Integrated Amplifiers

There’s an easy way to understand the hierarchy of amps in the Hegel catalogue, be they pre, power or integrated. The higher the number, the ‘better’ the specification (you might think this would be the only way to go about it, but some rival companies – I’m looking at you, HiFi Rose – beg to differ). And so it is that the Norwegian manufacturer’s new H150 integrated, priced £2750, takes up a middle-of-the-range position, above the entry-level H95 [HFN Oct ’20], and below the H190v, H400 [HFN Oct ’24] and H600 [HFN Oct ’23].

You know where you stand with Rotel. This is a long-running company, still family-owned after almost 70 years, and with a commitment to spending money on what’s on the inside of its products rather than the cosmetics. It still winds its own transformers, and tightly specifies other components it buys in. Its halo brand, Michi, has striking looks [HFN Apr ’25 & May ’24] – from the originals with their Japanese lacquered side-panels to the understated chic of the black-on-black current generation – but the core products remain plain and simple [HFN Apr ’22], looking functional to the point where some might even consider them dour.

In high-end hi-fi, it’s common to see the phrase ‘two-man lift’ applied to heavyweight loudspeakers, amplifiers and subwoofers. Yet the top-of-the-line InPoL Legacy from Italian manufacturer Pathos goes one (well, two) better. This integrated amplifier, priced £51,995, arrives in a purpose-built wooden crate on wheels, along with two metal ‘pull-up’ bars that slide underneath the chassis once the crate has been disassembled. It’s then a four-person job to lift the bars and manoeuvre this 140kg beast into position.

The 1970s was a bumper decade for massive integrated amps and receivers although these big beasts of the audio jungle often remained something of a rarity in the UK

Big stereo receivers never made much of an impact in the UK, but this did not stop the importers servicing the large Japanese manufacturers from offering them from time to time. Pioneer, Marantz and Kenwood all boasted full-fat machines with colossal power output ratings stretching into hundreds of watts per channel – these numbers far in excess of British audiophiles’ experience. Add to this list Sansui, a brand that always had heavyweight models at the top of its ranges. The 7070 model seen here is typical of the breed – it was introduced in 1976 and remained in the catalogue until 1978.

Swooping down into iFi Audio’s ever-expanding line-up, the £1699 iDSD Valkyrie stakes its claim as the new flagship portable. The brand typically excels at offering oodles of functionality at very reasonable prices, although the £3749 iCAN Phantom desktop headphone amp [HFN Sep ’23] shows it also has form when it comes to high-end head-fi. Nevertheless, and despite boasting a lot of familiar iFi Audio features and technologies, the iDSD Valkyrie is a very different beast – not least because it boasts a gargantuan 20,000mAh battery for extended mobile use.

Many moons ago I learned about the lack of sense in making predictions, as they usually prove wrong. Despite this I’m happy to posit that we are entering two ‘Golden Ages’. The first appears to be that of superb integrated amps appearing in a flood, including the Marantz Model 10 [HFN Jun ’25], D’Agostino’s Pendulum [HFN Jul ’25] and the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 600.2 [HFN Aug ’25]. But they are all high-end units. By contrast, the Quad 3 has a list price of only £1249, and it blew me away.

A wish fulfilled? I have already admitted in an ‘Off The Leash’ column [HFN May ’24] that, among the products I’ve never owned, I ‘lusted after’ an AirTight amplifier. So this review was accompanied by more than the usual sense of expectation, this legendary amplifier already relaunched last year as the 2024 Edition, but now officially called the ATM-1e (£8295).