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Classé Audio DR-3 power amplifier
Classé Audio's DR-3 once again brings to the fore the issues of class-A vs class-AB, weighty vs small and efficient, and brute-force expensive vs clever and inexpensive. A well-worn, if unproven,...
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Bel Canto e1X power amplifier
I own and enjoy loudspeakers from seemingly opposite ends of the audiophile spectrum: I'm a huge fan of minimally efficient yet otherwise overachieving flat-panel designs, such as my Magnepan LRS...
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Parasound Halo JC 1+ monoblock power amplifier
Soon after I took over preparing Stereophile's biannual Recommended Components listing from the magazine's founder, J. Gordon Holt, in 1986, I ran into a problem. With so many products listed, the...
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Pass Laboratories Aleph 0 monoblock power amplifier
The Aleph Null, or 0, represents Nelson Pass's maiden product under the Pass Laboratories banner. When he left Threshold several years ago, Pass had the luxury of starting over with a clean slate, and...
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Classé Delta Mono monoblock power amplifier
Canadian audio manufacturer Classé Audio was founded in 1980 by engineer Dave Reich and entrepreneur/audiophile Mike Viglas. The name "Classé" was a pun on the fact that Reich was a firm believer in an...
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Mark Levinson No.333 power amplifier
If I've read it once in mainstream audio magazines, I've read it a hundred times: "The most important component in a system is the loudspeaker, because it is the loudspeaker that makes the sound."...
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LKV Veros PWR+ power amplifier
As much as I admire Belgian amplifier designer Bruno Putzeys's accomplishments, I have harbored some misgivings about class-D amplifier sound. I do not believe it represents the future of perfectionist...
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Gryphon Essence Mono power amplifier
"Oh goody!" thought self, to self: "Another Gryphon component to review." As eloquent and revelatory as that statement may be, there's an even more illuminating backstory. I had been aware of...
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Gramophone Dreams #43: First Watt F8 power amplifier
I spent my childhood summers on the Reichert family farm near Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, where, inside the red 1880s barn, my uncle Harold played 78rpm records for his cows. He used a wind-up Victrola...
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PS Audio Stellar M1200 monoblock power amplifier
Talk about a Scarlet Letter. The term class-D amplification, which describes PS Audio's new M1200 monoblocks, exists only because another amplifier innovation had already parked in the "C" space. Soon...
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Counterpoint Natural Progression NPS-400 power amplifier
Amplifier designers have frequently looked for ways to marry the advantages of tubes to those of solid-state devices. Hybrid designs of various stripes have appeared over the years, most of them using...
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Mytek HiFi Brooklyn AMP+ power amplifier
Big changes are afoot at Mytek. First up: The Mytek Brooklyn AMP+, the newest version of the compact, class-D Brooklyn AMP. The AMP+ is already in production. In my 2018 review of the original Brooklyn...
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ELAC Alchemy Series DPA-2 power amplifier
Once upon a time, in the early days of class-D amplification, the very notion that the ELAC (ELectroACoustic) Alchemy DPA-2 Stereo/Mono Power Amplifier ($1495 each) uses a class-D output stage would...
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NAD C 298 power amplifier
Power amplifiers should be boring. They have a single, well-defined function: Make the input signal large enough to run a loudspeaker so that it makes sound at levels suitable for listening to music....
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Rotel Michi M8 monoblock power amplifier
In an April 2020 press release, the McIntosh Group announced that its subsidiary brand Sumiko, which was cofounded by the late Dave Fletcher and distributes Sonus Faber and Pro-Ject among other...
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Dan D'Agostino Master Audio Systems Progression M550 monoblock power amplifier
We audiophiles so frequently get caught up in the pursuit of perfection that some have attempted to rebrand high-end audio as "perfectionist audio." But is it even possible for a single piece of audio...
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Accustic Arts AMP V power amplifier
The $50,000, 176lb Accustic Arts AMP V (pronounced Amp Five) is the heaviest, tallest, most powerful, most expensive stereo amplifier to enter my audio system. With rated power of 900Wpc into 8 ohms,...
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darTZeel NHB-108 model two power amplifier
Like the proverbial pot of gold, darTZeel's golden equipment beckons. That, at least, is how it felt in January 2010, when John Atkinson and I ended our coverage of T.H.E. Show Las Vegas in the room...
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Luxman M-10X power amplifier
As I started to write this review, the news broke that Sound United, the owner of Boston Acoustics, Bowers & Wilkins, Classé, Definitive Technology, Denon, Marantz, and Polk, was going to be...
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Rotel Michi S5 power amplifier
Like an immense night bird aloft in the gold'n sky. I should like to sail off towards islands of flow'rs While list'ning to the perverse sea singing In its old and bewitching rhythm. It took some time...
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