Offering ten times the power of its single-ended antecedents, this new power amplifier from Consonance promises to bring the fluid and subtle quality of high-end valves to very many more music lovers.
Typically, the 2A3 valve delivers three and a half watts in a sigle ended amplifier design, a number that will bring a smirk to some and a smile of total musical awareness to others. With sufficiently sensitive loudspeakers that amount of power can manifest itself in convincingly realistic volume levels and dynamic expression across the full frequency spectrum. Through a pair of horn loaded speakers for example, you’d be inclined to ‘get out of the way’ if a military band recording was played at full volume!
To be fair, in most of our homes there are rather more insensitive, often technologically obstructive transducers that seem to require an electronic Massey Ferguson to kick them into life, even so configure four of these very special triodes into a push-pull amplifier like Consonance’s Cyber 10 Signature, and music lovers can enjoy a level of communicative sensuality that’s rarely experienced through most of those ‘hi-fi’ loudspeakers.
Let’s go further, double up on that complement of 2A3s and you’ll discover that thirty watts of valve power can touch your musical sensibilities in a way that so many tractor-power amplifiers simply fail to do. The new Consonance Cyber 880A is a real bargain in today’s “the more you pay, the more it’s worth” hi-fi marketplace and will embarrass an awful lot of expensive audio badges. That said, with its impressive banks of 2A3s laid out in two separate quartets, this new amplifier not only sounds beautifully convincing but looks like something very special as well.
We recognise that words alone can’t convey the emotional experience that a recording can inspire so, whatever type of music you prefer, please ignore all the prejudice and pontification that’s so prevelant these days, simply take a listen and discover how modern valve amplifiers can release the full breadth of expression, visceral excitement through to poignant sensitivity, from your treaured discs.
