Vinyl Icons

In marked contrast to the meters fitted to many contemporary amplifiers, which prove to be decorative rather than informative, the two illuminated (yellow) power meters at the centre of the 7070 are bang-on accurate. The log scale marked at 0.1W, 1W, 10W, 20W and 50W precisely represents the 7070’s power output at 1kHz into 8ohm. And it’s driving 8ohm loads where the 7070 is really in its comfort zone, beating its 60W rating at 2x76W/8ohm with a little extra into 4ohm at 2x88W. However, not only is the 7070’s PSU so tightly regulated that there’s no dynamic headroom into 8 and 4ohm [see Graph 1] but there’s only enough current to sustain 35W and 18W into 2ohm and 1ohm loads, respectively, for 10msec/<1% THD. So, physically imposing though it is, the 7070 is really only suited to life with 8ohm nominal-rated loudspeakers.

Distortion, on the other hand, is kept in check and proves fairly ‘flat’ with frequency [see Graph 2] at 0.01-0.04% (re. 10W, 20Hz-20kHz). Coincidentally, distortion increases over the same 0.01-0.04% range across the amplifier’s full 1-60W rated output (all re. 1kHz/8ohm). Gain, however, is unnecessarily high at +44.5dB so users will not get much range out of the volume control with CD/DAC sources connected to the Aux inputs. Noise is quite high too, so the A-wtd S/N ratio is about 10dB below par at 73.3dB (re. 0dBW). The output impedance is a moderate 0.2-0.4ohm (20Hz-20kHz), increasing to 1.6ohm/100kHz, while the response into 8ohm rises from –0.3dB/20Hz to 0dB/1kHz before falling gently to –0.7dB/20kHz and –8.2dB/100kHz. The Low filter has an early –3dB point at 130Hz (–14.5dB/20Hz) just as the High filter rolls away from –3dB/3.5kHz to –16dB/20kHz. PM