Recommend me a Class A Integrated Amp (or sound like Class A amp)


I have been rocking a Cabasse Riga setup with a Sony TA-A1ES (a heavily biased Class A design outputting first 15 watts as Class A). I absolutely love the clarity and natural sound of it. I’ve decided to keep to Class A to upgrade if possible because the Riga does not need a lot of juice to drive.

Accuphase Class As are eye-watering expensive in my country, but thankfully Esoteric prices their Class A F-03A at much more reasonable $8600 USD. Luxman unfortunately has stopped producing Class As, so they are out of equation and besides strangely they are more expensive than Esoteric in my country. Pass Labs, well, way out of my budget.

So, for around $8600 USD or less what are my other options if I want a similar sound to Class A without going down the tube route?

I’ve heard the new HifiRose RA180 sounds quite class A like. And I think the Yamaha AS series sound quite close as well. Any more options should I consider? The pricing of other brands should be similar to US.

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Showing 7 responses by auroravengeance

@andrei_nz , uh, I literally said that my speakers are Cabasse Riga on the first line of my post. Understandable though, when I went to the dealers and I mentioned about my speakers most did just go "ummm, what are those?" until I explained that it's a pair of high-end spherical coaxial satellites.

As I mentioned earlier, they are very easy to drive therefore I feel safe to limit my option to only Class As.

Plinius is definitely on my short list. For Perreaux, only 80i is available to purchase in my city. 

I guess I just want to buy more stuff or scratch that itch of wanting the best gear?

Anyway, I like my sound to be as realistic and pure as possible but still having a lot of liveliness and excitement. I listen to a lot of modern female vocals and classical music. 

Two speakers I'm considering in my upgrade path: Cabasse Baltic and Yamaha NS-3000. These speakers are balanced, neutral, and very fast.

Pass Labs stuff in my city are very expensive. Teac, Esoteric, Yamaha, and Plinius stuff are quite a bit more cheaper so I am heavily leaning towards these 4 brands. 

 

The only available brand new Luxman Class A left available to buy is a 595ASE and I don't think I want to pay the mark up for that. And I don't like the all buttons look anyway. I guess $8600 USD Esoteric F-03A seems like the best value; I checked the price of this in US and wow you guys are really getting the short end of the stick. 

I totally forgot about Krell and definitely is going to check it out. The highest end for Hautonga available here is Plinius Hautonga at around 3600 USD, but I guess I will give it a try anyway. 

Great suggestions from all of you. I am located in Singapore btw.

A dealer suggested to me I could actually get the entry level Accuphase Power Amp A-36 for $6500 USD and use the difference to upgrade my DAC to a DAC with a preamp like TEAC UD-701N ($2500 USD). That theoretically might give a better sonic upgrade compared to just getting an Esoteric F-03A.

 

Those who I have spoken to echoed the few comments earlier that I would probably see marginal improvement upgrading my amp since my Sony amp is considered as a superb amp almost comparable to the higher end Japanese brands. 

So I might decide to upgrade my DAC or speaker first. 

The Coda CSIB and the Krell K300i are available to demo in my city and I would try them out. 

Soulnote A2 and Yamaha AS3200 come highly recommended among my circle as well. 

I will be trying a TEAC UD-701 and AP0-701 stack soon with my speakers. I've heard it paired with a pair of Sonus Faber Lumina III and the speakers sounded much more expensive than they were. 

I try to keep an open mind. Thankfully my speakers are light enough to carry around easily. I will probably audition Luxman 509X and see whether it would be good for me.

I’ve heard the Teac stack I mentioned above yesterday and I was really surprised at the sound despite AP-701 being just a class D. Sound is clear, balanced, and sweet, but a little laid back, but it could be just the Sonus Faber Lumina’s characteristic. I will bring my Riga to to the dealer to investigate further. The stack is priced at $4600 USD and seems like really bang for the buck.