Integrated Amp Reviews

When the person on the street hears the term "high-end audio," they usually think of fancy, feature-laden systems that cost more than most houses. The unfortunate phrase evokes images of a lavish lifestyle replete with expansive Manhattan apartments and rolling country estates.

In 1968, I was a 2-year-old toddler living in Paris, France—my birthplace—on the 14th floor of a diplomat-occupied apartment complex overlooking the Seine. My dad, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was stationed in Paris, working security at the Canadian embassy. My mom and I were there with him.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "boulder"? I think of a rugged, mountainous landscape with jagged snow-capped peaks. I see images of the last time I drove up from sunny Boulder, Colorado, to Rocky Mountain National Park and discovered so much snow coming down that if we had dared walk too far in, our trail would have been covered with snow and we'd never have been able to find our way out. But how magical it was!

If you've ever paused in front of a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, you may have noticed that the canvas seems to glow. Everything in Rubens's paintings celebrates abundance. A golden light bathes his landscapes, and his figures are epitomes of radiant health—the women ample and voluptuous (a body type sometimes called "Rubenesque"), the men vigorous and athletic. Invariably, these expanses of rosy European flesh appear to be in motion, an effect Rubens mastered more thoroughly than arguably any artist of his age.

During my 100 years on earth, I've owned mostly separate amps and preamps, but only because that is where I started—or I should say, that is where my audio-savvy friends directed me when I began asking for guidance. Nevertheless, the audio system I've used the longest (unchanged for almost 10 years) consisted of 1984 Rogers LS3/5a loudspeakers (15 ohms, with factory wall mounts) powered by a proletarian-looking Creek 4330 integrated amp sourced by an Oppo CD player.

"I want to redo that painting," the spouse declared. "It's too dark."

"What's wrong with dark?" I responded. "Rembrandt's portraits are often dark. So are the paintings of Courbet and Hobbema. Your color palette represents how you were feeling at the moment. If it's true to you and speaks strongly, why change it?"

All my earliest hi-fi memories involve tube amplification: as a young girl, staring at the tubes' glowing filaments and listening to music with my audiophile father. I was mesmerized by the glow of those tubes, too hot to touch, but even more so by the music, which often was classical or opera. How those tubes worked was a mystery to me, but I knew they played a big part in the magic coming from the speakers.