Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/technics-su-r1000-integrated-amplifier

The Technics SU-R1000 Digital Integrated Amplifier provides nearly everything I could hope for in a contemporary integrated amplifier. It reproduces vinyl and digital files with high levels of transparency, dimensionality, spaciousness, and dynamics. Its various modern technologies actually, obviously work, allowing me to achieve the highest levels of realism I’ve heard in my circa-1865 listening space.

The Technics does not equal my reference Shindo amplification in the areas where they—the Shindo components—excel: tonal and timbral verisimilitude. Nothing else I’ve tried does; that’s why they’re still my reference. But the Technics was superior in every other way. The SU-R1000 is a technological breakthrough and a remarkable integrated amplifier.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/bryston-b1353-integrated-amplifier

The system I was using to play William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops, as described in my intro, consisted of Roon’s Nucleus+ server connected (via Ethernet) to the dCS Bartók DAC, on into the B135³, which powered my Falcon “Gold Badge” LS3/5a speakers. On that recording, the sound was tone-neutral, not cool (as in my Bryston auditions at shows), and well-focused. The chief pleasure that day was the way the Bryston amplifier refused to get between me and the Basinski ambient experience.

That made me want to leave the Bryston in the system and forget about it, which I did, until, after three weeks of Bryston-only listening, I decided to compare it to the similarly priced ($7250) Pass Labs INT-25 integrated, which I have long regarded as the most transparent, naturally dynamic solid state amplification I’ve used.

The Vitus Audio SIA-25 Integrated

If you can, try some tracks that you’ve played hundreds of times. The more you listen, the more you’ll hear. It may be old, but I always go back to the title track from Michael Hedges Aerial Boundaries (if you have this on vinyl, even better) or Al DiMeola’s Friday Night in San Francisco. There are plenty of great others, yet these are burned into my memory, not only because I’ve used them to evaluate so many components, I’ve heard them both live more than once.

Another area the SIA-25 really excels in in its ability to render size and scale. Some amplifiers just sound big, others just sound small. Not all amplifiers have the ability to expand and contract with the source fed. I consider this another aspect of resolution. If you love chamber music, listen to selections that feature violin and viola together. On lesser quality playback gear, a string quartet just sounds like four of the same stringed instruments. I really enjoy Luigi Gatti’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Viola, to illustrate this. The viola, being about 20% larger than a violin and plays a bit lower, and more mellow than a violin, so this is a great test of resolution and behavior on the top end of the frequency scale.

Even if your taste in music falls to the completely electronic, I suspect you’ll get excited (or really freak out) about when the SIA-25 is in your system. First, the level of bass extension and control is incredible, and feels like a much larger amplifier. Jean-Michel Jarre’s Zoolook is usually the go to here, but his latest release, Amazonia, serves up a massive soundscape, full of guttural sounds, deep bass tracks, and plenty of signature Jarre tinkly bits all over the room. While none of this music has a “real” component to it, there is again a degree of liveliness that mega components bring to this kind of music. Again, the SIA-25 aces the test.