True Audiophile: New Products

Ferrum Wandla HP (Sat, 16 Nov 2024)
All New Wandla HP. The Flahship just got a HP Jack. This new Headphone model diminutive DAC/Pre-amp has no right to offer and sound as it does. We've compared it to DACs costing well over twice its price and its within 5% of the performance. Complete .. Price: $3,295.00
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Reed 2B Tone Arm Blows Reviewers away. (Fri, 15 Nov 2024)
Reed 2B Tone Arm Blows Reviewers away. Now at True Audiophile Being dedicated TurnTable enthusiasts and Precision Alignment Experts we're always looking for arms that look as good as they perform. While loved by the top TT reviewers here in t.. Price: $4,995.00
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Atlas Hyper Streaming (Thu, 14 Nov 2024)
Hyper Ultra LAN/Ethernet. Now at True Audiophile cable products We literally spent 3 months testing this cable line both in-house and with clients. The initial claims made us suspicious. After all the feedback we gave in. These are remarkable cables, especiall.. Price: $260.00
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DEMO Revelation AudioPrecept Cryo-Silver Reference A/C Mains (Wed, 13 Nov 2024)
DEMO Revelation Audio Labs Precept Cryo-Silver™ Reference A/C Mains cable Now at True Audiophile RARE Demo of this spectacular mains cable that performs as impressively as it looks. Price: $1,999.00
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Stereophile.com

Wilson Audio Specialties The WATT/Puppy Loudspeaker (Fri, 24 Jan 2025)
Photos: Paul Miller, except where noted Since the original WATT/Puppy concept kicked off in the late 1980s, there has been a 40-year evolution leading to the latest version reviewed here. The loudspeaker's price in 2025 is around $40,000/pair compared to the original's $8000. While inflation alone would have lifted the price to $25,000/pair, the current price takes into account the many technological and design improvements. While remaining physically separable, the upper "WATT" (Wilson Audio Tiny Tot) component, namely the head unit of the latest design, can no longer be run as a small full-range loudspeaker in its own right. This is because the mid/treble crossover, which was originally in the WATT, is now relocated to the lower "Puppy" section. Certainly, that original two-box "full range," strongly sculpted WATT/Puppy stack radically broke the mold in deviating from those rather plain, coffin-shaped tower loudspeakers that were popular in this category. The late David Wilson originally created the WATT as a shelf-mount studio monitor to help produce his recordings. At the time, this compact two-way promised near–state-of-the-art sound quality, especially transparency, indicative of very low self-noise. This quality also helped to maximize dynamic range and contrast. Later, David used the WATT as the foundation for a three-way floorstanding design by matching it to a low-frequency system (the Puppy), which also stood in as a physical platform for the WATT. This idea became reality in the successful W/P line of bass augmented systems (footnote 1). Left: first WATT prototype "White Dwarf" (circa 1985); right, 50th Anniversary WATT (circa 2024 (Photo Wilson Audio Specialties) The original three-way WATT-Puppy led to an enduring series of related Wilson Audio designs, culminating in the spectacular Chronosonic series including the flagship XVX, which I reviewed for HiFiCritic magazine in 2021 (footnote 2). Why release yet another WATT/Puppy now when Wilson has broadly similar models already in production in the shape of the two-box Alexia V and Sasha V? CEO, Creative Director, and son of the founder Daryl Wilson explained that recently evolving research had pointed to an innovative set of design and technology solutions. He realized this work could be leveraged with advantage to create a smaller, more competitively priced version, if very closely related to the existing Alexia. Mildly downsized from the Alexia, with additional development it could then form the basis for this long-planned introduction. The new WATT/Puppy celebrates Wilson's "50th Anniversary." Had the W/P naming convention had been continued it would be called the WATT/Puppy 9, but so radical are the design changes that the new loudspeaker is now simply dubbed "The WATT/Puppy." Right on target, it turned out 20% less costly than the current Alexia V, which costs $67,500/pair upward. And when compared with the latter's 244lb (111kg), the new WATT/Puppy is a mere 161 pound (73kg) stripling, yet it offers the same exacting build quality and finish while incorporating many of the Alexia's advanced components and technologies. And the evident enthusiasm Daryl has shown for the WATT/Puppy legacy is impressive. He has specified some of the best currently available ingredients for this celebratory project. Daryl Wilson told me that the cast-metal 50th Anniversary medallion was only included with the WATT/Puppy loudspeakers that were shipped during the company's 50th anniversary in 2024. Put simply, the WATT/Puppy series is a powerful, stacked, two-box floorstanding loudspeaker promising an extended frequency response, realistically high sound pressure levels, and a natural timbre. Unusually for this industry, it comes with a considerable degree of adjustability allowing for fine-tuning on installation, helping to account for variables within the audio system, including the power amplifier technology, audio cables and their run length, and the room. There are very detailed instructions in the manual for the precise placement of both loudspeaker and listener within the local acoustic. With versatile alignments included, it has an unusual measure of adjustability to aid optimization for different systems and environments while also noting that it makes the design something of a moving target, not least when attempting to precisely nail its performance. Design philosophy I have owned many WATT/Puppy systems over several decades, experiencing at first hand the policy of incremental improvement. Trying to distill the essence, I have enjoyed high standards for dynamic contrast, timbre, and resolution with exceptional image focus, a particular result of the pyramidal form of the upper enclosure. This aspect also promotes a more uniform power response, better matching the reference axial output with the in-room balance. I asked Daryl to highlight the differences between the WATT/Puppy and the Sasha V. "The original WATT had an internal two-way mid-treble crossover, while the low-frequency section was contained in the bass enclosure. For the latest iteration, all the crossovers are contained in the woofer base, as with the Sasha. The biggest difference between The WATT/Puppy and Sasha V would be the overall footprint and size of the enclosures. It would be easier to talk about the similarities between these two loudspeakers than the differences. All of the drivers are the same between the two. The proprietary materials used throughout the enclosure (X, S, and V-Material) are the same. Even the bespoke crossover components are almost identical. (Crossover topologies are optimized for each system of course.) One of the design objectives of The WATT/Puppy was to distill the performance of the Sasha V into a smaller form—a form with iconic lines and a deep historic connection with Wilson Audio." The WATT/Puppy concept could be described as a contemporary refinement of current technologies, utilizing class-leading low-coloration, low-distortion speaker drivers. These are neatly incorporated into Wilson Audio's heroic and historic two-part W/P enclosure build with short path and low-order, ideally musically transparent crossover filters. But seemingly there is another design aspect. It was never a classic "three-way," where bass, midrange, and treble sections are firmly divided over frequency at the usual textbook frequencies of 500Hz between the woofer and midrange and 3kHz from the midrange to the tweeter. The crossovers are typically implemented with second-order or higher-slope rolloff filters that introduce significant phase shifts. Some designers consider this latter approach results in subtle coloration and timing errors. By contrast, the WATT/Puppy design may be viewed as a near full-range two-way bookshelf head unit, the WATT, with the bass enclosure output underpinning the remaining lower frequencies. The crossover to the woofers is set at 230Hz, which is an octave lower than is considered usual. To get some perspective, consider an octave of musical notes between 150–300Hz, while noting that the musically important note Middle C has a frequency of 262Hz. Choice of a lower-than-usual crossover point helps keep unwanted sounds from the bass system out of the midrange, here including middle C, allowing that refined ultrawide-band 7" ScanSpeak driver to anchor the notional center. A similarly gentle filter defines the transition from mid to treble, here set at a surprising 1.3kHz, an octave lower than the industry's usual 2.6–4kHz range. This decision is made possible thanks to the exceptional bandwidth of the chosen tweeter, which has an output that extends right down into the upper midrange. An aurally seamless low-coloration, low–phase-shift transition between the drivers is the design objective, thus distinguishing this design from much of the competition by aiming for a more "natural" blended sound. Such "non-textbook" system design may not measure as well as some competing loudspeakers, but measurements often fail to tell the full story as they can only represent a sampling of the overall acoustic output delivered to the room and listener. For sure, advanced methods such as the Klippel analyzer are most helpful for more accurate and consistent loudspeaker measurement, but these still cannot fully predict how a loudspeaker will sound in situ. Wilson has enjoyed many years of experience with its separated-enclosure design approach. As before, the WATT mid-treble head unit is partially decoupled from the potentially energetic vibration of the powerful woofer system via three massive, self-aligning, threaded, locking, hardened steel spikes bearing on a substantial alloy plate which is bolted to the selected ultrahigh-density composite Puppy top panel. Vibrations from the upper section are thereby partially decoupled from the influence of the larger surface radiating area of the Puppy cabinet. For the latest head unit, that impressive oversize rear spike is the key to adjustment and subsequent locking. It is used to optimize azimuth and thus, to some extent, the listener-arrival timing, particularly for the high frequencies, by fine-tuning their origins relative to the mid driver. It has a wide adjustment, which Wilson terms "time alignment"; this is possible, if over a fairly limited frequency range. The differential material interfaces between the two enclosures, including aluminum alloy and Wilson Audio's newest proprietary V-Material as the top platform, provide mild, non-hysteretic damping. This helps to lower the operating noisefloor while avoiding coloration-inducing resonances and related delay. If particular difficulties are encountered in an installation, effective exploitation of the panoply of further possible installation settings are available, if rarely invoked, including subtle adjustment of both the bass-mid balance and the mid-treble balance via judicious substitutions of the calibrated protection-resistor values. Wilson's inventory of synthetic materials used for the enclosure's panels, modified and filled structural polymers and resins, has long moved on from Corian, the marble dust-loaded acrylic chosen for the original WATT. The panels mostly comprise synthetic structural material of differing densities, stiffness, and mechanical loss, or self-damping. These "materials" include "S," an epoxy-bonded composite optimal for the mid and treble driver baffles, and "X," a filled, cured phenolic resin with high damping. The latest "V" formulation is a further development with still better vibration control. Accordingly, the "V" option has been chosen for the heavy-duty Puppy bass system's top panel, which optimally mounts the machined alloy plate supporting the WATT assembly. As a group, the Wilson-specified materials are consistently isotropic when required and although very hard, remain machineable, have essentially no grain or directional properties, and readily accept durable enamel lacquers for a very wide range of finishes. For the WATT/Puppy, in addition to five standard high-gloss colors which include GT Silver and Galaxy Grey, there are a further seven Upgrade finishes and 11 Pearl finishes in combination with seven grille colors. Finally, there is the modestly discounted "no grille option." Footnote 1: Earlier versions of the WATT/Puppy reviewed in Stereophile were the WATT Series 3/Puppy 2, the WATT/Puppy System 5, the WATT/Puppy 7, and the WATT/Puppy System 8.—Ed. Footnote 2: Michael Fremer reviewed the Chronosonic XVX for Stereophile in the May 2021 issue.—Ed.
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Audia Flight FLS10 integrated amplifier (Thu, 23 Jan 2025)
The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you're serious about sound quality, you're supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp. The logic goes that separates reduce interference and offer maximum control over your sound. But there's an argument to be made that integrated amplifiers are more practical ... and potentially better-sounding. The beauty of an integrated amp lies in its synergy. Audio engineers know exactly how the pre and power sections will interact; the two are literally designed to work together. On paper at least, that means optimized impedance matching, and signal integrity that can rival and perhaps surpass separates. How do you know whether a standalone preamp is a great match for a power amp? For most of us, it's through trial and error. It isn't unusual for restless stereo aficionados to own multiple combos over the years, in search of the ideal one. That gets costly. Then there's the fact that an integrated amp helps declutter a room, appealing to minimalists and people whose living spaces are less than cavernous. Another plus: no need to shell out for audiophile-grade interconnects. The why and how The Audia Flight FLS10, an Italian integrated, came into my life because I'd been scratching my head over a pair of top-of-the-line Diptyque panel speakers that I'm planning to review for this magazine. Once I had them in my home and properly set up, the Diptyques' midrange and treble was as lush and engaging as I remembered from the Tampa and Chicago audio shows where I'd heard them. Bass, however, was another matter. The lower octaves seemed on the lackluster side. I knew that the speakers weren't at fault, because on those previous occasions they'd reproduced bass frequencies superbly. The Diptyques seemed to cry out for something grippier than the tubed monoblocks with which I'd paired them. I considered using a tube amp for the mids and highs and a solid state one for the bass, but each Diptyque Reference has only a single set of binding posts. The next best plan: a solid state amplifier fed by a tube preamp—to wit, my recapped Krell FPB 200c reference power amp paired with the wonderful Margules SF-220 tube preamplifier that's shone in multiple pairings in my room. Just in time, however, I remembered that Krell FPB amplifiers have a peculiar limitation: The manual cautions that before you can safely use an FPB with a valve preamp, "coupling capacitors must be inserted into the signal path" by authorized service personnel. Ugh. I didn't have another power amp/tube preamp combo on hand—at least not of the quality that would do the Diptyques justice. As I started considering solid state solutions, I received sage advice from Michael Hoatson, a prominent Diptyque dealer in Maryland (footnote 1) and an indefatigable panel-speaker evangelist. He was blunt about it: "Audia Flight is the best you will ever hear a panel." As it happens, Diptyque's US distributor, Fidelity Imports' Steve Jain, also carries Audia Flight's products. In fact, the Italian amps had been used to drive the Diptyques at the audio expos I'd visited. That settled it. A loan was arranged, and some weeks later, a wooden crate showed up at my door containing the Audia Flight FLS10 fully balanced integrated amplifier. The PDF manual I'd already perused advised to simply unscrew the crate's lid, but there were no screws on the top, only nails. That necessitated using a hammer and a small crowbar, after which the rug in my room was full of splinters and woodchips, and the crate looked like it had been gnawed on by bears. Scusami tanto! My friend Matt and I took the lid off the crate and manhandled the 79lb amplifier onto the top shelf of my audio rack, 3' off the floor. I made the necessary connections (footnote 2) and hit play. Presto: taut, deep bass, complete with slam and authority. From a pair of panel speakers, no less! Over the next couple of months, the dual-mono FLS10 demonstrated its mettle and versatility by also coaxing terrific performances from my Focal Scala Utopia EVO reference speakers. Then the same amp made a pair of Estelon X Diamond MkIIs sing in full-throated but controlled fashion (see my appraisal of the Estelon in the January issue). I hadn't intended to review the Audia Flight, but it was clearly a worthy subject despite not being a recent release (the amp was introduced in 2017). Based on my enthusiasm for the Italian charmer, Editor Jim Austin agreed to a review, so here we are. Getting acquainted Funny thing: I hadn't especially liked the FLS10 when judging it purely on design and ergonomics. The large stepped volume knob on the right of the half-inch–thick fascia is recessed, sticking out only 0.18"—less than the length of a match head. It's not very easy to grab and spin. Compounding my reservations was the FLS10's remote control. It has eight identical half-sphere buttons, each the size of a small ball bearing. The simple uniformity looks attractive, but it doesn't make the device a cinch to operate by touch. Over time, I made peace with the remote and learned to appreciate its pleasant heft (but not the fact that you have to remove five noncaptive screws to replace the CR2032 coin-cell battery). A final niggle concerns the two-line blue OLED display on the FLS10, mounted inside a swoopy 11"-wide strip that looks a bit like the visor of a space trooper. Each line can display roughly 15 dot-matrix–like characters, providing handy feedback such as volume level, input selection, and other basics. But the swoop gives the top of the casework a slight overhang, a kind of brow, so that when you're viewing the display from a standing position, the top line is obscured. In fact, so is the bottom one if you're closer than a couple of feet. This means that when you press any of the controls on the front panel, the screen is practically invisible ... unless you've placed the FLS10 at eye level. If not, you'll have to bend down or crouch to see the readout. But honestly, after a couple of months with the amp, I had come to regard all those things as charming quirks rather than deal-breaking shortcomings (footnote 3). From left to right, the six small sunken controls on the fascia are the amp's on/standby switch (the actual off switch is on the back); the input selector; a menu button that lets you change various parameters via the volume knob; a mute button; a phase toggle; and a "disable speakers" switch that you press when you jack a pair of headphones into the ¼" input on the right. Except for that "SPK" button, all these functions are also available on the remote control. An LED near the bottom center lets you know if the amp is in standby mode (amber) or fully on (blue). Around back we find eight gold-plated speaker terminals instead of the usual four, to facilitate biwiring. Then there are three sets of RCA inputs, two pairs of balanced inputs, RCA and XLR outs, a REC output, a power switch, and the usual receptacle for a three-prong IEC power cable. That's on the standard-issue FLS10. The removable covers on the back are for optional expansion boards, such as a user-installable MM/MC phono stage ($1499). The FLS10 I received also arrived with a DAC module ($2499), which features five galvanically isolated digital inputs: asynchronous USB, two TosLink optical, an S/PDIF coaxial, and an AES3. I made extensive use of the latter two, by feeding them the signal from an Aurender A20 and a Grimm Audio MU1, respectively. Audia Flight uses an ESS ES9028PRO DAC chip (the same one we see in the formidable Benchmark DAC3). The DAC's dynamic range is given as 133dB, THD+noise as <0.01%, while the music streams up to 32-bit/384kHz/DSD512. Audia Flight says on its website that "the amplifier's main power supply is made by 16 18,000µF 50V low impedance capacitors and is then composed of two super high current power supplies per channel, as well as four stabilized independent stages per each channel: two for the input stages and two for the Audia Flight current feedback stage." A 15VA toroidal transformer is dedicated to the logic control and protection circuit, keeping it isolated from the audio section. Inside the chunky aluminum chassis we also find custom-printed circuit boards made with extra–high-grade copper, and "a 2000VA toroidal audio transformer enclosed within two ferromagnetic shields and encapsulated by epoxy resin powering the output stage." Because the Audia Flight team believes that "fuses are like resistors and can negatively impact the sound," the company instead uses "a current sensor read by a microprocessor." The amplifier's output stage performs in class-A for the vital first 8W ... and runs pretty hot as a consequence. My digital infrared thermometer measured 103°F on the middle of the top plate and 115°F at the heatsinks on the sides. Footnote 1: See listenroom.com. Footnote 2: "The use of interconnect and speaker cables of the highest quality is strongly recommended," says the FLS10 manual. I mainly used cabling from AudioQuest's upper tiers: Thunderbird Zero cables for the speaker connections, a WEL Signature AES3 cable for the Grimm MU1 streamer, and AQ's Coffee coax and Vodka TosLink cables for other digital components. Footnote 3: It reminded me of my 2008 Saab convertible, which I drive whenever the Maine weather allows. It has a button marked AC OFF; embedded in that button is an LED. When the LED is on, the air conditioning compressor is off. If you press the button, the light goes off—and that means the compressor is now on. How convoluted and unintuitive is that? But after a few months of ownership, that crackbrained control had become endearing to me. It somehow made me like the car more. And so it was with the idiosyncratic aspects of the FLS10.
>> Read more

Audia Flight FLS10 integrated amplifier (Thu, 23 Jan 2025)
The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you're serious about sound quality, you're supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp. The logic goes that separates reduce interference and offer maximum control over your sound. But there's an argument to be made that integrated amplifiers are more practical ... and potentially better-sounding. The beauty of an integrated amp lies in its synergy. Audio engineers know exactly how the pre and power sections will interact; the two are literally designed to work together. On paper at least, that means optimized impedance matching, and signal integrity that can rival and perhaps surpass separates. How do you know whether a standalone preamp is a great match for a power amp? For most of us, it's through trial and error. It isn't unusual for restless stereo aficionados to own multiple combos over the years, in search of the ideal one. That gets costly. Then there's the fact that an integrated amp helps declutter a room, appealing to minimalists and people whose living spaces are less than cavernous. Another plus: no need to shell out for audiophile-grade interconnects. The why and how The Audia Flight FLS10, an Italian integrated, came into my life because I'd been scratching my head over a pair of top-of-the-line Diptyque panel speakers that I'm planning to review for this magazine. Once I had them in my home and properly set up, the Diptyques' midrange and treble was as lush and engaging as I remembered from the Tampa and Chicago audio shows where I'd heard them. Bass, however, was another matter. The lower octaves seemed on the lackluster side. I knew that the speakers weren't at fault, because on those previous occasions they'd reproduced bass frequencies superbly. The Diptyques seemed to cry out for something grippier than the tubed monoblocks with which I'd paired them. I considered using a tube amp for the mids and highs and a solid state one for the bass, but each Diptyque Reference has only a single set of binding posts. The next best plan: a solid state amplifier fed by a tube preamp—to wit, my recapped Krell FPB 200c reference power amp paired with the wonderful Margules SF-220 tube preamplifier that's shone in multiple pairings in my room. Just in time, however, I remembered that Krell FPB amplifiers have a peculiar limitation: The manual cautions that before you can safely use an FPB with a valve preamp, "coupling capacitors must be inserted into the signal path" by authorized service personnel. Ugh. I didn't have another power amp/tube preamp combo on hand—at least not of the quality that would do the Diptyques justice. As I started considering solid state solutions, I received sage advice from Michael Hoatson, a prominent Diptyque dealer in Maryland (footnote 1) and an indefatigable panel-speaker evangelist. He was blunt about it: "Audia Flight is the best you will ever hear a panel." As it happens, Diptyque's US distributor, Fidelity Imports' Steve Jain, also carries Audia Flight's products. In fact, the Italian amps had been used to drive the Diptyques at the audio expos I'd visited. That settled it. A loan was arranged, and some weeks later, a wooden crate showed up at my door containing the Audia Flight FLS10 fully balanced integrated amplifier. The PDF manual I'd already perused advised to simply unscrew the crate's lid, but there were no screws on the top, only nails. That necessitated using a hammer and a small crowbar, after which the rug in my room was full of splinters and woodchips, and the crate looked like it had been gnawed on by bears. Scusami tanto! My friend Matt and I took the lid off the crate and manhandled the 79lb amplifier onto the top shelf of my audio rack, 3' off the floor. I made the necessary connections (footnote 2) and hit play. Presto: taut, deep bass, complete with slam and authority. From a pair of panel speakers, no less! Over the next couple of months, the dual-mono FLS10 demonstrated its mettle and versatility by also coaxing terrific performances from my Focal Scala Utopia EVO reference speakers. Then the same amp made a pair of Estelon X Diamond MkIIs sing in full-throated but controlled fashion (see my appraisal of the Estelon in the January issue). I hadn't intended to review the Audia Flight, but it was clearly a worthy subject despite not being a recent release (the amp was introduced in 2017). Based on my enthusiasm for the Italian charmer, Editor Jim Austin agreed to a review, so here we are. Getting acquainted Funny thing: I hadn't especially liked the FLS10 when judging it purely on design and ergonomics. The large stepped volume knob on the right of the half-inch–thick fascia is recessed, sticking out only 0.18"—less than the length of a match head. It's not very easy to grab and spin. Compounding my reservations was the FLS10's remote control. It has eight identical half-sphere buttons, each the size of a small ball bearing. The simple uniformity looks attractive, but it doesn't make the device a cinch to operate by touch. Over time, I made peace with the remote and learned to appreciate its pleasant heft (but not the fact that you have to remove five noncaptive screws to replace the CR2032 coin-cell battery). A final niggle concerns the two-line blue OLED display on the FLS10, mounted inside a swoopy 11"-wide strip that looks a bit like the visor of a space trooper. Each line can display roughly 15 dot-matrix–like characters, providing handy feedback such as volume level, input selection, and other basics. But the swoop gives the top of the casework a slight overhang, a kind of brow, so that when you're viewing the display from a standing position, the top line is obscured. In fact, so is the bottom one if you're closer than a couple of feet. This means that when you press any of the controls on the front panel, the screen is practically invisible ... unless you've placed the FLS10 at eye level. If not, you'll have to bend down or crouch to see the readout. But honestly, after a couple of months with the amp, I had come to regard all those things as charming quirks rather than deal-breaking shortcomings (footnote 3). From left to right, the six small sunken controls on the fascia are the amp's on/standby switch (the actual off switch is on the back); the input selector; a menu button that lets you change various parameters via the volume knob; a mute button; a phase toggle; and a "disable speakers" switch that you press when you jack a pair of headphones into the ¼" input on the right. Except for that "SPK" button, all these functions are also available on the remote control. An LED near the bottom center lets you know if the amp is in standby mode (amber) or fully on (blue). Around back we find eight gold-plated speaker terminals instead of the usual four, to facilitate biwiring. Then there are three sets of RCA inputs, two pairs of balanced inputs, RCA and XLR outs, a REC output, a power switch, and the usual receptacle for a three-prong IEC power cable. That's on the standard-issue FLS10. The removable covers on the back are for optional expansion boards, such as a user-installable MM/MC phono stage ($1499). The FLS10 I received also arrived with a DAC module ($2499), which features five galvanically isolated digital inputs: asynchronous USB, two TosLink optical, an S/PDIF coaxial, and an AES3. I made extensive use of the latter two, by feeding them the signal from an Aurender A20 and a Grimm Audio MU1, respectively. Audia Flight uses an ESS ES9028PRO DAC chip (the same one we see in the formidable Benchmark DAC3). The DAC's dynamic range is given as 133dB, THD+noise as <0.01%, while the music streams up to 32-bit/384kHz/DSD512. Audia Flight says on its website that "the amplifier's main power supply is made by 16 18,000µF 50V low impedance capacitors and is then composed of two super high current power supplies per channel, as well as four stabilized independent stages per each channel: two for the input stages and two for the Audia Flight current feedback stage." A 15VA toroidal transformer is dedicated to the logic control and protection circuit, keeping it isolated from the audio section. Inside the chunky aluminum chassis we also find custom-printed circuit boards made with extra–high-grade copper, and "a 2000VA toroidal audio transformer enclosed within two ferromagnetic shields and encapsulated by epoxy resin powering the output stage." Because the Audia Flight team believes that "fuses are like resistors and can negatively impact the sound," the company instead uses "a current sensor read by a microprocessor." The amplifier's output stage performs in class-A for the vital first 8W ... and runs pretty hot as a consequence. My digital infrared thermometer measured 103°F on the middle of the top plate and 115°F at the heatsinks on the sides. Footnote 1: See listenroom.com. Footnote 2: "The use of interconnect and speaker cables of the highest quality is strongly recommended," says the FLS10 manual. I mainly used cabling from AudioQuest's upper tiers: Thunderbird Zero cables for the speaker connections, a WEL Signature AES3 cable for the Grimm MU1 streamer, and AQ's Coffee coax and Vodka TosLink cables for other digital components. Footnote 3: It reminded me of my 2008 Saab convertible, which I drive whenever the Maine weather allows. It has a button marked AC OFF; embedded in that button is an LED. When the LED is on, the air conditioning compressor is off. If you press the button, the light goes off—and that means the compressor is now on. How convoluted and unintuitive is that? But after a few months of ownership, that crackbrained control had become endearing to me. It somehow made me like the car more. And so it was with the idiosyncratic aspects of the FLS10.
>> Read more

Audia Flight FLS10 integrated amplifier (Thu, 23 Jan 2025)
The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you're serious about sound quality, you're supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp. The logic goes that separates reduce interference and offer maximum control over your sound. But there's an argument to be made that integrated amplifiers are more practical ... and potentially better-sounding. The beauty of an integrated amp lies in its synergy. Audio engineers know exactly how the pre and power sections will interact; the two are literally designed to work together. On paper at least, that means optimized impedance matching, and signal integrity that can rival and perhaps surpass separates. How do you know whether a standalone preamp is a great match for a power amp? For most of us, it's through trial and error. It isn't unusual for restless stereo aficionados to own multiple combos over the years, in search of the ideal one. That gets costly. Then there's the fact that an integrated amp helps declutter a room, appealing to minimalists and people whose living spaces are less than cavernous. Another plus: no need to shell out for audiophile-grade interconnects. The why and how The Audia Flight FLS10, an Italian integrated, came into my life because I'd been scratching my head over a pair of top-of-the-line Diptyque panel speakers that I'm planning to review for this magazine. Once I had them in my home and properly set up, the Diptyques' midrange and treble was as lush and engaging as I remembered from the Tampa and Chicago audio shows where I'd heard them. Bass, however, was another matter. The lower octaves seemed on the lackluster side. I knew that the speakers weren't at fault, because on those previous occasions they'd reproduced bass frequencies superbly. The Diptyques seemed to cry out for something grippier than the tubed monoblocks with which I'd paired them. I considered using a tube amp for the mids and highs and a solid state one for the bass, but each Diptyque Reference has only a single set of binding posts. The next best plan: a solid state amplifier fed by a tube preamp—to wit, my recapped Krell FPB 200c reference power amp paired with the wonderful Margules SF-220 tube preamplifier that's shone in multiple pairings in my room. Just in time, however, I remembered that Krell FPB amplifiers have a peculiar limitation: The manual cautions that before you can safely use an FPB with a valve preamp, "coupling capacitors must be inserted into the signal path" by authorized service personnel. Ugh. I didn't have another power amp/tube preamp combo on hand—at least not of the quality that would do the Diptyques justice. As I started considering solid state solutions, I received sage advice from Michael Hoatson, a prominent Diptyque dealer in Maryland (footnote 1) and an indefatigable panel-speaker evangelist. He was blunt about it: "Audia Flight is the best you will ever hear a panel." As it happens, Diptyque's US distributor, Fidelity Imports' Steve Jain, also carries Audia Flight's products. In fact, the Italian amps had been used to drive the Diptyques at the audio expos I'd visited. That settled it. A loan was arranged, and some weeks later, a wooden crate showed up at my door containing the Audia Flight FLS10 fully balanced integrated amplifier. The PDF manual I'd already perused advised to simply unscrew the crate's lid, but there were no screws on the top, only nails. That necessitated using a hammer and a small crowbar, after which the rug in my room was full of splinters and woodchips, and the crate looked like it had been gnawed on by bears. Scusami tanto! My friend Matt and I took the lid off the crate and manhandled the 79lb amplifier onto the top shelf of my audio rack, 3' off the floor. I made the necessary connections (footnote 2) and hit play. Presto: taut, deep bass, complete with slam and authority. From a pair of panel speakers, no less! Over the next couple of months, the dual-mono FLS10 demonstrated its mettle and versatility by also coaxing terrific performances from my Focal Scala Utopia EVO reference speakers. Then the same amp made a pair of Estelon X Diamond MkIIs sing in full-throated but controlled fashion (see my appraisal of the Estelon in the January issue). I hadn't intended to review the Audia Flight, but it was clearly a worthy subject despite not being a recent release (the amp was introduced in 2017). Based on my enthusiasm for the Italian charmer, Editor Jim Austin agreed to a review, so here we are. Getting acquainted Funny thing: I hadn't especially liked the FLS10 when judging it purely on design and ergonomics. The large stepped volume knob on the right of the half-inch–thick fascia is recessed, sticking out only 0.18"—less than the length of a match head. It's not very easy to grab and spin. Compounding my reservations was the FLS10's remote control. It has eight identical half-sphere buttons, each the size of a small ball bearing. The simple uniformity looks attractive, but it doesn't make the device a cinch to operate by touch. Over time, I made peace with the remote and learned to appreciate its pleasant heft (but not the fact that you have to remove five noncaptive screws to replace the CR2032 coin-cell battery). A final niggle concerns the two-line blue OLED display on the FLS10, mounted inside a swoopy 11"-wide strip that looks a bit like the visor of a space trooper. Each line can display roughly 15 dot-matrix–like characters, providing handy feedback such as volume level, input selection, and other basics. But the swoop gives the top of the casework a slight overhang, a kind of brow, so that when you're viewing the display from a standing position, the top line is obscured. In fact, so is the bottom one if you're closer than a couple of feet. This means that when you press any of the controls on the front panel, the screen is practically invisible ... unless you've placed the FLS10 at eye level. If not, you'll have to bend down or crouch to see the readout. But honestly, after a couple of months with the amp, I had come to regard all those things as charming quirks rather than deal-breaking shortcomings (footnote 3). From left to right, the six small sunken controls on the fascia are the amp's on/standby switch (the actual off switch is on the back); the input selector; a menu button that lets you change various parameters via the volume knob; a mute button; a phase toggle; and a "disable speakers" switch that you press when you jack a pair of headphones into the ¼" input on the right. Except for that "SPK" button, all these functions are also available on the remote control. An LED near the bottom center lets you know if the amp is in standby mode (amber) or fully on (blue). Around back we find eight gold-plated speaker terminals instead of the usual four, to facilitate biwiring. Then there are three sets of RCA inputs, two pairs of balanced inputs, RCA and XLR outs, a REC output, a power switch, and the usual receptacle for a three-prong IEC power cable. That's on the standard-issue FLS10. The removable covers on the back are for optional expansion boards, such as a user-installable MM/MC phono stage ($1499). The FLS10 I received also arrived with a DAC module ($2499), which features five galvanically isolated digital inputs: asynchronous USB, two TosLink optical, an S/PDIF coaxial, and an AES3. I made extensive use of the latter two, by feeding them the signal from an Aurender A20 and a Grimm Audio MU1, respectively. Audia Flight uses an ESS ES9028PRO DAC chip (the same one we see in the formidable Benchmark DAC3). The DAC's dynamic range is given as 133dB, THD+noise as <0.01%, while the music streams up to 32-bit/384kHz/DSD512. Audia Flight says on its website that "the amplifier's main power supply is made by 16 18,000µF 50V low impedance capacitors and is then composed of two super high current power supplies per channel, as well as four stabilized independent stages per each channel: two for the input stages and two for the Audia Flight current feedback stage." A 15VA toroidal transformer is dedicated to the logic control and protection circuit, keeping it isolated from the audio section. Inside the chunky aluminum chassis we also find custom-printed circuit boards made with extra–high-grade copper, and "a 2000VA toroidal audio transformer enclosed within two ferromagnetic shields and encapsulated by epoxy resin powering the output stage." Because the Audia Flight team believes that "fuses are like resistors and can negatively impact the sound," the company instead uses "a current sensor read by a microprocessor." The amplifier's output stage performs in class-A for the vital first 8W ... and runs pretty hot as a consequence. My digital infrared thermometer measured 103°F on the middle of the top plate and 115°F at the heatsinks on the sides. Footnote 1: See listenroom.com. Footnote 2: "The use of interconnect and speaker cables of the highest quality is strongly recommended," says the FLS10 manual. I mainly used cabling from AudioQuest's upper tiers: Thunderbird Zero cables for the speaker connections, a WEL Signature AES3 cable for the Grimm MU1 streamer, and AQ's Coffee coax and Vodka TosLink cables for other digital components. Footnote 3: It reminded me of my 2008 Saab convertible, which I drive whenever the Maine weather allows. It has a button marked AC OFF; embedded in that button is an LED. When the LED is on, the air conditioning compressor is off. If you press the button, the light goes off—and that means the compressor is now on. How convoluted and unintuitive is that? But after a few months of ownership, that crackbrained control had become endearing to me. It somehow made me like the car more. And so it was with the idiosyncratic aspects of the FLS10.
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