Simply fabulous!!
Written: Jan 26 '03 (Updated Feb 18 '03)
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Pros: The beauty and warmth of tubes with surprising bass.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: This is a fantastic amplifier for efficient speakers.
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| hmcs's Full Review: Unison Research Simply Two Integrated Amplifier |
This review is for the Simply Two which was modified to accept KT88 tubes. The mod also included the addition of a headphone output. Also, the KT88 tubes used during this review were a pair of vintage Genelex Gold Lion's, which are legendary for their sound, and very very expensive ($300 a pair on Ebay. This amp is a class A pure tube design that produces about 15 watts per channel. It is physically gorgeous as you can see in the picture. Anyway, I purchased this amp because I was curious to see how my Merlin VSM Millenium's would sound with a low powered pure tube amp. Previously, I had used a Jolida 1501RC Hybrid tube/solid state amp, because I thought it offered the best compromise between the beautiful sound of tubes and the power of solid state. My first listening session with the Unison Simply Two was as a headphone amplifier for my Grado RS1 headphones. I had read that it would take an hour or so of warm up before the Unison would sound it's best, but in my experience, the sound blew me away immediately. Beautiful, Dynamic, palpable, warm, magical, etc.... In summary, yes this is it. I had tried Headroom Supreme, Headroom Airhead, Mapletree audio designs EAR +, and the Melos SHA-1 previously, and the Unison was clearly in another league. I almost wanted to keep the Unison for Headphone listening only. However, I had already sold the Jolida and I was curious as to how it would sound with the Merlins. Well, to make a long story short, it was purely magical. I never knew how good my Merlins truly were until pairing them with a great tube amp such as the Unison. The real surprising part however was the bass and the speed. I somewhat expected the beauty of the highs and midrange, but there seemed to be no change in the speed and slam of the bass. All the visceral gut slamming bass sounds experienced before with the 100 WPC Jolida Hybrid were still there, only this time with spooky depth, palpability, and separation. I could hardly believe the Unison was producing only 15 Watts per channel. One other note, I understand Unison Research has introduced a new version of the S2 which accepts KT88 tubes. Anyone considering buying this amp should also consider picking up a pair of vintage Genelex KT88's to replace the stock tubes.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1000
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Epinions.com ID:
hmcs
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Location: Skippack, PA, USA
Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 2 members
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