Pre/Power Amplifiers

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HeadphonesNetwork Audio Players/ServersPre/Power Amplifiers
Naim Audio Uniti Atom Headphone Edition Streamer/Headphone Amp
Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 16, 2021
hfnoutstandingThe evergreen Uniti Atom all-in-one platform, complete with custom streaming solution, is adapted to service the needs of the most demanding headphone users

Never let it be said the product name isn't long enough – in the 12 years since Naim launched its network audio all-in-one, to which the buyer need only add speakers, it's grown from the simple NaimUniti of the initial model, all the way to this, the £2399 Naim Audio Uniti Atom Headphone Edition. And yet here, less is more.

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Pre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Naim NAC 12/ Snaps/NAP 250 (Vintage)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Jan 30, 2015
Naim Audio’s first product, the NAP 160 power amplifier, was introduced in 1971; the NAP 250 appeared in 1975. It was technically unusual in that it used a strictly regulated power supply, whereas the vast majority of power amplifiers, unlikely today, typically made do with an unregulated one. Arguably, the NAC 12 preamp was even more unusual than the NAP 250. In ultimate form it required a standalone external power supply – the SNAPS – at a time when such an arrangement was virtually unheard of.
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From the VaultPre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Naim NAC 82/NAP 180 Pre/Power Amps
Martin Colloms  |  Jul 07, 2023  |  First Published: Apr 01, 1993
hfnvintageIts components may work in all-Naim systems, but in this review of the company's latest pre/power Martin Colloms looks at the alternatives too

Neither I nor the Editor could remember when HFN last reviewed a Naim amplifier so, to redress the balance, we are covering the company's latest pre and power duo here. Priced at £1880, the NAC 82 carries the full remote control first seen on the top-of-the range NAC 52 preamp. An optional extra board (around £120) provides analogue disc input (MC or MM).

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From the VaultPre/Power Amplifiers
Naim NAP 500 power amp
Martin Colloms  |  Jan 25, 2022
hfnvintageMartin Colloms hears a power amp setting the pace for the 21st century

The development of this completely new power amplifier has been a major undertaking for Naim. Up to now, its designs have been variants on the late Julian Vereker's founding concept, which led to the first NAP 250 stereo chassis some 25 years ago. Even now, the company's biggest current model, the NAP 135, is a monoblock variant of the '250, with more generous power supplies allocated to the separated channels.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Nat Utopia/transmitter Set (£8008/£17,527 Pair)
Ken Kessler and Paul Miller  |  Jan 15, 2012
You want big valves? Really big? NAT has cooked up a monoblock with a mortadella-fat QB 5/1750 tetrode, and a preamp worthy of the honour. Enter Utopia and Transmitter Any reservations I may have had about Eastern European amplifiers were put to rest by the NAT Se1 MkII reviewed in Aug ’10. It was time, I thought, to stop treating the former Communist Bloc as if it were the equivalent of China circa 1993. If anything, countries like Serbia, Bulgaria and others under the grip of the Commies for a half-century had a much better chance at conquering the high-end than the Chinese did, because they had greater hands-on experience.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Oppo Ha 1 (£1099)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Jan 22, 2015
It was perhaps Benchmark that set a trend by equipping its compact, high-value DACs with a capable headphone amplifier. They became, in effect, an amalgam of DAC, headphone amplifier and simple preamp, and the HA-1 is from the same mould. Much of its electronics derives from Oppo’s BDP-95EU and BDP-105 universal disc players [HFN May ’12 and Jan ’13]. The HA-1 uses the same ESS 9018 Sabre DAC and the same output circuitry but the headphone amp and preamplifier stages are new.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Parasound Halo A21 (£2350)
Paul Miller  |  Oct 01, 2011
Better known for multichannel, the A21 demonstrates that Parasound knows a thing or two about stereo too As with Canada’s Anthem electronics, San Francisco’s Parasound components are often found powering luxurious multichannel ‘home theatre’ systems. Unlike Anthem, however, Parasound does make pure audio (as well as AV) preamps to partner some of its power amps, especially its two-channel models. Designed in the US by John Curl, a veteran whose CV includes classic Mark Levinson and Vendetta designs in years gone by, Parasound’s amps are outsourced to Taiwan for manufacture – which might explain the keen pricing. This A21 power amp from the flagship Halo range suggests a lot for the money, weighing 27kg and resplendent in classy casework.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Parasound Halo JC5 power amplifier
Review: James Parker, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Dec 01, 2018
hfnoutstanding.pngNo shortage of machismo – it has to be an American power amp, right? Parasound's Halo JC5 conforms to some of these stereotypes, but there's more to it than just slam

There's nothing terribly unusual about a big, hefty US-made power amp: after all, it's almost an archetype of what we think the US high-end is all about. Long cable runs from preamp to power amp(s), short tails to the speakers – it's just the way they do things over there, and at first glance the Parasound Halo JC5 seems to conform to all those preconceptions.

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From the VaultPre/Power Amplifiers
Paravicini 312 Preamp and M100A Monoblocks
Ken Kessler  |  Sep 16, 2022  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2001
hfnvintageLooks like valves, smells like valves, uses transistors – Ken Kessler hears 100W of single-ended MOSFET power from the pen of Tim de Paravicini

Statement amps are nothing new to Tim de Paravicini, his original EAR 509s and 549s hardly being minor projects. Neither were the first amps to bear the Yoshino names, a pair of designs showing that single-ended topology could be applied to both valves and transistors. But the latter, while Tim was able to voice it to ape the tubes, ran just as hot as the valves, and proved just as inefficient as all single-ended designs are known to be, so why bother? Damned if I know, for Tim's latest is a huge mutha of a single-ended amp... and it's solid-state.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Pass Labs Xa60.5 (£9850 Pair)
Ed Selley  |  Nov 24, 2010
Bottom of the five-model XA. 5 series of mono power amplifiers, all of them true Class A designs, the XA60. 5 offers a rated output of 60W and, it’s claimed, much higher current capability than previous XA models: to the tune of a fi ve-fold improvement. So tough loudspeaker loads, of which there are still many, are grist to the XA.
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Pre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Philips RH 551 Preamplifier
Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 24, 2021
hfnvintageAn outlier in its day, this preamp was marketed as a match for products from rival brands yet its real purpose was to drive the company's MFB speakers. We fire it up...

The Philips Motional Feedback loudspeaker was one of the great advances in audio technology. Launched in 1975, the series would eventually encompass four distinct generations and remain in production for over a decade, its key technologies jealously guarded by Philips patents [HFN Jul '13]. However, the partnering equipment designed to help these speakers perform at their best is less well known, arguably due to Philips endorsing the use of third-party sources and amplifiers.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
PrimaLuna EVO 400 series Pre/Power Amplifier
Review: David Price, Lab: Paul Miller  |  May 19, 2020
hfnoutstandingThe ultimate expression of PrimaLuna's EvoLution amplifiers not only accommodates a raft of different output tubes but also offers triode/ultralinear switching on the fly

Shortly after the turn of the new millennium, PrimaLuna began manufacturing valve amplifiers for buyers hankering for an alternative to the stereotypical solid-state sound. The Netherlands-based company launched accessible tube designs with up-to-the-minute styling, starting with the ProLogue and then DiaLogue ranges. These played an important part in proselytising the joys of 'glass audio' to a new generation. Now, the company's new EvoLution range – EVO for short – has taken over the mantle, with 100, 200, 300 and 400 levels. The EVO 400 pre/power amplifier combination you see here (£4150 apiece) is the company's third-generation flagship.

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Pre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Primare 928 System
Review: David Price, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Apr 12, 2019
hfnvintageSometimes you rediscover a classic once so far ahead of the curve that it cuts a dash to this day – and we're not just talking style but sound. Is this '80s amp one of them?

The 1980s was a decade of great change. Consumer products that had been the stuff of science fiction just 15 years earlier – digital watches, home computers, LaserDisc players – were now increasingly commonplace. The era had a dynamic, hedonistic feel, and it was now acceptable not just to have wealth but to show it.

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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Primare A35.8 Multichannel Power Amp
Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jun 13, 2022
hfnoutstandingWith no fewer than eight channels (bridgeable to four), Primare's most powerful amp to date will service the most ambitious bi-, tri- or quad-amp loudspeaker solutions

It goes without saying that an eight-channel power amplifier is unusual. In the hi-fi world, two channels is the default, and even in multichannel home cinemas the trend is to start with five or seven and then, if you must, add more in pairs. Furthermore, the A35.8, priced £4500, arrives not from a specialist custom install brand, or an audio company with pro studio leanings, but from Primare.

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Network Audio Players/ServersPre/Power Amplifiers
Primare I15 Prisma networked amplifier
Review: David Price, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Oct 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngThis neatly packaged, sleekly-styled Scandinavian integrated offers DAC and streaming functionality, plus a very fine sound thanks to its proven Class D power amp modules

Many think of Apple as creating today’s world of sleek, minimalist consumer electronics – but the business and creative heads of that Californian company – Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive – were themselves inspired by great talents working in hi-fi, long before the iconic iPod was ever launched. Lest we forget, Jacob Jensen did amazing industrial design work at Bang & Olufsen for decades, as did Dieter Rams at Braun 15 years earlier.

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