Pre/Power Amplifiers

Does the world really need another DAC? Considering the ample offerings from traditional and emerging Asian hi-fi brands, you might be tempted to say, 'not really'. However, Poland's Ferrum Audio combines experience with a flair for innovation – its parent company HEM has been an OEM contractor for other manufacturers, possibly inciting its engineers to go one better for their own brand.

It struck me, around halfway through the first track, that designer/CEO Dan D'Agostino was emulating the way supercar companies delineate their model ranges. Hey, I needed something to explain why the new Progression S350 Stereo power amplifier at £34,998 costs just over half that of the Momentum S250 MxV's £54,998, and yet it is over two times the size and rated at 100W more per channel: 350W vs 250W. Also, at 454x230x584mm (whd) against a Momentum's 318x133x546mm, the Progression S350 dwarfs the dearer unit. It was like the comedy Twins, with Schwarzenegger standing next to DeVito.

By all accounts Hegel has been very busy over the last few years, which is a notion that might raise some eyebrows because – understandably – the Norwegian company went a little quiet during and after 2020. In fact, the V10 phono preamplifier [HFN Mar '21] has been about the only piece of hardware to escape the drawing board of Hegel's owner and master engineer Bent Holter since Covid. However, as industry insiders and the company's user base well knew, Hegel was battling the angry gods of software development to make its major integrated amplifiers Roon Ready.

Working out the brand behind the Eclipse Stereo power amplifier isn't hard: not only is the design a modern take on the iconic Australian Halcro amps of the past [see 'From the Vault', HFN Dec '22], but the product itself, with the power supply and amplifier suspended between two solid uprights, forms the letter 'H' – not a trick we've seen other manufacturers attempting!

Timely or what? When editor PM pointed out that the Manley Jumbo Shrimp Line Preamplifier (£5849) and Mahi Monoblock Amplifier (a stereo pair at £7599 making up Mahi-Mahi – geddit?) had been in the catalogue for ages, I learned from company president EveAnna Manley that it was exactly 20 years to the day of their debut that I was auditioning the latter.

It's not unusual to find consumer hi-fi hardware making some concessions to the custom installation (CI) space – typically connectivity, such as RS232 and Ethernet – that enables a CI professional to integrate and control the product in a wider system. Yet there are also items, such as McIntosh's MI502, that are more deliberately aimed at the CI market. A slimline two-channel power amplifier, it looks a world away from some of the Binghamton, New York-based company's heavy-hitters. Should it be given a swerve by the dedicated audiophile? Or might it be just what the doctor ordered?

Abrand new company, Samuel Johnson was founded by a group of enthusiasts, most of whom had met through their work with a Scottish-based manufacturer of control systems for industrial applications and who discovered further common ground in a consuming interest in hi-fi.