Solid State Power Amp Reviews

What is it about a component that makes the blasé High Ender sit up and say, "Hey, this is special!"? What elements of its reproduction reach out to you and won't let go? How does the intrepid audio reviewer find a way to describe these hopefully recurring moments of musical discovery which define the high-end experience? How many times, after all, can you say, "Ooooo, ahhhhh, that's the best [insert some part of the frequency range here]," ad nauseam? How much difference is there, anyway? Therein lies the tale...

I've been enthusiastically tracking the development of Bel Canto's class-D amplifiers, from their original TriPath-based">http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/442">TriPath-based models to their more">http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/1106mitr">more recent designs based on Bang & Olufsen's ICEpower modules. With each step, Bel Canto has improved their amps' sound quality and reliability.

High-tech, compact, and lightweight, Chord's entry-level SPM 650 power amplifier ($4995) promises robust power output, low distortion and noise, flat and ultra-wideband frequency response, and bulletproof reliability—all in what seems an impossibly small package measuring 16.4" wide by 3.4" high by 13.8" deep and weighing only 22 lbs.

In his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne presents the enigmatic Captain Nemo, commander of the great submarine Nautilus, as powerful, charismatic, and mysterious. On first meeting Nemo, the narrator, M. Aronnax, notes, "I made out his prevailing qualities directly: self-confidence—because his head was well set on his shoulders, and his black eyes looked around with cold assurance; calmness—for his skin, rather pale, showed his coolness of blood; energy—evinced by the rapid contraction of his lofty brows; and courage—because his deep breathing denoted great power of lungs." All in all, "this man was certainly the most admirable specimen I had ever met."

Founded in 1925, Luxman has long been one of Japan's most highly regarded audio manufacturers. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Luxman's tube preamplifiers and power amplifiers occupied the top shelves of high-performance audio retailers, and to many older American audiophiles, the Luxman name is as familiar and esteemed as those of such storied American brands as McIntosh and Marantz. Luxman's combination of rich, warm sound, superb build quality, and indelible industrial design made its products fully competitive with other brands then considered among the world's best.

This review should have appeared more than a few months ago. When I reviewed Linn's">http://www.stereophile.com/phonocartridges/987linn">Linn's Troika cartridge back in the Fall of 1987, in Vol.10 No.6, Audiophile Systems also supplied me with a sample of the Linn LK1 preamplifier and the LK2 power amplifier, which I had intended to review in the due course of things. As it transpired, however, I was less than impressed with the LK2, finding, as did Alvin Gold back in Vol.9 No.2, that while it had a somewhat laid-back balance, it also suffered a pervasive "gray" coloration, which dried out recorded ambience and obscured fine detail.

Some of the old audio names, such as Eico and Pilot, are gone. Others—Fisher, AR, KLH, H.H. Scott, etc.—have been rendered meaningless by corporate mergers and acquisitions. Yet more than 50 years after their founding, McIntosh and Marantz, arguably the two most prestigious names in American high-quality audio electronics, survive. The products they make today are probably closer in spirit to their original classics of half a century ago than at any time since the early 1970s.