wavelet via a Stealth Audio V14-T digital cable (see my review in September 2016). The Wavelet’s analog outputs fed the Esoteric Grandioso C1 via a balanced Stealth Sakra V12, and the C1 connected to the M1’s via balanced Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 6’s. Speaker cables were Silent Source Silver Signature, and the speakers were Vivid Audio Giya G1.

For those of you unfamiliar, the Wavelet is a custom piece developed by Legacy Audio initially for its fabulous V speakers. It is a DAC, crossover, room correction and digital preamp in a single box. A review of this amazing component will follow, but you need to know that the Wavelet can be used in various ways, and I used it here as a DAC in all cases, but also with the room correction on and off, and incorporating or bypassing the digital preamp. In my initial configuration the Wavelet was used as a DAC and room correction device, with the C1 doing the preamp duties.

Jeff Wells used to own a retail shop named Audible Arts in Campbell, CA, about fifty miles southeast of San Francisco. As brick-and-mortar audio stores withered in the onslaught of online commerce, Jeff capitalized on his retail experience and formed Wells Audio, a manufacturer of amplifiers. (See the 2015 Dagogo interview with Jeff.)

After developing the $7,000 Innamorata power amplifier six years ago, Jeff wanted to address the needs of younger, upcoming generations, and the $5,000 Akasha power amplifier (150 Wpc/8 ohms, 220 Wpc/4 ohms) was the result. Subsequently, a $15,000 flagship, the Innamorata Signature, was introduced for those customers who were demanding something better than the original Innamorata. Dagogo senior reviewer Doug Schroeder reviewed the Akasha amplifier in 2012 and the Innamorata in 2013, while Greg Petan reviewed the Innamorata Signature in 2015.

The $3,599 Majestic, the subject of this review, is the company’s first integrated amplifier and represents Jeff’s effort in further addressing the needs of the younger audiophile market. It brings Wells Audio amplification to an attractive, lower price point.

Whereas the Akasha and Innamorata upper models are both endowed with dual transformers and weigh in at 58 pounds, and the Innamorata Signature comes in at 60 pounds, the Majestic, with its one transformer only, is a comparatively light 35 pounds but still sports the same power output into 8 ohms as the Akasha and Innamorata amplifiers. The Akasha was a more modest form of the Innamorata and the Innamorata Signature employed the most superior parts of its siblings that required a magnitude of more time-consuming assemblage. For the Majestic, Jeff intended the integrated amplifier to provide a performance level close to his $5,000 Akasha for households of modest income and audio system.

The Majestic is a Class AB design that churns out Class A power up to 15 watts. On the left side of the back panel is one pair of balanced (XLR) and four pairs of single-ended (RCA) inputs, plus a fifth RCA pair with fixed output for subwoofer or headphone amplifier use. The IEC plug and the speaker five-way binding posts sit rather closely together on the right side of the back panel. The front panel of the amp is adorned with an Alps motorized Volume control on the left, a front-lit “Volumeter” at the center, which tracks the setting of the manual volume control, and an Input Selector knob on the right. The power switch is accessible under the front of the chassis. The Majestic includes a compact remote control.

Jeff told me all his power amplifiers share the same basic circuitry, with his upper–end models employing progressively higher-performance capacitors and other parts, including Bybee noise filtering technology. These products have a reputation for being among the quietest electronics in the high end. Even at the lower price points – Akasha, Majestic, Looking Glass and Milo – Jeff is proud of the quietness of the designs, which he attributes “in large part to simplicity of design and near flawless execution. Also central to my design philosophy is that every component that is used we sonically evaluate before it makes it into a product.”

The price difference of the Akasha and Majestic is not significant by high-end standards although the Majestic resides more in the white-hot zone of budget amplifiers than the Akasha. Many audiophiles are only comfortable in spending $2,000 or less in amplifiers and in this market segment the Majestic represents a significant investment. The Wells Audio Majestic is not an ultra-performing amplifier, although neither is it a product for the less initiated audiophiles in mind.

For the seasoned audiophile who continues to endure the upgrade bug of difficult purchasing and economizing decisions in his/her life, who has spent long nights comparing loaner equipment from audio stores before returning them the next day, and who is familiar with the anguish of buyer’s remorse from the realization that a better decision could’ve been made had he or she done the comparison before the purchase and not after, the Wells Audio Majestic is an easy choice. It is not adorned with complex convenience features but it adheres to one overriding priority: give the experienced listener sonic refinement when driving high-end speakers – at a comparatively modest cost.

A few “budget” amplifiers ranging from $1,500 to $2,500 passed through my system recently, but the Majestic was the only one able to drive the 86dB Quad ESL 2812 electrostatics with considerable composure. By virtue of the simple circuit design and pure tonality, the Majestic driving the Quads bore a pleasant resemblance to how the Quads sound driven by the $12,000 Pass Laboratories INT-250. Intimate jazz ensembles carried momentum with the often-illusive sense of energy attained by the INT-250. Complex orchestral passages were presented with separation and frequency extension beyond the crop of “budget” amplifiers I auditioned. Quite simply, the Wells Audio Majestic was one of the most refined and powerful class AB amplifiers I’ve heard at $3,500.

Though a budget design in the company’s offering, the Majestic possessed such competency nonetheless that it showcased the superiority of the $8,000 Bricasti M1 dual-mono DAC over the $3,100 Arche Audio Opus 5 DACT and Opus 501 Power Supply in increased three-dimensionality and spectral extension.

This is the kind of novel product I want to leisurely show our attendees at the 45-room California Audio Show (July 28-30).

Not long after, Jeff Wells brought over the Majestic Reference, a $12,000 version of the Majestic ordinaire. And that, as they say, is a whole ‘nother story.

Copy editor: Dan Rubin