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2022 Golden Ear: Technics SU-R1000 Reference Class Integrated Amplifier

Technics SU-R1000

Technics SU-R1000 Reference Class Integrated Amplifier

$9499

Having said this, my final selection is the Technics SU-R100. Its phono cartridge optimizer is another demonstration of what digital correction and processing can do—even to the front-end component that most audiophiles treat as anti-digital. I think it does a very good job of getting the best out of a given cartridge, even though its “English” instructions have their limits. More broadly, it has one of the best-sounding digital amplifiers I’ve encountered and a very-good-sounding set of digital coax and optical inputs. Neutral rather than warm, it has lots of detail and really good dynamics for a unit of 150Wpc (8 ohms) to 300Wpc (4 ohms) output power. Also, it is a compact solution that offers the capabilities that normally require three separate components—no need to invest in interconnects between such components—and it is priced at a very affordable level for a design this advanced. 

Tags: AMPLIFIER AWARDS INTEGRATED POWER TECHNICS

Anthony Cordesman

By Anthony Cordesman

I've been reviewing audio components since some long talks with HP back in the early 1980s. My first experiences with the high end came in the 1950s at the University of Chicago, where I earned part of my tuition selling gear for Allied Radio and a local high-end audio dealer, and worked on sound systems for local night clubs, the Court Theater, and the university radio station. My professional life has been in national security, but I've never lost touch with the high end and have lived as a student and diplomat in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, NATO, Asia, Iran and the Middle East and Asia. I've been lucky enough to live in places where opera, orchestras, and live chamber and jazz performances were common and cheap, and to encounter a wide range of different venues, approaches to performing, and national variations in high-end audio gear. I currently hold the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and my open source analyses are available at that web site. What I look for in reviewing is the ability to provide a musically real experience at a given price point in a real-world listening room, and the ability to reveal the overall balance of musical sound qualities that I know are on a given recording. Where possible, I try to listen on a variety of systems as well as my own reference system.

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