Sometimes I think expensive components—I’ll let you decide what constitutes expensive—should come with a big red sticker on the box that reads “WARNING! This product will probably not meet your expectations!” That’s because when you spend a lot of money on something, you expect that something to have no flaws and to sound nigh perfect. Why else would you have paid so much? As you gaze at it, touch it, and listen to it, it constantly reassures you that you made the right decision by picking it over all the other, less pricey candidates. It has to be unambiguously better than any component of its nature that has passed through your system, or else, what was the point in all that upgrading?
That’s a lot of expectations for a product to live up to, but then our hobby is all about expectations. How many expectations spring to mind when you think about solid state, tubes, digital, class-D, moving coil, LP, CD, streaming, MQA, MDF, power supplies, AC power, capacitors, shorting plugs, fuses, bass, cost, your listening room? Is your head spinning yet? If not—and possibly if so—you’re an audio enthusiast! You thrive on conjecture, guesstimates, instinct, uncertainty, personal bias, vague science, and, above all, hope for a big sonic payoff. It’s who you are, and it’s why regular people can’t be audio hobbyists. It would drive them mad.
Prior to this review, I had expectations about the product under review, the Leak Stereo 230 ($1695 with the walnut enclosure), based on, among other factors, price. Those expectations seemed justified when I first saw the Stereo 230’s compact shipping carton. I assumed it would weigh much less than it did—28lb it turns out, heavy enough to cause my outstretched arms to buckle under its weight when the UPS guy handed it to me. When that happened, my first thought was, “I hope he didn’t notice,” followed by, “Is the Stereo 230’s power supply that substantial?”
The Leak Stereo 230
Yes, it is. But first, some background.
Leak was on the front lines of the audio revolution that begat hi-fi as we know it. Harold Joseph Leak founded the company in England in 1934, two years after the electric guitar was invented, two years before the BBC
