Pre/Power Amplifiers

More than this, it’s not just an excellent performer in a ‘hi-fi’ sense – it’s also extremely musically satisfying, too. Auditioned in editor PM’s listening room with B&W 800 D3 loudspeakers [HFN Oct ’16], Art Of Noise’s ‘Moments In Love’ from Who’s Afraid Of The… [Polystar PSCD-1174] was a joy. It served up a vast stereo soundstage, inside which there was effortless power and great resolution. The crisp and superbly etched sound flowed forth in a lovely, unforced way.

Filigree Detailing
By contrast, the more subtle acoustic-folk strains of Heidi Berry’s ‘Washington Square’ from Love [4AD CAD 1012 CD] revealed other facets of this amplifier’s sound. With this superb early-’90s recording – bristling with natural, acoustic instruments and percussion – the Pictor/Taurus turned in a stellar sound. I was struck by its filigree detailing of the backing tom-toms and tambourines, and the exquisitely textured rendition of Berry’s velvety vocals that floated ethereally above the fray.

It tracked the song’s dynamics with consummate accuracy and I loved the way the subtle accenting of the percussion was conveyed as clearly as the lead vocal. The backing keyboard line glided aloofly behind it all, and the acoustic guitar was crisp enough to have been the lead instrument.

Tonally these Revelation amps are highly neutral, so they are not the sort of thing you buy to impose a particular ‘flavour’ on your loudspeakers. Like gentle sunlight, it never grates or gets overly dazzling, nor is it dull and cloudy. There’s no part of the frequency spectrum that stands out – but that’s not to say any part of the music is veiled. Neither does it sound weak-kneed, for the unflustered power on tap is matched by its subtlety – here the bass guitar line was perfectly in time with the rest of the music, and supplied a tight, taut, well syncopated underpinning to the proceedings.

Low-level detail resolution is absolutely superb and the opening movement from Mahler’s Symphony No 4 [Budapest Fest Orch/Iván Fischer; Channel Classics CCS SA 26109] sounded spectacular. It was almost as if the Constellation amps had ‘laser-scanned’ the entire recorded acoustic and beamed it out into the listening room. Yet what really impressed was the way they unlocked poor recordings, performing that rare trick of making mediocre albums sound far better than expected.

ABBA’s ‘Eagle’ [The Album; Polar 533 980-2] was a case in point, for while it typically sounds spatially and dynamically compressed, and tonally murky, the Pictor/Taurus was able to unlock it, opening up the soundstage in a way that was totally unexpected, and giving it real physical scale and depth. The mix now bristled with detail, revealing ‘Eagle’ to be a complex and layered production with multi-tracked strummed steel guitars and keyboards shining like never before. At the same time, it brought out the beauty of the vocal harmonies, and showed the supple talents of ABBA’s legendary ‘fifth member’, bass guitarist Rutger Gunnarsson.

Syncopated Rhythms
One of the key character traits of this Constellation pre/power is the very natural, sympathetic way it handles rhythms. It doesn’t serve up an exuberant tube-style sound that gushes and emotes all the time, nor does it sound mechanical or robotic. Instead, you get an unusually realistic reading of the flow of a song, where the sound retains great transient speed but is delivered without any sense that the music is being fired at you.

Rather, this amplifier combination always suggests itself as a neutral arbiter of what is on the recording. Take De La Soul’s ‘A Rollerskating Jam Named “Saturdays”’ [Tommy Boy; SRCS 5559] by way of example. There are no prizes for hi-fi here, yet it proved a huge listening pleasure. I was entranced by the sublime phrasing of the vocals, locked in time to the massive bass drum sound. At the same time the gaps between the beats were brilliantly carried, and the snare sound locked into a wonderfully hypnotic groove. The meter of the rap was beautifully carried, immaculately syncopated with the beat box.

By contrast, most amplifiers simply smear this, and you’re left with a boomy, thumping mess. The same magic was heard on Al Jarreau’s ‘My Favourite Things’ from Tenderness [Reprise Records 9 45422-2] where the fabulous musicianship of this live-in-the-studio performance was blissfully evident. Despite this cool-sounding music contrasting starkly with the De La Soul track, it too sounded sublime.

Hi-Fi News Verdict
A handsome-looking pre/power amplifier, Constellation’s Pictor/Taurus Stereo nevertheless has some operational and design quirks... which pale into insignificance when you hear it. This sublime sounding combo is both immensely transparent yet tonally smooth as silk, and rhythmically gifted yet blessed with reserves of effortless power. A high-end masterpiece, and worthy of the finest loudspeakers.