Power Amplifier Reviews

For a country with a population of fewer than 6 million, Denmark has an amazingly high profile when it comes to manufacturers of audio and home theater products. Bang & Olufsen, Dynaudio, Vifa, Peerless, Jamo, Gryphon, Ortofon, Thule, Dali, TacT—the list goes on and on. According to the folks at US importer Sumiko, Primare (pronounced "prime-AIR") has been around since the 1980s, and their products combine outstanding industrial design with an emphasis on sound quality. In the late '90s, the Primare team was joined by Michael Bladelius, well-known for his analog and digital design work for Threshold, Classé, and Pass Labs. Primare products are now manufactured in Sweden, while the head office and design center remain in Denmark.

In case you hadn't noticed, the bell has rung, and the blows are flying in the $3,000-to-$5,000 range for electronics systems (i.e., preamplification, processing, and amplification). It's easy to characterize this as a melee between receivers and separates, which is a key component of what we're seeing at this price level. Receivers are sounding better and getting more expensive; separates are getting more user-friendly, offering more features, and dropping in price.

In my student days, I coped with perpetual financial shortfalls in part by moving furniture. After a weekend of toting hide-a-beds and refrigerators to fifth-floor walkups, I would imagine a perfect world in which everything was designed to work with everything else. Not a world of bureaucratic regimentation, but one in which, by common agreement, every sofa would fit into every elevator and every table would slip through every open door.

Yippie-i-o-ki-ay, separates-lovers! The Outlaw Model 950 preamplifier-processor is the good five-cent cigar every home-theater bandito has been craving, and the 7-channel Model 770 amplifier is fit to be corralled, cable-tied, and hauled to your mountain hideout as well. The Model 950, in particular, shuns any of the boutique-brand weirdisms you might expect from a mail-order-only outfit like Outlaw. On the contrary, its pleasingly simple front panel conceals a wealth of features that's not a single, solitary letter shy of the latest list of home-theater acronyms. This li'l dogie's got it all!

I suppose that I'm starting to sound like a broken record when I talk about the concept of matching in home theater, but how else can I call attention to one of the most important aspects of creating a successful system? After all, matching audio/video equipment is not unlike matching in other areas of our lives. The proper combination of amps, speakers, room characteristics, and, well, everything else can create an exciting, dynamic, and highly satisfying experience for all involved. The wrong combination is usually mundane, lifeless, and, if you will, impotent. Sparks in the listening room come about in a similar way as sparks in other rooms of the house—they require experience and effort. A little bit of passion never hurts, either.

Much is made of the intense competition that goes on in the receiver game, and understandably so. For the most part, these are companies that have piles of money to spend on advertising, have the resources and inclination to bring out new models every year, and have hordes of accountants and marketing types to keep watch on things likemarket placement, pricing, competitor activity, and so on. But what about the healthy (and growing) competition in the separates arena, especially at the lower (all things being relative) price points? It may not draw the receiver war's headlines, involve a fraction of the corporate expenditure and model turnover, or feature dueling laser shows from multilevel booths at industry trade shows. But, make no mistake, the competition here is no less intense, no less important to the industry as a whole, and no less beneficial to its particular crop of potential buyers.

The fireworks are popping, the burgers are grilling, and the bourbon is flowing, which can only mean one thing: It's the end of another workday at the Lewis house. When that day falls early in the month of July, you can bet that some extra contemplation of all things American will be on the itinerary, as well. Let's face it: Is there anything more American than an underdog? I'll bet Ron Fone and Eugene Tang don't think there is, which may be why they decided back in 1998 to start Sherbourn right here in the USA—in Boston, no less. Sure, market size, the economy, and the fact that both men were already working for American companies were undoubtedly the real cause. But, somewhere in the back of their minds, they had to figure that, if a loose confederation of farmers, merchants, and castaways from all over Europe could defeat (or at least outlast) the greatest military power of the time and forge a nation that would quickly become a world superpower, then a small, sharply focused amplifier company just might be able to shoulder in with the big boys and get its piece of the pie.