CES 2010

Nagra's 300B Amplifier

Erick Lichte  |  Jan 13, 2010

Because of the Stereophile writers' need to share a cab (and keep costs down) I visited the Nagra suite at the Mirage hotel with JA, JI, KR, and LG. As we walked through the Mirage I felt like we weren't a group of audio writers, we were a posse. I kept humming the music Quintin Tarantino used in Kill Bill for the Crazy 88's whenever we walked around. All right, we weren't that bad ass.

On display in one of Nagra's rooms was their new 300i tube integrated amplifier (price yet to be determined). The integrated features four 300B output tubes—two each per channel in push-pull—and will put out 20Wpc. The Stereophile crew all listened to the 300B with Verity loudspeakers on a wide range of music. Bruckner's symphonic music seemed to be a bit of a workout for this amp, but John Corigliano's score for the Red Violin sounded harmonically and dynamically superb. The 300i will be released in August 2010.

COMMENTS
Stephen Mejias's picture
Submitted by Stephen Mejias (not verified) on January 13, 2010 - 2:22pm

AWESOME. Please let this amp cost $800. Amen.

John R. Quick's picture
Submitted by John R. Quick (not verified) on January 20, 2010 - 7:10am

Just a quick note on this one: the amplifier will NOT be released in August; most likely it will not be available until 2011... and Stephen, thanks much for the enthusiastic post/prayer... something tells me yours was not the only one... :)

Aleksander's picture
Submitted by Aleksander (not verified) on February 4, 2010 - 9:25am

I'm definitively gonna buy one, if Stephens prayer is fulfilled. I will buy 6 and build me an active setup to my speakers

John R. Quick's picture
Submitted by John R. Quick (not verified) on February 6, 2010 - 8:11am

By the way, thought it would be worthwhile to mention the Verity loudspeakers that allowed the 300i to enchant so many during the show was the 93dB-sensitive, 3-way Leonore reviewed by Sam Tellig in the December 2009 issue. It was an amazing match!

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