Amplifier of the Year under $2000

The UK’s Cyrus Audio has taken its Cyrus One amp on quite a journey since the very first ‘One’ was launched in 1984. More recently it was reinvented in the friendly yet purposeful design pictured here, first as an entirely analogue amplifier, then in a version with digital inputs as the Cyrus ‘One HD’, and now as the Cyrus ‘One Cast’ which, as its name suggests, adds Chromecast to the mix, along with Apple’s AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth. This transforms it into an easily selectable end-point for streaming music services, a smart amplifier to which you could, at a minimum, just add speakers if all you want is a high-quality streaming playback system. To make this even easier, the

One Cast can be controlled by any of the three main voice assistants — Google, Alexa or Apple’s Siri.

Additional inputs can also make the One Cast a hub for an expanded system, including TV audio, thanks to the inclusion of an HDMI ARC-compatible connection. There’s a moving-magnet turntable input, one analogue input, one each of coaxial and optical digital, and USB-B for playing from a computer.

Those are the visible physical inputs, but it’s the invisible ones which give the One Cast its naming rights. The built-in Chromecast makes the OneCast appear as a destination in a great many apps — notably Spotify, Tidal, TuneIn, YouTube Music, Soundcloud, ABC Listen; the list of apps is long! These then stream not directly from the phone or tablet you’re using to control the music, but will be picked up by the One Cast and played directly from the internet from your Wi-Fi (unusually there’s no Ethernet connection).

Better still, the amp delivered plenty of drive and a true hi-fi level of clarity regardless of the manner in which the music was being streamed or played. It benefits from a tweaked-up fourth generation of Cyrus’ hybrid Class-D amplification, which we much prefer over the previous gen, rated here at 2 × 100W into 6 ohms, and retaining Cyrus’s useful SID (Speaker Impedance Detection) which aims to calibrate the output to the speakers.

Smart and solid, we warmed greatly to the Cyrus One Cast amplifier. More info: www.indimports.com.au