Technics SU-R1000
■ Integrated amplifier
■ £6999
High-end stereo amplification is one of the most conservative areas of the market when it comes to accepting the march of technology. Think about it: it’s the only place where valves still have a foothold, six decades after transistors first started to dominate elsewhere.
Want more examples? How about the reluctance to accept remote control in the early days because the extra circuitry had the potential to harm sound quality; or the struggle integrated amplifiers have had to be seen as credible alternatives to separate pre/powers.
More recently, digital circuitry and digital signal processing have been frowned on by some purists, simply because they are considered complicated and therefore stray from the idealised ‘straight wire with gain’ principle.
What would those high-end traditionalists make of the new Technics SU-R1000, we wonder? This is the first integrated amplifier in the revitalised company’s Reference range of electronics and it’s packed with fresh thinking and technological innovations that would have purists shaking their heads in disbelief.
THROWING OUT THE RULEBOOK
While paying
