YBA Designs

YBA Designs replaced the aging Audio Refinement line. Last week I bought my dealer's demo amp and CD player. The tuner should be available in the fall. They're interesting, aesthetically very gallic looking pieces. They're meant to stack up. They're made in the PRC (some dealers assumed that they would be made in France). Sonically, I can't compare them to the all-Audio Refinement setup I have at work: the YBA Designs are used in my living room with ceiling-mounted speakers so they're purely for background music. Cool looking, though ....

S7: I, too, am a fan of the AR equipment. Sure, some people have made the argument that it's been around "too long" (whatever that means) without a stylistic upgrade but I've been very happy with the trio and yes, I think that the CD player is a really capable unit.
Since the AR stuff is that the office and the YBAD pair is at home and functioning under less than ideal setup, maybe this weekend I'll take the YBAD pair to the office and compare it to the AR setup. That would be a more valid approach. One thing, thought: the YBAD stuff sure is pretty....

Marty, I'm not sure what the focus of your post is. But I can tell you that I am terribly excited about the new tuner that I will soon be receiving from the Iranian Ministry of Audio. I think the combo will work great on the new, high-end depleted uraniam isolation platforms that I received yesterday from the A.Q. Khan Audio. The only thing that's held up at customs right now are the nifty new power chords from Pyongyang Hi-Fi Accessories.

Cambiocorsa: Any word on when the matching tuner might show up?

Cambio: Thanks for the response. I saw a brochure for the YBA design that listed an extensive product list. The US distributor's response to my inquiry was that the tuner would be available in July/August 06. My local dealer suspects that it will be in October.

Since my earlier posting I've had a chance to compare the YBAD amp to the Audio Refinement amp. I still have the all-Audio Refinement setup in my office and I really enjoy it. I think that the Audio Refinement amp is a great deal for the money, more so now that it's on the used market.

But the YBAD amp was something else! It sounded significantly more controlled than the AR amp, with alot more presence and detail. And the extra power really shows up in headroom. Is there a better $1,800 integrated out there? I'm not sure but the YBAD integrated is a great piece.

I haven't compared the YBAD CD player to the AR one because the two haven't been in the same room but the YBAD amp/CD combo is a real nice setup.

Aesthetics may not be important for some people but they are to me and the pieces are stricking and understated. This is why I'm anxiously awaiting the tuner's release because I listen to alot of FM via my second system.

Drawbacks? Most definitely the rear of the units. The RCA jacks and speaker binding posts are of a disappointingly bad quality. It's obvious that alot of money was spent on the billet construction of the cases but that's no reason to have used lower quality connectors.

Someone may have mentioned as a drawback the fact that the displays can't be dimmed. I would agree since I suspect that it might not be a good idea to have the display to be burning the same message for days and days. But the display is pretty low-visibility and all that one really sees is a dimly lit elongated rectangle.

The new remote is a nice piece and it gives you an indication of YBA Designs is planning for the future (since it's supposed to control up to seven devices, including DVD player, etc). It's weight makes it equally useful as a personal defence weapon.

I don't want to give anyone the impression that I consider these pieces as nice, "lifestyle" audio gear. Rather, I am set with my primary system and wanted a great looking, great sounding, low-maintenance, low visibility second system to power three floors. So far I've been very happy with the duo and my Audio Refinement system is still hummin' along at work.