Advance Paris Apex A12 Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

French audio manufacturer Advance Paris is celebrating its 30th anniversary with the arrival of its Apex series, a premium range of amplifiers and hi-fi components designed to bring together a potent blend of "form, function and value".

Playing this though a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 100 loudspeakers demonstrates that the Apex A12 a a remarkable capacity for extracting detailed low frequencies from a compact box. Iron hand in velvet glove ... and is able to do that trick of placing a holographic image in front of the speakers and extending it beyond their left and right boundaries. And it has headroom ... think of a 1980's Luxman L105 but with turbo supercharging and with excellent detail rendition.

There is substance and there is style ... this highly desirable piece of kit ticks every possible box. The amplifier has an absolute plethora of features:

Improved sound quality over A12 Classic, new ESS9039Q2M DAC,
2 x 190W class AB dual mono amplification with High Bias mode,
6x analogue RCA inputs (including MM/MC phono) + 2x XLR inputs/XLR out
HDMI (eARC with wake up ability), 3x Optical, 3x Coaxial, 1x USB Audio,
Optional A-BTC Bluetooth receiver / Bluetooth headset connection
Pre-out/main in, 2x subwoofer out, Record out.