Smart amplifiers
Amplifiers are evolving — indeed the addition of smart streaming and networking makes them sources as well as amplifiers, and you can just add speakers for a full system. Good idea?
First blood, as it were, went to the NAD C 338 (right) reviewed last issue — a classic style of NAD amplifier, but with Chromecast inside, turning a simple amplifier into a streaming networking source.
It’s an evolution that has been under way for several years — you might date it to the first Sonos ZP100 ‘ZonePlayer’ in 2005, and today the various wireless multiroom platforms each offer a similar just-add-speakers solution. But only recently have these platforms become established enough to spread their wireless wings to a wider range of product — like these amplifiers.
And it’s happening at all levels. The four under review here include two around $1000, and two closer to $5000. Interestingly the differences are not so much in the smart stuff, which works much the same whatever the level of product. It’s the fundamentals that change — the build quality, the type and quality of power, the resolution and level of the digital conversion within. So that type of consideration remains the same — how good an amplifier do you want and can you afford? — while the smart networking stuff becomes more about what type of system you need, and how you might grow it in the future. Some of the networking systems are unique to the brand, while others, like Chromecast and the FireConnect in the Pioneer here, are able to share with a wider platform of multiple brands.
Or they should, if everything works! Networking is never easy, and we’re often told by companies who are moving from traditional hi-fi into networked hi-fi that their helpline staff suddenly spend more time troubleshooting modems and internet issues than they do dealing with problems from the products themselves. The good news with the four smart amplifiers here is that they all seemed to have well-developing networking skills, and we, at least, didn’t have any (well, many) problems setting up and using them.
Three of the four here are fairly traditional in their inputs — all four, of course, offer analogue and digital connections, two have a phono input for turntable, and not surprisingly the more expensive models offer more and a higher variety of them, including USB-B for playing direct from a computer. One of them, the Pioneer, presents itself as a hub for video sources as well as music by including HDMI inputs, though of course the others can still do TV audio via the normal analogue or video audio connections.
Purists might once have queried the inclusion of all this digital processing in close proximity to delicate amplification circuits, and at high levels of audio reproduction that remains a valid argument. But we reckon these amplifiers point the way to the future — if they’re connecting fridges and washing machines to the internet these days, surely amplifiers have much to gain by accessing the wider world. And getting it ‘built in’ saves you the price of bolting on a streaming box — the amplifier becomes a true entertainment hub once again. Your questions, then, are which streaming abilities do you go with, and then does the amp offer all you need?