It's my guess that many folks out there want good sound but can't be bothered with separates. All those folks know when they walk into a store or look online is that they need a receiver. And in this digital age, when many people listen to music from their computers, a receiver with a good onboard DAC that can also take a straight USB input is pretty much a necessity. However, most products designed as simplified, all-in-one packages have almost no audiophile pedigree. In fact, I'm sure that, in terms of sound quality, most audiophiles would justifiably rate receivers as the lowest of the low.

So I read with hope about Bel Canto Design's new C7R, an honest-to-god receiver (Bel Canto calls it a DAC integrated amplifier) that boasts some truly high-end amplification aspirations, comes with a built-in DAC with USB input, an FM tuner, and an analog input, and costs a respectably fair $2995. I got one in for a listen.

Ins and Outs
The C7R, like all Bel Canto products, is a cute little thing whose half-width (8.5") steel chassis and aluminum faceplate give it an air of simple elegance. On the front panel is a display, and a knob that can be pushed to select the input, and rotated to adjust the volume and tuning frequency—in fact, it's all you need to control most of what the C7R does. I found this knob simple and straightforward to use—simple enough that even a first-time user will be able to figure it out in about 10 seconds. All of the C7R's functions can also be used via the remote control, which will also command any other Bel Canto product. However, compared to the simplicity of the faceplate knob, the remote's layout is just plain dumb (during a recent trip to my listening room, John Atkinson couldn't get it to work consistently), it has way too many buttons, and it feels cheap in the hand. Hey, Bel Canto—there must be a better remote control you could make. The remote aside, everything else about the C7R feels like first-rate construction. It was a joy to behold and to use.

Aside from HDMI, AES/EBU, and balanced analog inputs, the C7R accepts whatever you want to plug into it. It has an unbalanced analog input that will accept line-level signals, and a phono input for use with moving-magnet cartridges. On the digital side, it has one 24/96 USB, two 24-bit/192kHz S/PDIF, and two 24/96 TosLink inputs. The S/PDIF inputs are terminated with RCA jacks, just in case you use BNC connectors (I often do). The digital inputs are attached to 24/192 digital-to-analog converters based on Bel Canto's Two-Stage Master Reference Ultra-Clock, which rejects digital jitter and allows the C7R to play with a claimed dynamic range of over 115dB in the digital realm. My only, and slight, disappointment was the lack of glass ST fiber-optic input, which my Bel Canto e.One DAC 3.5VB Mk.II D/A converter does support. This type of glass input works with Bel Canto's other USB-related products, such as their old Light Link and their new uLink and RefLink. (The ST connection's wider bandwidth compared with plastic fiber-optic connections, allows it to transfer signals over longer runs of cable without increasing jitter.) Oh, well—I can't expect this little thing to do everything.

The C7R's power-amplifier section, based on the ICEpower module used in Bel Canto's e.One REF150S power amplifier, puts out 120Wpc into 4 ohms or 60Wpc into 8 ohms. This makes the C7R usefully powerful, but you're not gonna be running a disco off this baby. The C7R's heavily regulated switch-mode power supplies and switching output stage allow it to operate with high efficiency and minimal heat dissipation—it draws only 14W when on. I found that the C7R got only barely warmer than the ambient temperature of my room, which should allow it to be placed anywhere. In fact, the C7R also comes with an IR remote input—it could be tucked away, entirely out of sight, while an external eye made possible remote control. The C7R's volume control is a 24-bit digital level control, so digiphobes beware: That analog input signal will be converted to digital at 192kHz with 24-bit resolution, then converted back to analog just before the output stage.

The C7R can output sound in three ways: via its line-level output, which can also be used as a home-theater bypass; via the two pairs of WBT Next Gen binding posts on its rear panel; and via the &#188" headphone jack on its faceplate.

Headphone listening
I began listening to the C7R as I finished editing A Drop in the Ocean, a new CD by the Portland State Chamber Choir. As always, I used my trusty Sennheiser HD600 headphones to listen carefully to each splice I made. Editing this album was a challenge; we'd recorded in a very reverberant space, and not only did I need to make sure that each splice lined up in time with the music, I also had to match the decaying reverberation of the outgoing splice with the ambience of the incoming splice. If the reverberations don't match, the "gear change" at the splice point is jarringly audible.

Since I was doing so much headphone listening, I decided to give my Centrance DACmini headphone amp some time out, and plugged my laptop into the C7R via the latter's USB input. The C7R solidly and ably drove the HD600s, offering plenty of gain, and great immediacy and stability of tone. The sessions had been recorded at 24/88.2, and the combination of the C7R's onboard DAC and its headphone amp proved to be a very revealing and nuanced transcriber of the high-resolution files. The Bel Canto offered better image outlines of individual singers than the Centrance, separating them more from the background acoustic. The C7R's treble was a bit more extended than the Dacmini's, if perhaps a touch grainer. Through the Sennheisers, the C7R's bass had a bit more authority than the Centrance headphone amp, letting the choir's basses (I was one of them) sound as manly as we do in real life. The reverberation of the recording venue, St. Stephen's Church in Portland, Oregon, was very clear and liquid, and the C7R let me hear how well I was doing my job of splicing together performances of some great choral works.

Need a DAC with three S/PDIF inputs (two coax, one optical)? An asynchronous USB DAC? A line stage? A tubed output buffer? A power amp that should be able to drive even difficult speaker loads? Remote control? You've got them all for $1499. Just add speakers. (I assume you have a laptop computer and several disc spinners.) You may want a separate phono stage, because there is none onboard.

While well furnished with digital inputs, the nova125 has only one pair of RCA line-level analog inputs. Thus, if you connect an outboard phono stage, you'll have no extra inputs for an SACD player, an FM tuner, etc. (What's an FM tuner?)

By the way, there is only one pair of speaker outputs—very high-quality binding posts, not the cheap crap often found on budget gear—and, accordingly, no speaker-selector switch. There is a pair of RCA preamp outputs, good for a subwoofer or two, or maybe another amp. The nova125's single pair of RCA line-level inputs could be a major inconvenience for some, like me. There is no mono switch. There are no tone controls. The result is a refreshing lack of clutter.

The nova125 is resolutely two-channel. You know how you look at the back of a home-theater amplifier and see 52 pair of inputs? There's none of that here. Money is not spent and sound is not spoiled by crappy connectors, too much circuitry, etc. The Peachtree nova125 is not a pile of consumer shit.

The nova125's ESS Sabre 903 DAC chip is sometimes found in far more expensive models. The USB DAC is asynchronous up to 24-bit/192kHz, if you're into high-resolution downloads, or might be in the near future.

Setup and System
Alas, I was not able to use the nova125's USB input. It would not recognize the original Mac mini in my office, which runs OS 10.3.9. I should have a more up-to-date computer, but I really can't decide whether to get another Mini or a laptop or an iPad, or all three, or even whether to stay with Apple. My original Mini works fine. So does my 1958 Underwood office typewriter, which I still use at least once a day. Every day I keep my Mini, I have outfoxed Apple. My wife more than makes up for it, with all the newest 'pods, 'phones, and 'pads.

I plugged my Sony XA-777ES SACD/CD player into one of the nova125's coaxial S/PDIF inputs, so that I could use the Sony as a disc transport. For SACDs, I ran the player's two-channel output into the pair of RCA analog inputs. This put me in a fix for my EAR 834 phono stage, not to mention my XDR-F1HD digital FM tuner, a product so good that Sony stopped making it.

I would have welcomed a convenient way to connect my iPhone 4, which Marina bought for me when I wouldn't. Some kind of dock would have been nice. But maybe Peachtree Audio is prescient: The new iPhone 5 dock is different from earlier docks and requires an adapter. For me, the only way to listen to the BBC through my iPhone was to use the phone's headphone output into the nova125's single pair of analog inputs. Of course, I had to disconnect my phono stage, SACD player, or FM tuner.

Speakers were my Harbeth 30.1 monitors. They made a peach of a pair with the nova125, especially in terms of dynamic drive. Resolution and transparency were other matters, but what do you expect for $1499? Everything? Compare the nova125 with some of your dealer's more expensive integrated amplifiers—the ones that don't have an asynchronous USB DAC, a tubed output buffer, etc.

Speaking of which: The nova125's line stage is followed by that buffer—a single Russian 6N1P dual-triode tube—which the user can switch in or out from the remote control, though not from the front panel. The tube looks hard to access, and the manual doesn't tell you how. When the buffer stage is engaged, a blue LED illuminates the tube to let you (and everyone else) know it's on. Showmanship!

The headphone output is a proper ¼" jack that takes its signal directly from the line stage, with the tubed buffer in or out of circuit, depending on the user's preference. You decide. The remote is a great convenience with headphones—I needn't jump up and spill my glass of Bas Armagnac. Plugging in a set of headphones mutes the power-amp section.

The cabinet is beautiful: real-wood veneer over MDF. When the cabinet is made, a machine squashes the MDF and wraps the veneer at the same time. This results in rounded sides—no edges. A "tool" inside the cabinet prevents it from getting crushed in the process, which I think involves steam. Sexual innuendos invited . . .

For all of its up-to-date features, I find something retro about the look of nova125—and about its sound. With its silver faceplate, it reminds me of classic Yamaha gear from the early 1970s. The nova125 does not look primitive, excessively macho, or gaudy. It is tasteful, not tacky.

Class-D isn't digital, even if it sometimes sounds that way
The D in class-D does not stand for digital, although early class-D amplifiers made me think that it did.

With a class-D amplifier, almost all the electricity you draw from the mains is turned into power that actually drives your speakers. I was once told that 45W from the mains would produce something like 42W of amplifier output. At idle, a class-D amplifier uses practically no power at all. Some day, the Green Police may decree that all amplifiers be class-D—just as they're trying to ban old-fashioned light bulbs, and take away real Christmas-tree lights.

Class-D amps are sometimes called switching amplifiers because the output devices are either completely on or completely off. A class-D amp delivers either all the current available from its power supply or none at all. Its voltage output doesn't vary, except for the few microseconds it takes to switch from on to off. This is called pulse-width modulation (PWM). The longer the pulse, the louder the sound. In quiet passages, the pulses barely peep. The pulses are produced by modulating a carrier frequency way above the audioband. The carrier frequency is filtered out. AM radio works much the same way, but its carrier frequency is much lower. The first switching-amplifier designs date back to the early 1930s. So, no, class-D does not mean digital.

With class-D modules, an amplifier designer can reduce the size of the power supply, cutting the amplifier's size and cost. I'm told that the modules are almost plug-and-play for a designer. There's another advantage for manufacturers: There seem to be fewer ways an amplifier manufacturer can muck up a product because so much of each amplifier has already been made, in the form of those modules.

Alas, there have been some problems with class-D amplification that have tended to outweigh its advantages for serious audio listening.

Ah, yes, noise: the PWM process generates high-frequency noise akin to digital audio quantization noise. (Maybe this is why some listeners have found that class-D amplifiers sound "digital" even when they're not.) And that pesky carrier frequency, which requires a sharp-slope brick-wall filter, can in turn mess with phase and cause high-frequency ripple in the audioband: the so-called "in-band artifacts." This is probably why one British critic (I can't recall who) likened the sound of class-D amps to the sound of shattering glass.

Manufacturers of class-D amplifiers have tended not to talk about these things, just as manufacturers of traditional class-A/B designs would rather not mention notch distortion: that moment when the waveform passes from positive to negative or back again, push and pull. Push/pull is always audible. That's the joy of single-ended triodes.

Did I mention that many audiophiles and most hi-fi critics hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest? The problem is, we are not born with notch filters.

In home-theater amplifiers and car audio, where class-D has long ruled, these niceties need not matter.

The Dead Zone: The truth comes out
In class-D there is a form of notch distortion, too: what engineers secretly call "dead time." That's the interval, however short, when neither the positive nor the negative stage is conducting current. In other words, switching amplifiers don't just turn on and off; there's a dead zone between: silent gaps in the audio output. How does that show up in the sound? Maybe as timing errors that mess with the music's harmonic structure. For me, class-D amplifiers have tended to sound threadbare—like my worn, thin trousers from Walmart.

Why not solve the dead-zone problem by allowing both devices, positive and negative, to be simultaneously on—but ever so briefly? That, unfortunately, can blow up the amp, either immediately or over time. In other words, if a switching amp doesn't switch quickly enough, it can fail. Ever had a powered subwoofer blow up? I have. Boom, then bust.

Now the good news.

Manufacturers of class-D modules and amplifiers have not been standing still. There is too much riding on making class-D work: labor savings, reliability, customer acceptance (smaller size, less heat), and, just maybe, the Green Police. If you wake up tomorrow morning and find that Australia or New Zealand has mandated class-D amplifiers, don't be surprised.

So it goes with the new AX-5 amplifier ($9950) from Ayre Acoustics, in which designer Charles Hansen has both revived an overlooked technology from a half-century ago and brought to market a more affordable embodiment of one of his own most well-received products. All this comes in a package that requires no more room than the average electric typewriter, and that takes the place of everything you might normally put between your digital source components and your loudspeakers. It breaks a few rules—and almost breaks the dreaded five-figure price barrier—but the AX-5 is, in fact, an integrated amplifier, if one whose like you may not have seen till now.

Description
That all-but-forgotten technology is the diamond circuit: a gateable bridge network of four bipolar transistors first described in 1964. Imagine, on the left-hand side—the signal-input side—a PNP transistor, and, below it, an NPN transistor, tied together at their bases; and, on the right-hand or signal-output side, an NPN transistor and, below that, a PNP transistor, this pair having their emitters tied together. The emitters of the left-hand transistors are tied to the bases of the adjacent right-hand transistors, and the collectors are biased all around: negatively in the case of the PNPs, positively for the NPNs. When drawn in the manner I described, with connecting nodes at north, south, east, and west, the schematic assumes a diamond shape, hence the name.

Richard Baker of MIT, to whom the patent for the diamond circuit was assigned in 1967 (he applied in 1964), described it as having a number of strengths: It can operate effectively in a floating- or above-ground condition; it can produce considerable power gain; it's reliable; it's fast; and, perhaps best of all, the diamond circuit is simple. (Baker's invention is also uniquely adaptable to modular construction, a distinction that, while not germane to this review, makes his bridge network especially well suited for use in integrated circuits, including some contemporary D-to-A converter chips.)

Charles Hansen, a self-described amateur historian of audio technology, acknowledges those advantages and adds one of his own estimation: that the diamond circuit, used as an output section, simply sounds better. The reason? Hansen suggests that, when compared with other solid-state push-pull topologies—in which two phases of a signal are recombined to form a full wave—the diamond is the only one in which the two half-signals are joined at a single point in the circuit, with no intervening circuitry. Thus, the diamond circuit creates an output that's more faithful to the shape of the input (footnote 1). Ayre biases the diamond output section in the AX-5 to operate in class-A/B, whereby it delivers 125Wpc into 8 ohms or 250Wpc into 4 ohms.

Hansen's other remarkable idea for the AX-5 is a circuit innovation called variable-gain transconductance or VGT, first seen in Ayre's top-of-the-line KX-R preamplifier of 2008 ($18,500). As Hansen explains, most active preamplifiers work by applying to the input signal a certain amount of voltage gain, so the signal can effectively drive a power amplifier. But in order for there to be a reasonable volume range—and to simply keep the playback level from being too loud—the voltage-gain stage is preceded by a potentiometer, which attenuates the signal. The drawback of this is that such a preamp will exhibit its maximal signal/noise ratio only at its maximal (unattenuated) volume. As Hansen puts it, "Since most preamps are used anywhere between –10dB and –40dB for an average listening level, this means the S/N ratio in actual use will be 10–40dB worse than on the spec sheet."

As implemented in the AX-5—which doesn't incorporate a preamplifier stage per se—Ayre's VGT circuit allows the user to determine how much gain is generated by the amplifier's input stage, which itself comprises a total of four complementary-differential JFETs. The volume knob on the AX-5's front panel controls a pair of enormous, motor-driven, Shallco silver-contact rotary switches, each of which contains dozens of hand-selected, low-noise resistors. Every volume-level adjustment made by the user has the effect of switching into the AX-5's input-stage circuit a different set of resistors, the values of which alter the transconductance of those JFETs—and thus calls into play a specific level of gain corresponding with that setting. The volume system has 46 steps of 1.5dB each, over a range of 67.5dB. (I'm told that, by changing a single resistor in each of the AX-5's channels, one can adjust the overall gain range to accommodate, say, speakers that are significantly more or less sensitive than average.) Thus the AX-5 doesn't use signal attenuation at all, but rather creates variable input-circuit gain, on demand, to suit the desired volume level.

In keeping with Ayre's long-standing practice, the AX-5 is not only a zero-feedback design; its circuitry is fully balanced from input to output. Interestingly, Charles Hansen endorses balanced technology not for its ability to reject hum and noise that might enter the circuit through cables, but because it (similarly) rejects the hum and noise that could enter the signal path from the power supply. "When the day comes that a totally perfect power supply is developed, there will be no more need for using balanced circuitry in home-use applications," he has stated.

The circuitry for the AX-5's fully analog power supply is located near the front of the chassis: ie, as far as possible from the input circuitry, much of which is snugged against the rear panel. Input selection is accomplished with FET switches, implemented with Ayre's own supporting circuitry, a technology the company has employed for a number of years, and which Hansen praises as being superior to all others in noiselessness and reliability. Between the left- and right-channel input boards one finds the big Shallco rotary controls, fronted with a very high-torque Lin step motor and the custom mechanicals used to work the switches: an impressive dual-mono system, synchronized with a toothed polymer belt. A fairly enormous EI-frame power transformer occupies the very center of the chassis, straddled by the left- and right-channel output sections and their generously sized heatsinks.

Ayre says they designed the AX-5 so that its dimensions would correspond with the infamous golden ratio, in common with the other 5 series in their line. I'm baffled as to how it qualifies for such a distinction—according to my ruler, and ignoring jacks, knobs, and other protrusions, the AX-5's case is almost perfectly square. That said, I was impressed by an observation from Ayre's Alex Brinkman, who says that, after their ideal dimensions were selected, "we got the transformer we wanted, with the specs we wanted—and it was too big to fit in that chassis. So rather than make it even bigger, we cut an opening in the bottom of the chassis, to accommodate the transformer's height." Indeed they did, and rather neatly, I'd say. The finished box is made of aluminum, with a brushed exterior. Most of the fasteners are stainless steel, and the quality of fit between various panels was all right; but the panel edges were sharper, and their overall feel less smooth, than I would wish to see in a product that sells for nearly five figures.

Installation and Setup, Part One
The AX-5 comes equipped with four balanced inputs (XLR jacks) and two single-ended inputs (RCA jacks): Charles Hansen reasons that it's easier and less expensive to adapt a balanced input for single-ended use (footnote 2) than the other way around. (And the other way around will always be somewhat compromised.) In any event, given that fully balanced operation is one of Ayre's calling cards, it's reasonable to expect that the prospective buyer of an AX-R would not be troubled by the two-to-one ratio in favor of balanced inputs. Indeed, even though I don't keep a balanced system—which, I gather, is only slightly less challenging than keeping a kosher kitchen—I spent slightly more time using the amp with a borrowed sample of Ayre's balanced QB-9 D/A converter than my own single-ended Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.

Prior to use, either the buyer or the buyer's dealer must access the AX-5's Setup mode in order to configure and activate one or more of its six inputs, none of which is usable straight out of the box. In Setup mode, both the input-selector and volume knobs—on the left and right sides of the front panel, respectively—are used to scroll through and select various bits of information, typically with the aid of two front-mounted button switches. Configuration didn't take terribly long—it's a software thing, done from outside the amp, no tools required—and would seem to be within the capabilities of anyone with the patience to read the manual and to follow the steps as written. (None of the AX-5's setup regimens was sufficiently intuitive that I could perform it without manual in hand, even after weeks of use.)

Once configured, the AX-5 was simple to use. With AC power applied by means of a hefty rear-panel rocker switch, the Ayre is roused from its low-power-consumption mode—in which bias current is removed from the collectors of the output transistors—with a push of the right-hand button. (Subsequent to that, a brief press of the same switch effectively mutes all inputs; a long press returns the AX-5 to low-power mode.) From there, things are straightforward: Use the left-hand knob to select the desired input (only inputs that have been configured will show up as choices: a boon, I think, for those of us who dislike the cognitive clutter of choices in which we have no interest), the right-hand knob to adjust the volume. As to the latter, the electromechanical noise produced by each step up or down the ladder of loud takes some getting used to—sounding, as it does, like a roof leak dripping into an empty metal pail. After a day or two, I found it rather charming.

Footnote 2: Ayre makes and sells such an adapter ($75/pair).

In 1995, I heard that Mike Creek was updating all of his electronics, and became intrigued by his new flagship integrated, the 4240SE, which became the subject of the first review I wrote for Stereophile, for the December 1995 issue. I was amazed at how its performance exceeded that of my beloved 4140s2. I bought the review sample, and moved the 4140s2 to my computer audio system.

A few years later, Mike Creek again launched new, more powerful, more expensive integrated amps, and I again reviewed his new flagship: the 5350SE (March 2001). Again, its performance significantly exceeded that of its predecessor; again, I bought the review sample.

In 2007, I got a call from Creek's US importer, Roy Hall, of Music Hall Audio: "Mike Creek has a new circuit design and a new flagship design." Oh, no—not again. I reviewed it in the January 2007 issue. Once more, the performance of a new Creek—the Destiny this time—exceeded the performance of its predecessor. Once more, I bought the review sample. You'd think I'd be used to this pattern.

But no. Recently, I called Roy Hall to request a review sample of the Epos Elan 10 loudspeaker, recommended to me by a Stereophile reader—it's the replacement model for the M5i, probably my favorite Epos bookshelf model. "Yeah, you can review the speaker," Roy said, "but there's something more exciting you need to review first. Mike Creek has a new integrated amplifier."

Here we go again. "What does it cost this time, Roy?" I braced myself, ready to hear that Mike Creek had broken the $3000 price barrier. After all, his current flagship integrated, the Destiny 2, costs $2795.

"No no no. Creek has developed a new, innovative circuit design that you'll see implemented in all the company's designs in the near future. But this time, he's first introduced the new design in an amplifier that is less expensive than anything he currently makes."

I've known Roy Hall for 25 years. Sure, he's a salesman—but he has great ears, and he's honest. As Roy talked about the sound of the Creek Evolution 50A integrated, his voice expressed an enthusiasm I'd never heard from him before. Then he told me the price: $1195.

The Circuitry Magic
The new circuit, which Mike Creek attributes to his senior engineer, David Gamble, is incorporated in what appears to be a conventional class-A/B amplifier. The maximum output power is specified as >55Wpc into 8 ohms and over 85Wpc into 4 ohms. Two Sanken bipolar power transistors are used for each channel; these incorporate temperature-sensing devices so that the output stage bias current can be adjusted automatically. The 50A's 200W toroidal power transformer has separate windings for its high- and low-current analog and digital circuits. Creek claims that this results in low magnetic interference. The 50A's power supply features several small value, low-impedance capacitors in parallel to effectively create a single high-specification capacitor to smooth DC.

The Evolution 50A's preamplifier circuit provides more flexibility and control than is typical in an amp at this price. The preamp has four single-ended inputs and one balanced input, one of which can accommodate one of three moving-magnet or moving-coil plug-in phono boards, which cost $150–$225 and differ from each other in the amount of gain required. (My sample lacked a phono board.) The 50A has a separate set of preamp out jacks, and one of its line inputs can be set to AV Direct mode, so it can be used for the front left and right channels of a multichannel system in which the volume is controlled by the surround-sound receiver. AV Direct can also be used to slave the Evolution 50A to another 50A, to biamplify a pair of speakers. In the future, the 50A will be available with a plug-in tuner module accessible by one of the line inputs.

In addition to the large input selector and volume knobs, the 50A has buttons for Balance as well as Tone: treble and bass controls that can be assigned, via front-panel pushbuttons, to the volume control knob. The display can be dimmed or turned off. There's also a headphone jack, but I didn't test the headphone amplifier during my listening sessions.

The elaborate, well-laid-out remote control gives the user access to all of these functions, the tuner module when that becomes available, and the CD and DAC functions of Creek's other Evolution 50 and Evolution 100 products. The Evolution 50A is available with a faceplate in attractive brushed silver or black.

The Sound of Magic?
I like to test a new component's midrange by checking out how well it reproduces a woman's voice. I listened to the entirety of Alison Krauss and Union Station's Live (CD, Rounder 11661-0515-2), and was impressed by the lack of coloration but the high level of refinement in the Evolution 50A's reproduction of Krauss's rich, silky voice. I had a similar reaction to woodwinds. I've been giving John Coltrane's Stardust (CD, Prestige PRCD-30168) a lot of play lately—I'm continually drawn in by the writing, the arrangements, the playing, and the seductive sound quality. (I must get me an original vinyl pressing of this baby.) In the title track, Coltrane's tenor saxophone was breathy but liquid and silky, with a sense of low-level dynamic linearity that I'm not used to hearing from electronics in this price range.

The 50A's resolution of high-frequency detail, delicacy, and air enabled me to enjoy every track on Ghost Town, a solo album by guitarist Bill Frisell (CD, Nonesuch 79583-2). He plays pretty much a different axe on each track, but I most loved his shimmering, chiming upper register in his arrangement of an early John McLaughlin composition, "Follow Your Heart." I had a similar reaction to guitarist Marc Ribot's solo-guitar work in his Silent Movies (CD, Pi PI34). I was particularly attracted to those tracks in which Ribot plays in the lower register of his amplified archtop guitar—through the Creek, the instrument had a rich, woody resonance.

"Price point" designers (Arcam, Audible Illusions, Audio Alchemy, Creek, Grado) who have built their reputations by placing all of their designs under very stringent cost constraints. The presumption is that they target serious music lovers of modest financial means.

"Trickle-down" designers (eg, Alón, Audio Research, Cary, MIT, VPI) have made their marks by designing breakthrough designs whose cost considerations take a back seat to sound quality, and, in extreme cases, may be ignored entirely. Reputations thus established, these designers seek to expand their markets by applying their fundamental design philosophies—and the magic of their pricey designs—within a more cost-constrained context.

Unlike most equipment reviewers, who begin by reviewing budget gear and go up in price as their experience grows, I've moved in the opposite direction. Although I play with the big-bucks boys, as a reviewer I prefer to seek out inexpensive gear that sets new standards at low price points.

This accomplishes two objectives: It locates components that enable a higher level of performance at any given cost constraint, and it brings more people into the hobby, by sending the message that this is not solely a rich man's sport. (Today, $2500 can buy better sound than $5000 did five years ago, or $10,000 did 10 years ago.) My greatest joy as a reviewer is to put together a modestly priced system for a friend and watch the smile on her face as she plays through her music collection as if hearing the stuff for the first time. Which brings me to...

Creek
Roy Hall of Music Hall in Great Neck, New York, is Creek's US distributor and is also part-owner. Hall's rooms at past Stereophile and CE Shows reveal his strategy of bringing very-low-cost serious British high-end gear into the US. At every show I've attended, Music Hall has achieved some of the best sound using some of the least expensive components. Creek electronics were always in use. (They also make CD players, and for a while sold a cute little bookshelf speaker.)

My first experience with a Mike Creek design was with the 4140s2 integrated amplifier I reviewed in 1990 (Sounds Like... No.8, footnote 1). This $550 40W unit (which included a killer low-output moving-coil phono stage, no less) impressed me so much that I purchased it, and I've used it in my lowest-price reference system ever since.

For its price at the time, the 4140s2 was an incredibly detailed, dynamic, and fairly neutral unit whose sonic performance and parts'n'construction quality hinted at a much higher price. The 4140s2's magic was in the way it put the music together (rather than analyzing it or picking it apart) to convey a realistic, involving musical experience. The British mags would call this "following the tune," and the American undergrounds would term it "spectral and temporal coherency." The bass extension and speed on this baby (read: lots of current produced into real speaker loads) was killer. On the minus side, images on the soundstage were rather two-dimensional, with limited stage depth, and the lower high frequencies had a slightly metallic, etched quality—this amp wasn't a good match for speakers with bright tweeters.

In 1989, Creek was sold to TGI (Tannoy/Mordaunt Short); shortly thereafter, Mike Creek left the company. Roy Hall, Creek, and Creek's European distributor bought the company back from TGI in 1993, after which the entire Creek line was revamped. The 4240 integrated amplifier, which replaced the 4140s2 in 1993, was the first Mike Creek design released under the new ownership.

When the 4240's first production unit entered the country, Wes Phillips and I visited Roy Hall's home to compare the new amplifier with the 4140s2 and to meet the designer. During this delightful evening (wherein Roy served a 1988 Tignanello to accompany takeout pizza—the man has his priorities straight), the comparison was enlightening. Although I'm reluctant to comment on comparisons made with unfamiliar systems, this listening session convinced me that the 4240 had achieved new levels of body, palpability, and realism, which the earlier amp had lacked. It also seemed as if the lower high-frequency edge had been scotched.

Enter the 4240
The only way to be sure was to get one of those suckers into my reference system posthaste; I was fortunate to receive one of the early review samples. My listening sessions confirmed a natural and refined quality that I normally associate with expensive tube amplifiers. Rather than the forward, etched quality of its predecessor, the 4240 eased me into the music gently and let its holographic timbres wash over me. Unfortunately, the bass was inferior to the 4140s2, as the midbass on down had a thick, rounded quality—not objectionable, but clearly a step backward.

All in all, however, the new amp was far superior, and the minor bass tradeoff was well worth the integrated result. As I prepared my review (The Abso!ute Sound, Issue 100), I wondered to what extent other reviewers would share my enthusiasm. It turned out my view was in the minority, as both Corey Greenberg (Stereophile, July 1994), and Rob Doorack (Listener, Issue 2, Spring 1995) issued negative press on the 4240, implying that Mike Creek had taken a step backward. To paraphrase these gentlemen, the 4240 lacked the excitement and drive of the earlier unit. It was too laid-back. It was boring.

I can only scratch my head and conclude that these gentlemen like a more exciting than real presentation; one enhanced by the etched lower high frequencies of the 4140s2. But to my ears, naturalness rules; the Creek 4240 presented a much more convincing sonic transcription of the live musical event than did its predecessor.

Which brings us to the matter at hand. Before revamping its lineup, Creek marketed a top-of-the-line integrated amp, the 6060. At nearly double the price of the 4140s2, it basically provided a high-power option for those who liked the sound of the 4140s2, wanted more than 40W, and didn't want to make the jump to separates. I was perplexed, and had begun to think the company was ignoring a key potential market segment, when I learned that Creek's new management had no interest in introducing a replacement for the 6060. In 1995 Creek did introduce the P42 and A42 preamp/amp combo, which offered, at 50Wpc, a higher-powered Creek option.

Don't you deserve something special?
Creek has now finally introduced a higher-power integrated amplifier, the 4240 Special Edition, at a price of $800. Externally, the only difference between the special edition and the standard 4240 is the gold lettering on its faceplate (Creek traditionally uses green). The functions of the two units are identical: five inputs, including an auxiliary input which can be converted to phono by purchasing an additional moving-magnet ($50) or moving-coil board ($95). The simply–laid-out unit sports volume and balance controls, and a headphone jack. For those who wish to complement the amp with additional electronics in a more elaborate system, both preamp-out and amplifier-in jacks are provided.

The Special Edition also includes the most annoying feature I've seen on any piece of electronics, one shared by the entire Creek line: Deltron speaker connections in the back of the amp. These wonderful little jacks mate with Deltron males, which actually seem to provide a better connection than typical five-way binding posts. The problem is, they're incompatible with most American connections. The Deltron jacks do accept banana plugs or "fat bananas"—which I understand Music Hall sells—but are incompatible with the spade lugs and bare wire commonly used in the US low-cost electronics market. Of course, Music Hall dealers will be happy to custom-terminate wires for customers, but then the wires will have compatibility problems with other gear.

I found all this highly annoying: I tried to hook up a new pair of speakers, and found I had three sets of speaker cable custom-terminated with these stupid plugs. They therefore could not be mated with the screw terminals and Edison Price Music Posts on the back of my Audio Research and Cary amps, respectively. You'd think Creek/Music Hall would have realized by now that their segment of the market, more than any other, is driven by convenience.

Open ze box, and the upgrades on the Special Edition are obvious. What Mike Creek has done is replace the output devices and toroidal transformer of the 4240 with those of the 50W A42 basic amplifier. In addition, some minor parts upgrades have been performed on the preamp section, including the addition of a silky high-quality ALPS pot for the volume control. The SE retains the DC-coupled pre- and power-amp sections of the original 4240, as well as the lack of capacitors in the signal path.

As it turns out, this British company has been in business just 30 years—itself no small feat in perfectionist audio—and founder Glenn Croft actually doesn't spend his days winding transformers. Although Croft's first commercial product was, indeed, a tubed amplifier, he has dedicated the past few years of his professional life to making hybrid amps with decidedly simple—in the purist sense of the word, of course—solid-state output sections. The latest of these is the comparatively humbly priced and plainly named Phono Integrated ($1895), a sample of which made its way here some time between this year's Montreal and New York audio shows.

Description
For his latest product, Glenn Croft has combined in a single package—and thus, one assumes, a comparatively thrifty package—a pair of products that already exist in the Croft line, neither of them lavishly priced themselves: the Micro 25 preamplifier ($1395) and the Series 7 power amplifier ($1395). The resulting integrated amplifier, while possessed of specifications that slightly differ from those of its two forebears, is one in which line- and moving-magnet–compatible phono-stage gain is provided by vacuum tubes, and output power is provided by transistors.

From the Phono Integrated's gold-plated but blessedly non-massive RCA jacks, input signals go straight to a rotary input-selector switch, from which they are ushered to a dual-mono pair of volume pots. Phono-stage gain is provided by a stereo pair of ECC83 (12AX7) dual-triode tubes, made by JJ Audio of Slovakia, while RIAA equalization is applied by passive parts. A third ECC83, using a pair of P9NK50 MOSFETs as a constant-current source, is the voltage amplifier for the output section, which is built around a complementary pair of J162 and K1058 MOSFETs. In the right-rear corner of the Croft amp—as far as one can get from those small-signal tubes—is a simple and very cleanly executed analog power supply, with separate rectifiers for tubes and transistors.

Apart from a small circuit board containing the bipolar timer and relays for the amp's warm-up circuitry, the Phono Integrated is hand-wired, point to point, with neatly made solder joins and Bakelite terminal strips. Two separate aluminum brackets support the tubes and output transistors, the latter fitted with a heatsink of appropriate size, and while the Phono Integrated lacks a metal partition between its input section and its power supply, the amp proved free of hum and noise during use.

The two-part steel chassis was well painted inside and out, with all parts held neatly in place with appropriate fasteners. Build quality, styling, and ergonomics were all better than I expected for this product category and price range: In common with high-end amplifiers from before the dark era of thick faceplates, digital displays, and other sonically dubious decorations, the Croft's casework is quite nicely designed and finished, without weighing—or costing—an iota more than necessary. On unpacking the Phono Integrated, the first words that entered my mind were "Plain but cheaply elegant."

Setup and installation
As one might hope of such a product, the Croft Phono Integrated held no unpleasant setup surprises. Because it exhibited slightly less gain than necessary for the 1.05mV output of my EMT TSD 15 pickup head, I preceded the Croft's phono-input jacks with my Silvercore One-to-Ten step-up transformer, which also provides an appropriate load for the moving-coil EMT. That left three pairs of line-level input jacks for my two line-level sources: a Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player and a selection of different USB D/A converters (see "Associated Equipment"). The Croft's stereo pair of speaker connectors—which appear identical to the ones used on my Shindo amplifiers—suited the banana plugs on my reference Auditorium 23 speaker cables and a loaner pair of TelWire cables. I experimented with neither isolation devices nor aftermarket AC cords.

From the moment I flipped its front-mounted power toggle, the Phono Integrated required 69 seconds of warm-up before signaling that it was ready to play music (which it indicates by changing the hue of its pilot light from red to green); after that, the case never became more than moderately warm to the touch. Controls are basic, and though I regretted the lack of a mono switch, I was absolutely delighted by having separate volume controls for the left and right channels: my preferred way of doing things in any event. The Croft did not come with a remote handset, which suited me just fine: I seldom use them, and while it would be overstating the case to say that I resent having to pay for the things and their supporting circuitry, that isn't far off. To me, remote controls are much more an annoyance than a convenience.

Listening
Cold and out of the box, the Croft Phono Integrated sounded just a little bit grainy, but at the same time it was exceptionally involving and impactful for such an affordable product, with notably good frequency extension toward both extremes and a treble range that wasn't the least bit hard or glassy. The graininess diminished significantly over the following two days, and although the Croft's sound remained just slightly more textured than neutral, I found myself impressed with its character from that moment forward.

Listening to the first selection on Jacques Loussier's seminal Play Bach No.1 (LP, Decca/Speakers Corner SSL 40 500 S), it was impossible not to notice one of the Croft's greatest strengths: It clarified, better than my own electronics, the precise pitches of every fast-moving note played by the remarkable bassist Pierre Michelot. Not only that, but, through DeVore Fidelity's Orangutan O/96 speakers, the Croft did almost as good a job as the Shindo Cortese in getting across the idea of touch in the playing, especially the more subtle gradations of same in Loussier's piano. Besides, percussionist Christian Garros's triangle was perfectly audible—without undue brightness—and musical timing and pacing were superb.

With "Once Upon a Time," from Frank Sinatra's September of my Years (LP, Reprise FS-1014), the Croft showed good momentum, perhaps owing to the combination of tautness and sheer depth it brought to the plucked bass strings. The Croft didn't have the organic sense of note-to-note flow that characterizes my reference tube amps, and its string tones were a little ragged, seeming freighted with a bit too much (artificial) texture. Nevertheless, the Phono Integrated delivered the emotional goods, and pulled me into the song.

Similarly, the Croft didn't approach my Shindo separates in conveying the rich timbral colors in the strings that open my favorite recording of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, led by Anthony Lewis and featuring a young Janet Baker (LP, L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL 60047). Yet the Croft allowed them to sound just sweet enough—and, at the same time, did a fantastic job of nailing the attack components of all the notes, allowing the strings to sound pacey and vibrant and, again, very appropriately impactful. Notably—and also from the very first notes on this great disc—the recording's unusually big, wide scale was portrayed well by the Croft.

The amp's good scale served it well on mono discs, too, as on the great recording by Fritz Lehman and the Berlin Philharmonic of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem (CD, Deutsche Grammophon/ArkivMusic 457710), which exhibited fine substance and size through the Phono Integrated. The Croft also sounded compelling with such things as the very slow harp arpeggios in the first movement, although it did betray just the slightest harshness on massed vocal peaks there and in the second movement.

Well-recorded piano music—such as Chopin's Waltz, Op.34 No.2, performed by Witold Malcuzynski (CD, EMI Classics/ArkivMusic 68226)—showed the Croft at its weakest, timbrally, with a sound that was markedly more grainy, and even a bit chalky, compared with the best tubed amps. That said, in my estimation, the Croft more than made up for shortcomings in that regard by being more explicit than average with shadings of touch and tempo. Nor did other keyboards go wanting: The pounding piano in "Golden Opportunity," from Ian Hunter's Overnight Angels (LP, CBS 81993), never pounded as hard as it did through the Croft. Much the same could be said of Donald Bailey's drumming—not to mention Quentin Warren's electric guitar, plus the downright sensual note attacks of the electric organ—in "Sista Rebecca," from Jimmy Smith's Open House (LP, Blue Note BST 84269).

On the downside, although not at all bright or even light in its tonal balance, the Croft didn't spare me the bad news of the peaky top ends that made cymbals sizzle overmuch, over-emphasized vocal sibilants, and suchlike. Evidence abounds on Jenny Hval's slightly hot Innocence Is Kinky (LP, Rune Grammophone RLP3142). Ditto "Call Me Michael Moonlight" and "When the Damsons Are Down," from Martin Newell's brilliant but casually recorded The Off White Album (CD, Humbug BAH25). But this shortcoming wasn't as severe as with other amplifiers, and in any event, given the crazy-good job the Croft did with the electric bass line in the same album's "Miss Van Houten's Coffee Shoppe"—making that line more lithe and tight and colorful and deep than any other amp in the house—all was forgiven.

Conclusions
Halfway through my time with the Croft Phono Integrated, I already thought of it as one of the best affordable-perfectionist amplifiers I've heard: direct, punchy, and musical, if just a bit coarse when asked to perform outside its comfort zone. It was, if I may be forgiven for saying so, the sort of performance anyone would expect from a good circuit that isn't built with the finest or rarest of parts, but that isn't freighted with a lot of unnecessary bullshit, either. It was as honest as they come.

The Croft was, in many ways, the most impressive affordable amp I've heard in years: Not the best, per se, but the one that did the most to win me over, with its excellent build quality, its musically incisive and involving performance, and its stunning level of value. For some reason, a line from a long-ago film review, of David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of The Fly, comes to mind: "The original did more with less." Considered in such a light, the Croft Phono Integrated is that original.

And: It seems entirely possible that one could pay thousands of dollars to an industrial-design firm and still fail to achieve the clean and altogether classy appearance of understated quality that Glenn Croft has hit on here. The amp's casework is pleasant to behold, touch, and use, while avoiding altogether the ridiculousness of so many thickly faceplated and overpriced competitors.

It all comes back to my time with that Jacques Loussier album. I still remember when, a few months ago, I borrowed a current sample of the Shindo Cortese single-ended amplifier ($9995). Play Bach No.1 was the first record I played through it, and I was knocked out by a level of subtle impact that I'd never heard before from the LP. The Croft duplicated that experience. It didn't have the Shindo's timbral color or psychedelic flow, but it allowed the music the same level of excitement and impact, which is at least half the game, in my book. Maybe yours, too.

If I were a designer or a builder, this is how I would do the thing. If I were buying in this price range, this is the one I'd choose. Strongly recommended.—Art Dudley

The song had something to do with it, for sure. It was the title track of Sandro Perri's excellent Impossible Spaces (CD, Constellation CST085), which combines finger-picked acoustic guitar, hand percussion, sweet euphonium, and the surprisingly realistic sounds of distant birds—the last so expertly reproduced that the cats were as startled as I was. I sat there a while, transfixed, feeling almost lost, wishing that all of my friends and family could enjoy this level of sound quality in their homes. In what world, under what circumstances, would that be possible?

The system was mostly familiar: Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 loudspeakers ($349/pair), NAD C 316BEE CD player ($299), and AudioQuest Rocket 33 speaker cables ($329/10' pair) and Big Sur interconnects ($109/m)—each component representing extraordinary value and integral to the system's overall sound. Only the integrated amplifier was new. That day, it was NAD's D 3020.

The original NAD 3020
The D 3020 ($499) is a very new type of audio component that takes its name from a classic. In 1978, NAD, then called New Acoustic Dimension, released the original 3020 integrated amplifier, a rather funereal- but purposeful-looking thing with a drab gray chassis and large, blockish buttons. Stripped of all but the most necessary features, it was conservatively rated to deliver a meager 20Wpc and had the kind of cheap plastic speaker-binding clips that too easily break when carelessly used. Still, the 3020 became the best-selling integrated amplifier in the history of high-end audio. Counting its various iterations (3020B, 3020e, 3020i, 302, and 312), well over a million units were sold worldwide.

Why was the 3020 such a success?

Price must have had something to do with it. The amplifier's introductory price of $149 seemed an impossible bargain to most erudite audiophiles, but struck ordinary customers as fairly reasonable—not an insignificant expense, but one within their means. The 3020 was not only an affordable purchase, it was a smart one: Removable jumpers on its rear panel allowed users to tailor the 3020 to their specific needs. Stereophile senior contributing editor Wes Phillips spent lots of time with the 3020—as an integrated, as a dedicated preamplifier, and as a spare power amp. He told me via e-mail: "A lot of audiophiles did what I did and bought it expecting to utilize its separate pre- and power-amp sections, typically using it as a preamp when we bought our first power amps." Still, the 3020 wasn't merely a placeholder for something better down the road. "Those of us who moved on to separates usually kept the 3020 around as a backup," Wes added. "Few of us could part with it."

Appearance must also have been a factor. The 3020, modest as it was, was a radical alternative to the glitzier, feature-rich models then coming from Japan; by contrast, it was straightforward, no-nonsense, and entirely unpretentious: the workingman's amplifier. In the 1980s, Stereophile's webmaster, Jon Iverson, sold "boatloads" of them at Audio Ecstasy, in San Luis Obispo, California. "We joked about its military look," he told me, "but it always outperformed any similarly priced receiver. It gave us a secret weapon with a great story—killer sound, perfect set of features, and nothing more—and made customers feel like they'd made a move toward musical enjoyment."

So, sound had something to do with it. I've never actually heard a 3020, but everything I've been told suggests that its sound was entirely inoffensive and easy to enjoy—even impressive, for its special combination of smoothness, warmth, and detail. To those listeners more accustomed to table radios and prepackaged stereos, the NAD 3020 was a revelation—a small but important first step into the world of true high-fidelity sound, and an investment in quality. "When our customers bought a 3020, they felt like they had turned the corner and stepped up to caring about sound," Jon said. "I'm guessing it started a high percentage of today's audiophiles on their paths."

The 3020 became an unlikely status symbol, one that both diehard audiophiles and ordinary consumers could appreciate. "When we were able to sell one to a customer—and nobody had ever heard of NAD until they came into a store like ours—they then loved us and became a customer for life," Jon recalled. "If you walked into someone's apartment and they had a 3020, you thought to yourself, 'Yes. This person has audio discernment.'"

The 3020 wasn't perfect. "The sum was greater than the parts," Wes said. "Used separately, both the pre's and power amp's faults were more glaring than when connected. But the 3020 wasn't tizzy or flat or distant—it got you right into the music."

Could the 3020's success have been partially due to the state of the music industry and the popular music of the late 1970s and early '80s? Wes thinks so. "We had LPs then. Today, people have MP3s, so their music is stunted before it reaches the next stage. Demonstrating the superiority of the 3020 was easy: 'Hear how much better your music sounds!' Today, it's 'Well, your music sounds worse, because every file you own sucks!' A much harder sell.

"Plus, you had albums that stood out even from the average LP: Steely Dan's Aja, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, pretty much every Lyrita recording, and so on. These were immensely popular, they sounded great on crappy gear, and better and better as the gear got better.

"Who wants to hear that all of their music sounds crappy?"

Probably not too many people; certainly not a million of them.

The 3020 may have lacked most bells and whistles, but it did have two interesting features: a variable Loudness control and a Soft Clipping circuit. Custom A/V installer Robert Saglio, who sold plenty of 3020s during his time at Stereo Lab, in New London, Connecticut, believes the Loudness control and Soft Clipping circuit had much to do with the 3020's success. The former is intended to maintain music's natural tonal balance at low volume levels; generally speaking, the highs will still have sparkle, and the lows will still have impact. More intriguing was the Soft Clipping circuit, which cleverly limited the amount of high-frequency energy delivered to a loudspeaker, protecting the tweeter from damage and the listener from unpleasant distortion. Considering the inexpensive, easily agitated speakers typically partnered with the 3020 three decades ago, Soft Clipping now seems brilliant. If purist audiophiles didn't care for what Soft Clipping did to the overall sound, they didn't need to use it: Their speakers were fine. Others, however, could drive their cheap speakers to unusually high levels while getting completely lost in Dark Side.

Stereophile senior contributing editor Kalman Rubinson married into a 3020. Before she got to live with his big B&Ws and multichannel system, Kal's wife partnered her 3020 with a Bang & Olufsen turntable and a pair of small RadioShack speakers. "I remember the sound as uncommonly smooth and warm in this setup—which, considering the speakers, is remarkable," Kal told me.

NAD's 312 integrated amplifier, the last to use the 3020's audio circuitry, was discontinued in 1998. To this day, however, hi-fi collectors and enthusiasts still seek original 3020s. As I type, a handful of samples are for sale on eBay, some gently used, others downright abused. The cleanest of the bunch looks practically new, includes the original box and manual, and is said to be in perfect working condition. You can buy it now for $250. Steve Guttenberg, a Stereophile contributor and writer of CNET's The Audiophiliac blog, bought his first 3020 from an eBay dealer just two years ago for $66. Driving a pair of new Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 loudspeakers, the old NAD sounded rich, sweet, and unusually powerful, said Steve. "I doubt any of today's receivers or entry-level integrateds can handle low-impedance speakers as well as the 3020."

In November 2002, to celebrate its 40th year of continuous publication, Stereophile published "The Hot 100 Products," a list of the 100 most important hi-fi components of all time, chosen by the magazine's editors and writers. The NAD 3020 integrated amplifier was ranked No.19. John Atkinson wrote: "The ridiculously inexpensive 3020 showed that an amplifier didn't need machined faceplates, intimidating heatsinks, or technically glamorous components to be able to drive real-world speakers. It put NAD on the map, but they never matched the 3020's overall achievement."

NAD (footnote 1) has made several technological advances over the last decade—its Master Series components offer state-of-the-art performance both on the test bench and in the listening room—and the company continues to produce exceptional entry-level products. Is the 3020 still NAD's greatest success?

"Yes," JA told me recently. "The 3020 was so good and so cheap that later NAD amps, though objectively better, never achieved that combination of value for money and sound quality." Echoing Steve Guttenberg's comments, JA added: "The original 3020 could drive big speakers with difficult impedances with aplomb."

"It was understated and underspecced and it overperformed," Robert Saglio summarized. "With its variable loudness control and soft-clipping feature, people could play pop music louder than expected, and it would still sound good. I think NAD could have made it forever. All they'd have to do today is add an iPod input."

With the new D 3020, NAD has done that and more.

Rethinking the 3020
Why now? Many of NAD's recent budget amplifiers, including my own C 316BEE ($380), have been marketed as descendants of the great 3020, but none has borne its name. Why was this the right time to finally resurrect the hallowed 3020 model number?

"The D 3020 started as a way to celebrate our 40th anniversary," Greg Stidsen, NAD's director of technology and product planning, told me (footnote 2). "Instead of gold-plating a C 326BEE and squeezing another micron of performance out of the very mature analog technology, we decided to rethink the elements that made the 3020 so relevant in its day and re-create the concept using today's most advanced digital technology."

The D 3020 was unveiled to a limited audience at NAD's 40th Anniversary Distributor Conference, held in Munich in spring 2011. "The response we received from our distribution partners was intensely positive," said Stidsen.

"Meeting the objectives of price, performance, size, and efficiency was something else," added Bjørn Erik Edvardsen, NAD's longtime designer and the man chiefly responsible for the original 3020 and now the D 3020. "The challenge led to some new ideas and the application of some really advanced technology." NAD spent another two years developing the D 3020's audio circuitry. "We rejected promising circuits that didn't meet the performance targets," said Edvardsen. "I wouldn't sign off on it until we got it exactly right."

In terms of appearance and features, the D 3020 bears almost no resemblance to its namesake. You might not recognize it as an integrated amplifier at all. The industrial design was conceived by David Farrage, whose DF-ID firm boasts a client list that includes Donna Karan, Movado, and Lamborghini. The D 3020 is sleek, shiny, and minimalist, made to look right at home with today's personal computers, smartphones, and other high-tech devices. Uncommonly sensuous for a hi-fi component, with a textured volume knob and soft, smooth side panels, the D 3020 practically begs to be touched. In fact, it features a touchscreen that occupies all of its front panel and extends through one entire side panel—either its topmost or right-hand side, depending on how you orient the chassis.

Weighing just 3 lbs (1.4kg) and measuring an unusual 73?8" (186mm) high by 25?16" (58mm) wide by 85?8" (219mm) deep, the D 3020 can be placed horizontally, like a traditional component, or stood upright, like a modem or hard drive. This aspect of the D 3020's physical design may be cool and unique, but struck me as unnecessary and ultimately compromised. For it to really work, the visual display would have to automatically reorient itself to the amplifier's placement—like an iPhone's or iPad's display, which adapts to the user's needs by assuming a landscape view when held horizontally, a portrait view when turned upright. The D 3020's display is static.

Placing the D 3020 horizontally within a standard component cabinet, as I initially did, calls for some awkward craning of the neck when reading the volume level, and does no justice to the amplifier's good looks. Several times while switching cables I accidentally tapped the D 3020's power button, thus knocking the amplifier out of sleep. And, for some reason, though I could reliably power up the amp via its touchscreen, I could turn it off only by using its remote control—a mild annoyance. For its part, the uncluttered remote is perfectly suited to the D 3020, with the same pleasantly smooth feel and a similarly distinct look. You won't want to lose it. That such a considered remote can be included with a $499 product leaves me wondering why so many far more expensive components come equipped with unwieldy plastic afterthoughts.

In any case, the D 3020 wants to stand upright, out in the open, where it can be easily seen and touched. Furthermore, a vertical orientation will provide the best dissipation of heat. Placed horizontally in a rack, the D 3020 ran warm but not alarmingly so. It uses an energy-efficient class-D output stage rated to deliver 30Wpc into a standard 8 ohms. NAD has always placed greater emphasis on their products' more impressive IHF "Dynamic Power" ratings, however (footnote 3). The D 3020's IHF ratings are 65Wpc into 8 ohms, 105 into 4, and 150 into 2.

I almost forgot to mention the outer box, a very attractive slipcase. Right out of it, the D 3020 sounded clean, clear, and resolving, if a bit small and bass shy. After only a day or so of use, however, the D 3020 sounded far bigger and more powerful than its size and weight would suggest.

For the most part, I partnered the D 3020 with small, affordable loudspeakers—PSB Alpha B1 ($299/pair), Pioneer SP-BS22-LR ($129/pair), Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 ($349/pair)—but toward the end of the listening period I hooked it up to a pair of glorious KEF LS50s ($1499/pair) and turned the volume up high. I was bowled over by the sound, which easily matched the best I'd ever heard at home, and reminded me in many ways of what I'd recently experienced with the tubed Croft Phono Integrated ($1895).

If there was a weakness in my system, it was not the NAD.

Digital ins and outs
The D 3020 is a decidedly modern integrated amplifier for the modern listener. With its coaxial and optical digital inputs, users can connect satellite and cable receivers, integrate content-management devices such as the Apple TV media streamer, or process the digital signal from a CD or DVD player. But if you really want to get the best sound from your CDs, you should rip them to your computer using something like X Lossless Decoder (for Macs) or Exact Audio Copy (for PCs), then send the signal to the D 3020's 24-bit/96kHz–capable asynchronous-mode USB input, thus bypassing your laptop's own compromised audio circuitry. Or forget about CDs altogether and instead take advantage of the growing number of online retailers now providing music in high-resolution and CD-quality digital formats. A few of my favorite download sites are Bleep, Boomkat, and HDtracks, but there are many others. Specialized media-player softwares, such as Amarra (Macs) or JRiver Media Center (PCs), should work seamlessly with Apple's ubiquitous iTunes, but will provide automatic sample-rate switching and better sound (footnote 4). You'll want to know that you're getting out of the NAD D 3020 exactly what you're putting in.

The D 3020's rear-panel iPod input is a sign of our times, but is also the amplifier's least impressive feature. I suspect NAD thought so, too, which is why they've included a TosLink mini-adapter to convert it to an additional optical input, which will also accept the digital-audio output from a MacBook Pro. The D 3020 has only one traditional (RCA) analog input, a fact that I at first mourned—until I realized that one was all I really needed. Do I need a Disc input? No. Do I need an Aux input? No. Do I even know what a Tape input is? No.

I do want a headphone output. Do I need one? Not really, no—for the most part, I listen to headphones outdoors, on the go. The D 3020 has one—a front-panel minijack, perfect for use in a desktop system with today's popular headphones. You won't be able to use the D 3020 to drive old-fashioned cans that have ¼" phone plugs (unless you employ an adaptor), but you can use it right away with your Skullcandy Aviator, B&W P3, Harman/Kardon CL, Grado SR60i, Sennheiser Momentum, Monster DNA, Beats Solo HD, or any of the other exotic, colorful, celebrity-endorsed 'phones.

Footnote 2: NAD was founded in December 1972. You can see a timeline of the company's history here.

Footnote 3: John Atkinson discussed this in "Must We Test? Yes, We Must!," his "As We See It" for the August 1989 issue.

Footnote 4: For a comprehensive list of download sites and invaluable information about digital-music hardware and software, visit the "How-To" sections at AudioStream.

That would be my last bad meal for a long time: The food in Paris, from the humblest baguette to the loftiest saumon en croûte, was brilliant, the French apparently having determined long ago that life is too short for bad food. My family and I were inspired. Since that time, we have brought to bear on our day-to-day lives as much as possible of their culinary thinking.

My story could end there, except for one thing: Not long after my return to upstate New York, I received from their North American distributor an integrated amplifier made by Jadis, the family-owned company that has, since 1983, built tube electronics in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France. The I-35 amplifier looks beautiful and—forgive the spoiler—made music in a manner that would seem to guarantee it a place among a hallowed few. Apparently, there are those among the French who believe that life is too short for bad hi-fi gear, as well.

Description
The Jadis I-35 ($7995) is a true integrated amplifier, inasmuch as it incorporates both a stereo power amplifier and an active stereo preamplifier—the latter instead of a mere passive line stage. The distinction may seem unimportant to some, but to those of us who tend to regard passive preamps as somewhat lacking in musical drive and momentum, it is anything but. Like the vast majority of today's perfectionist-quality integrated amplifiers, the I-35 does not include a phono section.

The I-35 uses five small-signal tubes, the centermost of which—a 12AU7 dual-triode—provides line-level gain for both channels of the active preamp stage. Two other 12AU7s function as left- and right-channel phase inverters for the push-pull power section, while a pair of 12AX7s drive the power tubes.

The output section is built around the recently introduced KT120 tube, a descendent of the original MO Valve Compnay KT88 "kinkless tetrode." Billed elsewhere as the most powerful beam-power tube available, the KT120 has, in the Jadis I-35, been given a somewhat more refined role, with one pair per channel biased for class-A operation, offering a crazy-high 30Wpc. The KT120s are run in autobias mode—which, one presumes, will maximize tube life—and operate in an Ultralinear circuit, with plates and screen grids for each channel tied to the split-coil primaries of transformers designed and made in-house.

The Jadis I-35's power supply also uses Jadis's own iron: a mains transformer of considerable heft plus a moderately sized choke, the latter electrically sandwiched between two banks of reservoir capacitors, forming a pi filter of the usual sort. Rectification is all solid-state, implemented with individual semiconductor diodes for the rail. Regulation seems to be especially generous for the hefty filament supply, incorporating as it does a top-mounted TO3 regulator with its own heatsink. Indeed, during my time with the I-35 I heard not the slightest bit of hum or noise.

The I-35's construction quality is well above average. The generous size of the chassis—made necessary, I suppose, by the considerable weight of the thickly potted transformers—has been put to good use. Input connections for the hefty rotary selector switch are made using a printed-circuit board, and my review sample had a small logic board for its remote control's IR receiver; all other wiring is done by hand, point to point, with distinctly clean, logical routing and dressing of wires. Solder joins were consistently clean and well done: The I-35 looks nearly as good inside as outside.

Speaking of cosmetics: Although a few other companies have aped, in the years since their debut, the signature Jadis combination of chromed steel chassis and brass-colored knobs and faceplate, none have captured quite the same look: Somehow, the Jadis I-35 comes out looking lighter, smaller, and more delicate than it really is (aided in this effect by the lovely script logo, I think)—a welcome distinction in a hobby overburdened with bulk and little-boy-ishness.

Installation and setup
As one might expect of any amplifier that, at 55 lbs, weighs more than a large microwave oven, the single most difficult part of installing the Jadis I-35 was lifting it free from its good if somewhat travel-worn carton and packing materials. For that reason, and because the rather wide amp had trouble sharing the top of my rack with my rather wide turntable (the lower shelves offered too little clearance), the I-35 spent the bulk of its time here on my hardwood floor. For their part, the amp's nine tubes were safely contained in their own subcarton, and were lettered and numbered for installation—which, after I'd determined how to remove the black-mesh tube cage, went smoothly enough.

The only other challenge came when I set about connecting the I-35 to my loudspeakers. There are two complete sets of binding posts on the rear panel, but—apart from red rings on the top row of connectors and black rings on the bottom—there are no markings at all. Beyond suggesting that "the load impedance is pre-adjusted in the factory for loudspeakers from 4 to 16 ohms," the owner's manual offers no clues; my confusion was made worse by a graphic atop both of the output-transformer covers, suggesting the existence of individual secondary windings for loads of 4 and 8 ohms. Ultimately I learned, from the FAQ section of the Jadis website, that the two sets of output connectors are in parallel with each other (I later saw that Jadis accomplishes this by mounting pairs of connectors together on uninsulated copper plates), and I learned from experience that the left-channel connectors are the ones closest to the left side of the amplifier when viewed from the front, and so on.

It was fall 2000. I'd just begun working at Stereophile, and I clearly remember sheepishly, innocently putting this question to former senior editor Jonathan Scull.

I think the question confused him—not because he didn't know the answer, but because the answer seemed so obvious, the question itself should have been unnecessary. How could anyone not know what an integrated amplifier is? I might as well have asked, "What's a song?"

I was 22 years old, and I believe my ignorance of integrateds was in no way unique. Ask most young people what an integrated amplifier is, and, if you're lucky, you'll receive blank stares. But age is beside the point. Ask most older people what an integrated amp is and you'll fare just as well. Only audiophiles are generally familiar with the term, and, for better or worse, audiophiles make up a small percentage of the overall population. We tend to keep to ourselves. Hi-fi isn't as hip as it once was, or as it should be.

J-10 explained that an integrated amplifier is one in which a preamplifier and a power amplifier are built on the same chassis and enclosed in the same case. Now I was confused. You mean we can save space, reduce cost, eliminate a pair of interconnects, and still make music? Then and there, the integrated amplifier took its place as my favorite audio component: smart, efficient, useful, handsome—like some writers I know. Why have separates at all?

Traditional, hardcore audiophiles might tell you that, all else being equal, a properly matched preamplifier and power amplifier will usually outperform an integrated; that, in essence, an integrated amplifier is a compromise that favors convenience over quality. But this viewpoint finds convenience and quality as being necessarily at odds, as if one couldn't possibly coexist with the other—when, in reality, we're just as likely to see the two walk hand in hand. After all, to many, a solution that favors quality over convenience is also a compromise. And so, an industry that craves the mainstream respect it once easily commanded now faces a frustrating irony: It devises a component category that effectively addresses the general public's concerns—affordability, efficiency, simplicity, size, appearance—yet audiophiles dismiss it, and the general public doesn't know it exists.

To be fair, this modest misfortune is mostly confined to North America, where we still like our amplifiers big, heavy, and radiant with blinding blue light. Other parts of the world are different. In the UK, for instance, where homes and hi-fis are generally smaller, mainstream success is nothing new to the integrated amp. The quintessentially British brand Arcam made its name on one.

Amplification & Recording Cambridge
Founded as Amplification & Recording Cambridge, Arcam quickly gained success with its first product, the A60 integrated amplifier, released in 1976. Though Arcam intended to manufacture just 50 units, the A60 remained in production for a decade, serving as the heart of many fine and inexpensive audio systems; eventually, over 36,000 units were sold worldwide. The A60's distinct combination of convenience, sleek appearance, and good sound made it a hi-fi classic.

Through the 1980s and '90s, Arcam found success again with its entry-level Alpha and higher-end Delta series. Stereophile kept a close watch. In 1989, Arcam released the Delta Black Box, the first commercial outboard D/A processor; John Atkinson reviewed it favorably in February of that year. In December 1998, Wes Phillips reviewed Arcam's Alpha 10 integrated, a tidy, forward-looking design whose modular construction allowed it to easily morph into an amp with a moving-magnet/moving-coil phono section, a two-channel A/V receiver with Dolby AC-3 processing, and/or the control center for a four-zone, multiroom music system. In January 1999, Kal Rubinson was mightily impressed by the relatively affordable Alpha 9 CD player ($1600), which used a dedicated-chip version of dCS's famed 24-bit sigma-delta Ring DAC. Audiophiles who criticized the Alpha series' molded-plastic front panels were relieved by Arcam's introduction, in 2000, of their Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) line, whose products feature CNC-machined aluminum front panels and a heftier overall look and feel.

But even while catering to the audiophile, Arcam kept in touch with the common man. In 2005, the company released its most popular product yet, the Solo—a sleek, stylish, one-box component that combined a CD player, integrated amplifier, and tuner. With the addition of the then-radical rLead iPod cable and rDock docking station, the Solo even embraced Apple's ubiquitous iPod. With the additions of speakers and cables, almost anyone could own a true high-end audio system. Art Dudley proved prescient in his July 2005 review, calling the Solo a significant first step in high-end audio's move toward reliable, fairly priced, cleverly packaged products that even non-audiophiles would want to own. And it was Art's review that largely inspired the first true high-end playback system I ever enjoyed at home: DeVore Fidelity Gibbon 3 stand-mounted loudspeakers driven by an Arcam Solo, all tied together with Analysis Plus cables—an awesome little system whose sound and appearance I remember fondly and well.

Most recently, John Atkinson enjoyed time with Arcam's newest full-featured DAC, the FMJ D33, whose choice of three digital filters make it a fine match for just about any system. And, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, in an environment dominated by audacious, cost-no-object designs, Arcam introduced the relatively humble FMJ A19 integrated amplifier. Along with Arcam's matching CD17 CD player and a pair of small stand-mounted loudspeakers, it made a refreshingly fine-sounding, attractive, and affordable system.

Description
Rated to deliver 50Wpc into 8 ohms, the FMJ A19 ($999) is Arcam's most affordable integrated amplifier. With it, the company strove to honor its classic A60 while delivering higher levels of sound quality and convenience. But what does it mean to honor a classic? Arcam's chief engineer, Nick Clarke, was careful not to make too much of the relationship between the A60 and A19, calling the latter a "clean-sheet design." He explained: "Our job is always to make the best-sounding device for the price in any category, and, to that aim, the basic premise of the A19 is plain old-fashioned good engineering. Over the years, the quality and reliability of components has improved massively while dropping in price, so this has allowed us to include more features at a lower cost."

Like the Alpha 10 before it, the A19 uses modular components to adapt to the user's evolving listening habits and needs. While the A19 gets its 50Wpc from a hefty toroidal transformer, a second internal power supply can deliver a direct, isolated, and regulated 6V to two of Arcam's r-series products, such as the rLink S/PDIF DAC, rPAC USB DAC, or rBlink Bluetooth DAC (reviewed last month by Sam Tellig). On its own, the A19 provides six line-level inputs, tape and preamplifier outputs, and two front-panel mini-jacks: one for driving headphones, the other for connecting an iPod. And, like an increasing number of modern integrated amplifiers, the A19 includes a moving-magnet phono stage. Today's music lover has nearly unlimited access to new music and should not be restricted by format. Arcam acknowledges this. Thank you.

The A19 uses a Texas Instruments PGA2311 volume control—the same one found in Arcam's top-of-the-line FMJ AV888 processor, and claimed to deliver an impressive 120dB signal/noise ratio and very low total harmonic distortion of 0.0004%. According to Clarke, these figures are more commonly found in "highly esoteric and very expensive dedicated preamplifiers." Clarke also noted the A19's high-quality printed-circuit board and the careful layout of its audio circuitry. The amplifier's hood is held in place by seven six-point Torx-head screws in two different sizes; without the proper screwdriver, I was unable to have a look inside. Arcam provides further technical information on its website; John Atkinson's measurements will confirm whether or not the A19 meets its specs. I found the amplifier to be very quiet indeed.