Pre/Power Amplifiers

These new products from A&R Cambridge have been long in the pipeline. In an unusually brave step for such a small company, it has invested in moulding tooling for the front panels and also the casework of the preamplifier. Its aim was to achieve close tolerances, and considerable effort has been expended in achieving a good fit of parts, particularly for the array of controls on the preamplifier.

Unlike its meaning as a show of arrogance, in a design context a 'conceit' is, variously, 'an ingenious or fanciful comparison or metaphor', 'an artistic effect or device', or 'a fanciful notion'. AGD's £18,000-per-pair Gran Vivace is all three. To understand the utterly bizarre use of a valve's glass envelope as a housing for a solid-state amplifier, think of a similar conceit in another field: smart watches which, instead of emulating Apple's genre-defining rectangle, look like analogue timepieces.

Whatever else can be said about Albarry Music’s amplifiers, they looked fantastic – products that proudly had their works on show, but done with consummate grace and restraint. The M408 was the first amplifier from Albarry, one of many boutique firms that sprang up in the early 1980s in reaction to the mass-produced ranges from Europe and Japan.

Experience has shown me that you don’t get something for nothing, so I don’t expect the state-of-the-art in hi-fi to cost the same as a toaster. Regular readers will note, however, that I do champion those rare components which defy their price tags, and get no greater pleasure than I do from learning that you don’t have to take out a mortgage for a taste of the best.

Is this a new twist on the CD player? Or yet another new variation on the DAC? Well, neither actually, for as that ‘Mk2’ suffix suggests, this is a revised version of ATC’s innovative CDA CD player/DAC/preamp combination, selling for £2950 and designed as the perfect partner for the company’s £3375 P2 power amplifier [HFN Mar ’17], or its range of active speakers.