This is the 21st Century recreation of the original NAD 3020 amplifier from the seventies that provided an outlet for thousands of young people on the hunt for real HiFi.

When I was purveying audio in Cambridge in 1979 the NAD 3020 was a sudden revolutionary product that empowered a whole generation of young HiFi buffs with at last a reliable good quality amplifier that was a massive leap ahead of anything else that was available at the time at anything like the money.(89 pounds sterling at the time)

This is the descendant of the original 3020 amplifier that all the students would blow their grant cheques on in the seventies. Grey and austere but with an unnatural amount of gold plate on input terminals and lots of good quality electronic components internally.

Cambridge always manages to show us just how good “entry point” hifi can be. The 351A is built like a much more expensive device, and punches well above its weight class in sound quality. It would be a great value amp, even if it didn’t have a built in USB DAC stage. But it does have that, so it’s even better value!

This very acclaimed new amp from Marantz ... looks exactly like every other amp from Marantz for the last six years.
But it's actually made in Japan and sells for the very reasonable price of $780, possibly making it the least expensive piece of CE that is actually Nippon manufactured.

This is the classic NAD pure stereo amp that had me reaching for the price list to double check its costings after I opened it, I couldnt believe how much amp for how little money. Designed by Bjorn Eric Edvardsen it has thus atracted the BEE suffix. As ever with an NAD amp there is a proliferation of high quality input sockets including an RS232 and pre out / main in. It's a really sweet amp with terrific bass control and that particular NAD character of midrange spatial rendition.

NAD amplifiers have always had a particular place in my affection as I used the original 3020 to extract money from students at grant cheque time in Cambridge in the eighties (remember when students got grants and didn't have to borrow themselves into oblivion to study ...) They have a particularly rich midrange presence and fantastic real world speaker driving capability that makes them excellent for difficult load and inefficient loudspeakers.

Power, versatility, price. The 651A ticks some very important boxes. It takes everything that’s wonderful about the 351A and makes it bigger and better.

As well as being able to push even a demanding set of speakers around, the 651A has a proper feature set. A great heaping pile of analogue inputs, a USB DAC input on board, facilities for powering a second set of speakers, subwoofer output, et cetera.

I gather that there are $320m of headphones sold in Australia last year ... some of thoose people need to try their aural pride and joys with this headphone amplifier to hear what they can really sound like like when properly powered and signalled.

NAD's classic series never seems to win any style awards. Apart from a few colour changes, the product has looked the same for over a decade(and really similar for the past thirty years...). However, underneath the unremarkable fascia is a remarkable amplifier. Packing in 150 watts a side, this amp will satisfy even the hungriest of loudspeakers. Its not all about the power through, and this amp will excite and impress with detail and dynamics. Top it all off with an optional modular phono stage and you've got an amp worthy of an audition.

Here's a nice bit of kit. It's a stonking great sounding amp in Cyrus' trade mark cast magnesium alloy chassis that cleverly keeps everything in a little half sized box. The latest Cyrus integrated amplifiers are all based around a high quality, scalable design, you can order with a number of exciting options to create exactly the system for your needs. The 6a stereo amplifier delivers an impressive 40 Watts per channel and includes six analogue inputs that you can individually name from a list of options in the setup wizard. Also included is a great headphone facility and twin speaker output for bi-wiring. One of the outstanding features of this amplifier is that it is factory upgradeable allowing owners to retrospectively add the many other features found in the 6s’s siblings. Have a go on it. It's great!

This PRC sourced device is 30 watts a channel and is a frank attempt on our part to pander to the retro driven demand for glowing glass amplifiers at a very reasonable number of dollars.

The Richter loudspeaker company has banded together with a highly respected industry figure to procure the Mystique ... one confesses to find it appealing for only that it has the lovely VU meter on the front panel combined into a Simaudio style central hump that is just an excellent aesthetic.

Retro wooden case but with ultra contemporary Sabre DAC digital circuitry followed by more Retro with a glowing valve included in the Digital section and prominently visible on the front panel, this is a bit of born again American designed muscle amp with a proper 125rms per channel.

The Kandy in it's mirrored silver finish offer a striking contrast to the more conventionally conservative British mid-fi aesthetic ... and the volume knob is frankly puzzling in a "who on earth thought that was a good idea" sort of way.

The hunk ... a positive chisel of appropriate connectivity for everything and delicous trad high current amp with a quite remarkable 21st century military effectiveness. The armoured Hummer of integrated amplifiers.

An exceptionally high quality, half sized HiFi amp with a multi purpose DAC built in? Doesn't that just sound amazingly attractive. Any one who's been into our store and had a chat with us about stereo will know that we love our Cyrus gear. Almost every one on staff has something from Cyrus at home.

Benjamin is a fervent preacher of Cyrus in our midst:

"Every time I hook up the Cyrus 8 (or "The Eight" as its known around the shop) I am blown away by the effortless deliverance of musicality from this half size component. For those wanting the best without occupying half the listening room. The new Cyrus 8QX in it's cast chassis will surprise any listener. The inclusion of their top end QX DAC will fit seamlessly into a CD Transport or Streaming system and deliver music like you've never heard it before."

There's obviously something good happening in Wales, as Leema Acoustics has unleashed another excellent amplifier in the form of the Pulse. Living up to the high standard set by its bigger brother the superb Tucana, the Pulse is a tour de force in amplification. With more than enough power to tackle demanding speaker loads and a cool volume display, the Pulse is becoming a dem favourite in the stereo sound lounge. Pop in for a play.

This thing is built solid. Like maybe Denon were expecting it to compete in a second world war tank battle, and win.

28kg of Japanese fury! This is good old school hifi, nothing but analogue bliss, leaving the digital side to other devices. But with in that it’s plenty flexible with in puts, out puts, and a serious-business phono stage for your turn table.

At a very slender 5cm tall and with it's red led display, NuForce's IA 18 integrated amp looks like something from an 80's sci-fi film. Retro future? Cyberpunk? Either way, it's a damn good amp. Some of us at CAV have a terrible reputation with the distributor representatives as being unforgiving to deal with when it comes to a products quality and sonic attributes. I am pleased to say that the IA 18 passed the audition with flying colours. Even the cruelly incisive Mr Brett and the cuttingly cool Mr Martin gave the Nuforce an excellent mark.

The classic Japanese beast with a perfect internal disposition of parts.

I case you thought VU meters were mere frippery they are actually very useful indicators of system staus in a very high performance component such as this ... as well as being geek sex aids.

In a glorious throwback to our primitive stereo roots this company has risen again like the survivor from a past evolutionary era.
In the ever changing environment of consumer electronics it's not surprising that they live again ... cos they were really good.

This ... rather spiky ... piece of kit looks retro and feels retro too, but in a good way. The volume control is more kindred to an old Audio Research than a piece of modern digital. As a living fossil of the audio trade I tend to go a lot on immediate product feel in my first assessment of a units integrity and the B100's chassis build, finish, switches and pots are absolutely first class. This being said it's overall look will only gladden the heart of a seasoned studio muso and simply scare to death Mrs Average Bose buyer.

This is the digital brute that is the cool kid of the NAD product range, actually at some odds with the original target market ethos of the NAD line up as it is a thoroughly high end piece of kit with fantastic construction...

We're a little late in getting the Leema Acoustics Tucana Amp into our listings. We may well have been a little too preoccupied listening to it...

It's one of those sublimely impressive bits of equipment that far outstrips the expected performance. Firing it up with power hungry Dynaudio or PMC speakers and it conquers them and reigns them in with superb control and detail not usually seen this side of 5 figure power amps.

This amplifier is simply stunning. Truly.

I love it and I want one. Anybody hear "salary sacrifice"..?

So it has a tube pre amplifier section for all you valvey types and a transistor output stage for the normal people.

It looks a little plain at first glance, but the quality of Rega's new flagship amplifier is astounding. Trying to pick it up, you'd swear they have taken every previous amp model they have ever made and compressed one of each inside the Osiris.