Roksan Attessa streaming integrated amplifier Page 2

The presentation had less of a sense of scale than it did with the massively powerful Parasounds, but the Attessa kept tight control over the Mission's reflex-loaded woofers. I had concluded my review of the Mission 770 by writing, "I kept returning to that warm, detailed, and musically involving midrange." From the first movement's opening motif on the French horn onward, the Roksan-driven Missions did indeed sound warm, detailed, and musically involving.

The Mission speakers had to be returned a few days after I played the Brahms concerto, so I replaced them with my KEF LS50s. The stereo imaging was precisely defined, the soundstage well-developed, the midrange still uncolored and involving. But that tight control exerted by the Roksan amplifier on the KEFs' woofers meant that the sound lacked lower-frequency bloom. I replaced the LS50s with the GoldenEar BRX standmounts I reviewed in September 2020.

1122rok.Pires-Wigmore

I again cued up the Brahms concerto and was again impressed by the warm orchestral balance and the clarity and control of the piano's lower register, which now had sufficient bloom. I followed the Vogt with a recording that featured another favorite pianist, Maria João Pires, also performing Brahms: the three Op.117 Intermezzi (from The Wigmore Hall Recital, CD, DG 479 0965). With the CD playing on the Ayre player and the S/PDIF data transmitted to the Attessa by coax, Ms. Pires's Yamaha grand piano sounded warm and detailed on these delicate pieces, with sufficient weight to the instrument's left-hand register. I then played the Brahms Intermezzi with the Ayre sending the analog signal to the Roksan's line input. A little more of Wigmore Hall's subtle ambience was evident than with the Attessa's own D/A stage, but the difference was not as pronounced as I had been expecting, given my high regard for the Ayre's D/A conversion.

I don't have the Pires album on my network storage, but staying with Brahms, I used BluOS to play a performance by Robert Silverman of the six Moments Musicaux, which I had recorded live in 1993 (16/44.1 ALAC, from Concert, Stereophile STPH005-2). A different pianist in a different performing space with a different piano—a Steinway D instead of a Yamaha—but if I had to swear on a copy of the very first issue of Stereophile, I would say that the BluOS presentation was a touch more palpable than it had been with Ms. Pires's Brahms played back with the Attessa decoding the S/PDIF data.

1122rok.Rendezvous

The decider was when I compared the S/PDIF and network versions of the Jerome Harris Quintet performing Duke Ellington's "The Mooche," from Rendezvous (CD, Stereophile STPH013-2, footnote 1). There was a better sense of palpability to the 16/44.1 WAV file streamed from BluOS, and Harris's soft-toned acoustic bass guitar acquired greater subjective low-frequency extension than with S/ PDIF.

1122rok.Fairytales

How about MQA playback? I selected "Nature Boy" from the 2018 Original Master Edition reissue of Radka Toneff's Fairytales (24/192 MQA, Odin CD9561), our Recording of the Month for April 2018. I pressed the BluOS app's Play button and an MQA icon briefly lit up to the left of the BluOS icon on the Attessa's front panel. Pianist Steve Dobrogosz's familiar falling-fifth motif at the beginning of the track on the piano sounded as captivating as I was expecting, as did his sparsely scored solo. As did Toneff's hauntingly beautiful vocal.

Time to try some DSD-encoded tracks. I installed the BluOS app on my Mac mini and followed the instructions to enable DSD playback. However, a note appeared saying "your DSD collection will be converted to 24-bit FLAC files" and asking where I would like to store those files. I declined. That was it for DSD.

I auditioned the Attessa's headphone output with both my low-sensitivity, high-impedance Sennheiser HD 650s and my high-sensitivity, low-impedance Audeze LCD-Xes. It was difficult to match levels precisely because when you plug the headphones into the Roksan's front-panel jack or remove them, the volume resets to a low level. Even so, the sonic character with both headphones was very similar to what I had experienced with loudspeakers: natural-sounding midrange and highs and an excellent sense of drive in the bass.

Comparing
The obvious comparison is with the similar-priced NAD M10 ($2999 vs $3399), which, like the Roksan, is manufactured in China. While not as versatile as the Attessa—the M10 lacks a phono input or headphone output, though it does have an HDMI ARC input, which the Roksan doesn't have—the NAD can be controlled by both BluOS and Roon, it features a large four-color TFT touchscreen on its front panel, and it incorporates Direct Live LE low-frequency room equalization.

1122rok.life

Driving either the KEF or GoldenEar speakers with Dirac deactivated, the class-D M10 lacked the class-AB Attessa's low-frequency drive. The two amplifiers' midrange tonalities were similar, but the M10's highs sounded softer. If I had to choose, I would go with the NAD because its Dirac Live EQ works so well at optimizing the in-room balance of my KEF LS50s. But with speakers offering more extended low frequencies, like the Mission 770s that I first used with the Attessa, it's more of an equal match between the two amplifiers.

Summing up
I enjoyed using the Attessa during the month it replaced the high-priced separates in my listening room. Faults? I would have liked some sort of display, to reassure this paranoid listener that the Attessa was correctly decoding the digital data sent to it. (The measured performance revealed that it did indeed do so.) However, with its neutral sound character with both analog and digital input signals, its excellent sense of drive and low-frequency control, its high-performance moving magnet phono stage—that based on measurements—its well-implemented integration with the BluOS streaming app, and its affordable price, the Roksan Attessa gets an easy recommendation from me.


Footnote 1: The CD is out of print but the album in download form can be streamed or purchased here.
COMPANY INFO
Roksan/Monitor Audio Group
North American distributor: Kevro International Inc.
902 McKay Rd., Unit #4
Pickering, ON L1W 3X8, Canada
(800) 667-6065
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
volvic's picture

I enjoyed reading this review, but was disappointed Mr. Atkinson could not find a step up transformer to listen and review the phono section of this amp. As an owner of one of their turntables, I was keen to read how well it could sound. I am hopeful for a follow-up.

John Atkinson's picture
volvic wrote:
I enjoyed reading this review, but was disappointed Mr. Atkinson could not find a step up transformer to listen and review the phono section of this amp.

I appreciate your point. However, it is fundamentally important for a product being reviewed that the reviewer not change anything else in the system. If I had borrowed a moving-magnet cartridge or a step-up transformer, there would then be another change to the system in addition to the Roksan amplifier.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

EDunbar's picture

John: True, but some (several?) buyers who have a moving coil cartridge might be likely to add a step up transformer, even if it were a “basic” unit, if they were to buy the Altessa, so that is a real world configuration and it would be valuable to a review.

JRT's picture

The step-up transformer pair could have been kept in the comparison(s), using the same turntable, MC cartridge, step-up transformer pair in the LP playback subsystem, and using the MM inputs to the phono preamplifiers in both systems under comparison. No?

Maybe could have also tested the accuracy of the phono preamplifiers' RIAA filters using something like (James) Hagerman Audio Labs' iRIAA2 ($49+s/h).

Maybe in some future tests? This probably won't be the last device with a phono preamp on your test bench.

edit: I want to clarify that I do appreciate your subjective reviews and your efforts in including useful and interesting objective testing to the subjective reviews (yours and others), and do not want my disagreements, comments and suggestions to be misinterpreted as complaining about anything in your efforts in this. Sincere thanks for what you do provide. I just sometimes want more.

Kursun's picture

I believe it is an art form to design a good back panel, as well as the front panel.

In this example the speaker posts are tucked away into corner, cramped together along with a ground post.

A very poor design indeed.

Jack L's picture

Hi

I do not agree. BACK panel is for connection terminals. Function is the top priority over "art form" !

This is a pretty decent back panel design: right hand side for digital &
left hand side for analogue connection terminals to reduce RFI/EMI noise emitting from the digital side to the analogue side inside the amp & the connection cables outside the amp.

"cramped together with a ground post" qtd Kunsun.

With audio output power only 80Wrms @8ohm/channel, no need large gauge size ground cable at all. So why "cramped together" ???

Jack L

JRT's picture

The manual for the Roksan Attessa states that loudspeaker cable assemblies terminated with 4mm banana plugs are the Roksan's recommended method of connecting loudspeakers to their amplifier. The binding posts each have a 4mm banana jack/receptacle at the end with a plastic plug which must be removed to accept the banana plug. The manual also mentions the alternative method of using unterminated loudspeaker cable with wire ends stripped bare and inserted into the binding posts, and further states that the binding posts may accept no larger than 12AWG wire, and they recommend using no smaller than 16AWG.

To your point, there is plenty of clearance if the recommendations stated in the manual are followed.

Jack L's picture

as I design/build phono-preamp & power amps for decades.

The problem is many readers here just want spit out whatever like or dislike without the right knowledge.

Jack L

JRT's picture

Roksan's Attessa integrated amplifier is available without the network attached streamed digital audio receiver-processor functionality for significantly lower price. That wasn't mentioned in the review, but a very cursory web search turned up some online vendors. I only looked at pricing from the first online vendor in the search results.

Without that added functionality, the vendor's asking price is $2.1k. With that functionality, $3.2k (article mentions $3.4k MSRP). Both versions include the DAC and Bluetooth. The networked streamed audio functionality could be provided by a separate component rather than the integrated internal component.

When this is out of warranty, out of production, an obsolete product, out of active support, no longer receiving regular updates/patches to software/firmware, the integrated amplifier functionality may continue to function for several decades until some internal electronics component eventually fails. Unpatched software/firmware in the network attached hardware may cause some big problems beyond the audio playback setup.

I am not confident that the network security patches will be promptly released as new malware and network security vulnerabilities continually emerge, especially after the product is no longer offered for sale new by the manufacturer. I wouldn't want something attached to my LAN sniffing packets and skimming passwords and other account credentials on my network. I would rather have a separate nonproprietary device providing this networked streaming functionality, something I can easily update and eventually upgrade or replace separately from the audio amplifiers, control preamplifier, DA converter, etc.

Jack L's picture

Hi

BINGO ! Great minds think alike !?

That's exactly what yours truly cheapskate has done since day one of streaming: no costly brandname all-in digital preamps/integrated amps which are always prone to obsolescene sooner if not later.

Being a vinyl addict, why should I spend any decent money for any digital audio ? So with very little money, I got a dirt-cheap no-name DVD player with LAN/streaming function/auto-upgradable firmwares, + a dirt-cheap DAC (24bit-192KHz). Yet they both serve me nice & neat on playing music CD/DVDs & allow me to watch any on-line classical music programmes - FREE via say, YouTube.

Play smart is the name of the digital game - never spend big bucks in it due to its every changing "vulnerabilities".

Listening is believing

Jack L

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