Integrated Amp Reviews

Stereophile often subjects products that have been reviewed to further coverage: sometimes because there was an aspect of performance that needed further investigation; other times because there was a controversial finding. Three recent followups concerned the Ayre Acoustics EX-8 2.0 Integrated Hub amplifier that Ken Micallef reviewed in the November 2021 issue; the Accuphase DG-68 Digital Voicing Equalizer that Jason Victor Serinus reviewed in August 2021; and the Zesto Leto Ultra II line preamplifier that Ken Micallef reviewed in February 2021.

For 16 years, I bled jazz. Countless hours alone in my practice shed, honing technique, recording myself for brutal self-analysis, dissecting and transcribing master drummers' solos note for note. My dream was to transcend technique, to exist in a state of pure reaction among musicians in perfect communion, where improvisation flows as effortlessly as thought.

The years melted away—George Lawrence Stone's sticking variations, Benjamin Podemski's concert drum solos, dog-eared "Real Book" charts, college big band concerts, smoky jam sessions, a basement practice routine that nearly deafened Mom. Once I was in NYC, there were classes at Drummer's Collective.

With intense application, playing became rote. But in rare moments of surrender, it wasn't me playing the music anymore. The music played me—ideas transmitted effortlessly, without thought, guided by some unseen force: maybe the woman in the third row, maybe the ghost of Tony Williams. In such moments, when fatigue stilled the mind, instrument and music intertwined, a single entity responding not to conscious thought but to some unknown, unknowable force. What ensued was beyond my mental reach.

Two of the followup reviews that were published in the November 2020 issue of Stereophile have been posted to the magazine's website: Herb Reichert on the Yamaha A-S3200 integrated amplifier and the measurements of the Denafrips Ares II and Terminator D/A processors.

From the 1088 establishment of the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the Western world, to the invention of the radio by Guglielmo Marconi in the mid-1890s, Italy has been at the forefront of innovation and artistic pursuit. Modern Italy stands as a testament to its vibrant past.

"The Italian Renaissance, which began in Florence in the 1380s, marks the first moment when Europeans stepped away from the traditional and medieval pious Christian view of man to embrace values and attitudes they had discovered through studying the culture of the ancient world," wrote William ("Bill") Adams, a former professor of Italian history, in an email. "Those values, belief in the dignity and worth of man, in human development through education which, having spread through Europe, led to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment."

In 1996, Bill and I journeyed to Tuscany, where we stayed in a mountaintop castle nestled within the ancient walls of San Gimignano. Returning to Italy in the summer of 2024, I embarked on a tour with kindred spirits. Our travels took us from savoring perfectly al dente pasta in Rome to indulging in boot-sized portions of tiramisu in Tuscany. We also ventured into the Treviso countryside, where we toured the Unison Research (UR) factory. This is where I had my first exposure to Unison Research's S6 Black Edition Integrated Amplifier ($6999).

In 1999, I visited a friend, professor of Italian history Bill Adams, at his castle lair in the mountain village of Panzano, in Chianti, Italy. The 10th-century Castello di Panzano towers over the lush Tuscan hills, offering stupendous views. Each morning we'd walk down the mountain to the town below, where squat old men drank espresso and watched soccer at the all-in-one café/general store/post office. We toured the Roman ruins at Volterra and San Gimignano, gorged ourselves on pasta, and admired the fashionable young women.

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.

Founded in 1995 by Uwe Bartel, Vincent Audio is owned by Sintron Distribution GmbH. Vincent launched its LS-1 preamplifier and D-150 hybrid stereo power amplifier the year the company was founded.

Vincent "offers two 'electrical concepts,'" states the Vincent website. "One side is solid state transistor products. The other is a hybrid technology featuring vacuum tubes on the input stages combined with solid state transistors in the output stage."