Brett Gideon: Changes on the amplifier front 2

Some things are just meant to be. The South Africans won the cup, Romeo had Juliet (albeit briefly), Uncle Joe Stalin is toasting on the Devil’s fork and I was meant to have the black Yamaha A-S2000 integrated amplifier that I took home last night.

Yep it’s true. I just couldn’t resist despite the fact that a Perreaux SX25i with my name on it is in a courier van somewhere between Mosgeil and Auckland, Call me crazy (feel free, everyone else does) but I don’t regret it at all.

The A-S2000 comes in a substantial box, weighing in at well over 20Kgs. I had to delay opening it up for a few hours while I did the social animal thing and hung out with friends and family but the instant I was back, the knives came out and the packing tape started flying. The amp is gorgeous in deep black with wood side panels that are so dark as to almost be black themselves. The finish is impeccable and the build quality superb, right down to the way the controls feel and the little detachable feet on the bottom covering the built in spikes. Even the remote is classy.

Of course Murphy’s Law kicked straight in and the A-S2000 proved to be too big and burly for my current HiFi stand, so it’s going to have to be content on the floor until I can come up with an alternative. Given that it was late at night and that I live in a complex built with thin paper like stuff passing itself off as Gib board, I had to listen to my new baby with volume right down but despite that, I’m a happy camper.

My first impressions on the way it sounds out of the box? Just lovely thank you very much for asking.

I really like what I’m hearing, especially on male vocal like Paul Weller’s “Wild Wood”, which was sublime. It’s certainly a vast, insane improvement from the AV deceiver that I had been using for the last few months but that’s no surprise. I’m sure that some hours running on repeat will reveal just how good it actually is. I had a listen to one at the importers this morning, with the matching CDP through some killer PSB floorstanders and man, am I ever convinced that I made a good call.

The little Perreaux should be with me tomorrow, so I’ll have an interesting weekend to say the least. What the heck am I going to do with two amps in a single system? Hell I don’t know and I don’t care, sometimes the heart knows best…..

What the head makes cloudy

The heart makes very clear

The Eagles