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Recommend me a Class A Integrated Amp (or sound like Class A amp)

I have been rocking a Cabasse Riga setup with a Sony TA-A1ES (a heavily biased Class A design outputting first 15 watts as Class A). I absolutely love the clarity and natural sound of it. I’ve decided to keep to Class A to upgrade if possible because the Riga does not need a lot of juice to drive.

Accuphase Class As are eye-watering expensive in my country, but thankfully Esoteric prices their Class A F-03A at much more reasonable $8600 USD. Luxman unfortunately has stopped producing Class As, so they are out of equation and besides strangely they are more expensive than Esoteric in my country. Pass Labs, well, way out of my budget.

So, for around $8600 USD or less what are my other options if I want a similar sound to Class A without going down the tube route?

I’ve heard the new HifiRose RA180 sounds quite class A like. And I think the Yamaha AS series sound quite close as well. Any more options should I consider? The pricing of other brands should be similar to US.

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yyzsantabarbara
4,929 posts
 

The KRELL K-300i is excellent. The internal DAC in the unit is worth the $1K because of the HDMI input alone. However, a few dedicated DACs under $1700 were preferred by me over the KRELL's internal DAC.

Since the KRELL is a warm and very smooth sounding unit. I preferred a DAC that was transparent. Maybe not for everyone but transparent DACs are not expensive these days. I am referring to great measuring DACs like a Topping D90LE | Benchmark DAC3B | Matrix Audio. 

Saying all of that in the final few months I had the K-300i I used the unit with the built-in network streamer (ROON READY) and the internal DAC. So convenient and very good sound. 

freediver
1,231 posts
 

If I had your budget the PATHOS INPOL REMIX MKII would get my $...

hilroy48
162 posts
 

I have a soft spot for Sugden ClassA amps. I have an IA-4 in the basement, and I just bought a pair of Sugden MPA-4 mono blocks for my main listing room. I sold my Sugden SPA-4 power amp and kept the LA-4 pre amp. I did however have a Kinki EX-M1 , and installed the Sparkos op amp kit chips. That was an amazing little amp with the upgrade. I was prepared to keep that until this IA-4 came up for sale at a great deal from my dealer.

jjss49's avatar
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 

@hilroy48

among solid state amps, i could not think of more different sounding amps than a sugden vs a kinki with sparkos... both nice in their own ways, but opposite sides of the spectrum

kairosman's avatar
kairosman
295 posts
 

+1 on CODA and Krell integrateds 

Pass Labs INT 25 is a good choice for effcient speakers $7500 in thr US no idea in Singapore 

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