Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/grandinote-shinai-integrated-amplifier

It has the spirit of a revealer. It speaks the truth—not ruthlessly, but honestly. It showed me, with conspicuous clarity, the sonic differences among music formats, speaker models, song-to-song recording quality, that section on an LP where, on my rig, the sound seemed to have spontaneously gotten much better, and the Shinai’s own conspicuous improvement after 45 minutes of playing music. More importantly, it revealed myriad strains of musical information I’d not known were there.

It also forced me to face up to the fact that my tubed electronics were sweetening and homogenizing the sound.

Does the Shinai’s tube-based circuitry make it sound like a tube amp? Not exactly. The Shinai sounds like its own thing, worthy in its own right. It’s rich but not in the voluptuous, warm way of my combo of Audible Illusions preamp and vintage ASL monos. The Shinai is more neutral sounding. The Shinai did some things better than my tube gear—definition, detail, space, scale, touch—at a price I think fair considering that, for the money, one gets a line stage and two powerful-sounding (even if rated at just 37Wpc), class-A monoblocks, designed and hand-built in Italy.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/ayre-ax-5-twenty-integrated-amplifier

The last aspect of the AX-5 Twenty’s performance that caught my ear is its soundstaging. This is highly impressive, and goes back to the amplifier’s overall sense of grip and effortless power. It drove my big NS-1000Ms like they were tiny little Wharfedale Diamonds, absolutely commanding them. This in turn made for a superb rendition of the recorded acoustic of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s ‘Country Girl’ [Deja Vu; Atlantic 7567-82649-2].

By no means would you call this an audiophile recording, yet the AX-5 Twenty picked through the murky soundscape to give a really clean, architectural sound with everything neatly in its place. There was no sense of instruments being placed in the mix incorrectly, or indeed vaguely. Instead, everything was practically nailed down to the floor. Depth perspective was impressively good too, giving a really immersive feel to this classic track.”

https://www.hifinews.com/content/rotel-michi-m8-mono-power-ampiifier

Whether with powering guitars and pounding bass and drums, or delicate solo and small-ensemble music, these amps are entirely in their element, as evident when falling back on an old audiophile favourite, the Antonio Forcione/Sabina Sciubba version of ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’ [Meet Me In London; Naim cd021].

The sheer focus of the sound is breathtaking, from the openness of Sciubba’s voice to each strike on string or tap on the body of Forcione’s guitar, and the subtle additions of percussion. It has probably been demonstrated to death, but in the hands of the Michi P5 preamp and M8 monoblocks it still has the wherewithal to tingle and show what made it so special.

The PrimaLuna ProLogue One Integrated

When I got the ProLogue One back from my (now ex) niece a few years ago, I couldn’t have been more excited to be reunited with this old friend. And it cost me dearly – I had to trade she and her husband a new Simaudio NEO integrated ($3,400), along with some heavy convincing that having a tube amp around the house with a couple of toddlers was a really bad idea. The fatigued tubes were replaced with a new pair of PrimaLuna 12AU7s, a pair of EAT 12AX7s and a mint quad of NOS Siemens EL34 power tubes. Other than a slightly noisy volume control (with a little bit of contact cleaner took care of immediately) the PL One was back rocking with a pair of 1976 vintage Klipsch LaScalas. The sound was glorious, and with the coolio, upgraded tubes, even better than the day I unboxed it for the first time.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/hegel-h95-network-attached-amp

“And though one might expect this amp, with its comprehensive streaming capabilities, to have its competence slewed heavily in favour of music played in digitally, it’s as impressive when fed via its analogue inputs. Yes, there’s just the two of them, and as already mentioned the H95 forgoes the XLRs of its more upmarket brethren, but these analogue ins are no makeweight or a sop to ‘legacy sources’.

Connecting my usual Naim network player to the analogue ins – and here we’re talking a source playing through an amp less than a tenth of its price, the extra space, grunt and rhythmic acuity of the ND 555/555PS [HFN Apr ’19] was clearly evident via the H95 – but the amp’s onboard network facility wasn’t that far off, and delivered similar qualities, just to a lesser extent. And considering all else this amp offers, that’s pretty impressive.”

John Patitucci is another Jazz bass standout, who has mastered both upright and electric bass. In 1991 he released Heart Of The Bass. This album was a collaboration with the legendary Chick Corea, who’s masterful musical interpretation can be heard in John’s performance of the famous “Prelude in G Major” from J.S. Bach’s “Cello Suite.” I am not one for remakes. Especially when a talented artist of any given instrument embellishes a beautiful piece of music with an abundance of busy work.

However, this was not the case in John Patitucci’s performance. His performance is moving, and John knows how to linger on notes just long enough to bring deep meaning to them. The small audible details in his finger work brought out by The Audion provided a tangible reality to the performance. I am not talking about the loud, or over-emphasized clicks and string-drags that are so purposefully built into many solo bass performances. What I heard was a soul, behind an instrument, driving a lifetime of learning through extremely quick and subtle finger movements to bring a song to life. The Audion could