AXPONA 2025

Texas-based Bandwidth Audio brought a suite of handsome, industrial-style, tube-based amplifiers to AXPONA. Consumers can buy direct from the manufacturer.

Founder Matthew Beardsworth, an electrical engineer with a background in semiconductor design, spent years building tube guitar amplifiers before deciding it was time to create a hi-fi amplifier. “The goal,” he writes on the Bandwidth Audio website, “was to build an amplifier where most of the cost is spent on things that matter: component quality, circuit design, and mechanical ruggedness—the fundamentals of a great-sounding product.”

Beardsworth dedicated over a year to designing and testing circuits, optimizing layouts, working on sheet-metal design, and sourcing components. When off-the-shelf parts were insufficient, he collaborated with vendors to manufacture exclusive custom ones, tailored to his specifications.

Bandwidth’s product line includes the Kaskode One Phono Preamplifier, which uses D3A and EC8010 tubes in a class-A, open-loop vacuum-tube circuit. It’s available in an MM version ($5300) or an MC/MM version ($5900); an optional MC module ($600) allows users to upgrade an existing Kaskode One. According to Bandwidth, the preamp employs rare European 10,000-hour-rated NOS tubes chosen for low noise, high gain, and high linearity.

The Bandwidth Aurora One Line Preamplifier and Buffer ($5000) employs 6H30 and E88CC tubes. It offers six inputs, two outputs, plus high-gain and bypass modes.

The brand’s 288 Monoblock Power Amplifiers ($8200/pair) deliver 60Wpc using KT88s in ultralinear class-A/B operation. The 22A3 SET Mono Power Amplifiers ($8400/pair) use two 2A3 tubes to produce 5Wpc. At the top of the line, the 2845 Monoblock Amplifiers ($27,000/pair) use 845 tubes in a single-ended triode configuration to deliver 50W. Optional Mundorf Supreme Signal Caps are available as a $600/pair upgrade.

A VPI Prime X turntable ($4500) fitted with a Soundsmith Zephyr MK III moving-iron cartridge ($1500) played through a pair of Tannoy Turnberry GR loudspeakers ($8990/pair). The electronics rested on Timbernation racks. Everything was wired with AudioQuest cables.

Time constraints prevented a full listening report, but I hope to review one of Beardsworth’s amplifiers in the near future.