Audiophilepure

https://www.hifichoicemag.com/content/icon-audio-stereo-40-mkiv

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Rhythmically it’s good too – living up to all the predictable, time-honoured clichés about ‘the magic of valves’. Music just chugs along in a carefree way and there’s no sense of it sounding forced or mechanical. Instead, you’re struck by the sense of musical occasion; Rush’s Lakeside Park is a simple late-seventies rock recording, but the Icon Audio makes it sing. It’s not famously open or dynamic, yet this amplifier just gets into the groove and lets the music’s natural rhythm flood out. Your mind wanders from considerations of hi-fi and instead gets preoccupied with the music itself – which is just as it should be. It’s odd in a way because it doesn’t sound especially fast – it’s not as if you’re wowed by its transient speed – and yet you still feel yourself getting pulled into the groove.”

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“n the end, the Audio Research VSi75 is a full stop, destination piece integrated amplifier. It’s capable of truly wonderful sound, and upgrade addicts should know that ancillary equipment upgrades will always pay off noticeable dividends with this highly transparent amplifier. I spent months listening to the Audio Research VSi75 with the AURALiC Vega G1 streaming DAC, Nola Boxer S3 loudspeakers, and Furutech DSS-4.1 speaker cables and DPS-4.1 power cable. Not surprisingly, each addition to the system provided substantially better sound, and I was confident that the VSi75 was showing each product in its best light. Some people need to be convinced that an integrated amplifier can deliver the goods of separates. The VSi75 delivers on that promise. It looks the business, too. It may not bring back the punk rock revolution, but at least the VSi75 can show that music in its best light. And with the music in your collection? Well…highly recommended!VSi75 Integrated Amplifier”

Review

http://www.10audio.com/cj_classic62se.htm

“The Classic 62SE was completely reliable during the review period, and the bias of one or two of the power tubes required just a small adjustment or two after the initial setting. The sonic character is very linear and transparent from the upper bass to upper treble, so this is not a tube amplifier to “sweeten up” an overly dry or harmonically thin system. The owner of a C-J Classic 62SE amplifier will get the characteristic harmonic depth of tube products in a good looking, musically revealing, reliable, and quite powerful amplifier.”

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“To test out using the Ragnarok 2 as a preamp, I hooked up the Schiit Aegir power amp, and at first I couldn’t get any sound out of the Aegir. I checked and rechecked the connections. They were correct. The owner’s manual was no help, so I just fiddled about trying things, and when I switched off the Ragnarok 2’s speaker output and turned on the headphone output, the Aegir started playing! So in other words you need to turn on the headphone output to use the Ragnarok 2 as a preamp! That’s very strange, but easy to do once you know how to do it.

Teamed with the Aegir the sound was even more see-through, and the soundstage took on a more three-dimensional quality. The ‘2 was no slouch on its own, but the Aegir conjured more space and depth between instruments, and individual voices in choral recordings were easier to hear with the Ragnarok 2/Aegir combination.”

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/mark-levinson-no5805

“Bluetooth, even of the aptX HD variety, may not seem an obvious place to start when testing an amplifier at this level, but we’re keen to see just how well the technology has been implemented. We use an Apple iPhone X loaded with the Qobuz streaming service and it connects quickly without fuss.

We listen to Nitin Sawhney’s Fragile Wind and like what we hear. The ML sounds clean and precise, rendering each sound with obvious care. It’s a musically coherent presentation, one that does well when it comes to communicating the momentum of the piece. Vocals come through with clarity and are nicely separated from the instrumental backdrop while dynamic shifts are conveyed with fluidity. “

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“Although Voss confirmed by email that the amps had been broken in at the factory, Accustic Arts’ US rep, Randy Forman, told me that, in his experience, an extra 100 hours was needed. I played break-in tones 24/7 for five days. I encountered just two issues with the Mono IIs. The first was minor: The on/off buttons didn’t always depress smoothly. Although neither ever got stuck, they felt a bit chintzy. More concerning, the left-channel amp began to hum audibly on my last day of listening and continued to do so even when I removed it from the Niagara 5000 power conditioner and plugged it into the wall outlet. I checked to see whether appliances were running full force in the main house—the eightfold assault of washer, dryer, dishwasher, electric range, refrigerator, heat pump, and two computers—but the three wire-haired terriers had once again failed in their ongoing attempts to turn everything on and burn down the house. (They love the chorus of Aretha Franklin’s “Think,” which they bark in cadence, but have yet to embrace the notion of “Respect.”) Perhaps John Atkinson’s measurements will detect what the hum was about.

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“The Luxman performed extremely well driving my Quad-57 ESLs (refurbished and upgraded by Electrostatic Solutions), and that’s something worth writing home about. The Quad is all about midrange satisfaction, and even after all these years, it still holds its own against all comers. Granted, there are problems at the frequency extremes. There’s not much that can be done about the recessed upper treble, other than adding a super tweeter. But the upper bass, when controlled by a suitable amp, can sound phenomenal. My favorite performance and recording of the Bach suites for solo cello is Jean-Guihen Queyras on the Harmonia Mundi label, and it never sounded any better—no doubt a function of the Luxman’s excellent damping factor and bandwidth extension. The majesty of the cello was on full display with superb harmonic bloom and image focus. However, in the context of orchestral recordings, the one soundstaging aspect I would have to downgrade the Luxman on was its reproduction of a recording’s depth perspective. Relative to Linear Tube Audio’s ZOTL Ultralinear amp, orchestral soundstage depth was somewhat compressed front-to-back and lacked the layering afforded by the Berning design. ”

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The Progression Stereo Amplifier consistently exercised a great deal of control of the speakers that allowed them to reproduce more of the detail in the signal coming from the preamplifier. Of course, such high levels of detail and control do come at a cost: if your other electronics or source material is subpar, you will definitely hear it. On the other hand, good quality recordings coming into the Progression Stereo Amplifier have the potential to sound amazing in a properly setup system. I found myself engrossed in my listening sessions, with many of them lasting far longer than intended as I became engrossed in the music rather than concentrating on audio nuances.”