LATEST ADDITIONS

Germany’s T+A has spent the last couple of years developing a completely new range of all-solid-state electronics: its ‘HV Series’. Built into an all-aluminium case, the PA 3000 HV amplifier’s individual sub-assemblies are screened in separate chambers. An upper compartment houses the preamplifier and voltage amplifier stages, while the electronic control processor and circuitry for driving the display screen – fed by a separate power supply arrangement – sits in a recess machined out of the 40mm-thick aluminium front panel. A 10mm-thick dividing wall shields the top section from the left/right current amplifier stages and the unit’s massive power supply is in a lower compartment.

Yes, those valves – made in-house – really are a foot tall! And they radiate substantial heat once the SXI has been powered up for a few minutes, but KR Audio’s amplifiers are beautifully engineered. The company is based in Prague, founded by electronics engineer the late Dr Ricardo Kron in 1992. It’s a boutique firm of only a dozen or so people – skilled artisans who blow the glass and hand-craft the tubes. Such is the transparency of KR Audio’s Kronzilla amplifiers that at least of couple of German recording studios use them in mastering suites.

Enter Musical Fidelity’s latest ultra-high-power creation, described as ‘a true heir to the [2008] Titan, delivering near-identical sound’. It’s a monoblock design that’s considerably more bank-balance friendly, rated at 700W/8ohm, although this transpired to be conservative. It is part of a new series of high-end components, also including the M8PRE preamplifier. The sturdy casework has a finely-textured black finish and thick aluminium fascias while the M8700m’s heatsinks are smoothly finished.

On seeing Siltech’s pre/power combo you might think it incorporates a separate power supply. In fact, this unusual design splits the power amplifier into separate interstage (voltage gain) and current amplifier sections. The combo’s C1 tube preamplifier (pictured) features a rechargeable battery power supply as does the V1 voltage stage of the two-box power amplifier. Of course, running the complete V1/P1 amplifier from a battery would be wholly impractical, so the P1 is mains powered.