Integrated Amplifiers

The new romantic Emille brings modern, digital inputs to old-fashioned valves in its most affordable amplifier ever as Ed Selley finds his top pick of 2011 so far Emillé takes its name from a giant, ornate bell that is considered a national treasure in its native Korea. Its range of well thought-out integrated, pre/power amplifiers and phono stages is entirely valve-based and has worn commensurately high-end price tags up until now. The £2,450 Ara is not exactly cheap, but is comfortably Emillé’s least expensive integrated amp ever and targets a rather more accessible and competitive price point. The good news is that there is little sign of cost-cutting.

Promising irresistible power and total connectivity, HFC checks out this potent reference integrated amplifier

Hegel's update to its H90 entry-level integrated

Icon Audio Stereo 60 Mk 3 More powerful than most and built the old-fashioned way: no printed circuit boards here! Icon’s exuberant literature makes many claims for this amp, including higher output power than most KT88 models can muster: 65-watt ultralinear or 35-watt triode. There’s nothing outrageous about that, though, and indeed we’ve seen 100-watt amps using just a pair of KT88s. The relatively high output power is partly responsible for the considerable weight of this amp, but the chassis is very substantially built too, complete with a solid copper top-plate around the valve area. Unusually, all the valves are octal-base types, including the small-signal valves and voltage regulator.

20 gives plenty Icon Audio has taken its cue from the Leak Stereo 20 for its latest entry into the budget valve market, says Jason Kennedy Beside the Quad II, the Leak Stereo 20 (ST20) is one of the most sought after British valve amps of yore. Introduced in the mid-fifties by H J Leak, it sold in substantial numbers for over a decade, but today even unrestored examples cost more than Icon is asking here. The Stereo 20PP’s circuit is based on the original ST20 and uses the same output valves in a push-pull configuration. It only delivers 15 watts per channel, but as any glass audio enthusiast will tell you, it’s not how much power you have, but how you use it that counts.

Leema Acoustics Pulse III With its proprietary interface and stylish controls, the Pulse III is the next phase in Leema’s enviable amp range As one of our listeners observed after the veil had been lifted on the amps, “That Pulse looks like a set-top box”. Maybe it does, too – and Leema mentions in its literature that the Pulse is intended to be for all the family. Maybe, indeed, hi-fi with the easy familiarity of a set-top box is no bad thing in this day and age. It’s a bit of a deluxe STB, though, not least thanks to the milled-from-solid aluminium front panel and solidly made casework.