Are you seriously gonna tell me that you don’t want one after seeing a picture? I mean, I know some of you are looking at it and you don’t even know what it is, and yet you still want one!

Okay, so what is this awesome looking contraption? Well, it’s a Hybrid Tube amplifier. It uses a low power vacuum tube based pre-amp which then drives a more powerful solid state power amp. The idea being to impart some “tube sound” to the amp, without having to rely on the tube bits for the high power stuff. Now, it’s just an amp, so you’ll still need to provide your own speakers.

The amp has inputs for phono, CD, and Aux, as well as the obvious iPod dock. Adding more features it also has a headphone out as well as a subwoofer out. It’s 40 watts RMS of output isn’t too shabby either for it’s small size. I’d be interested to find out what type of solid state amp it is. Doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the product sheet.

You can pick one up for $449.99 at Grace Digital Audio. A little expensive, but not too bad if it turns out that the amp can really put out high quality sound (especially if it has a nice headphone output). Unfortunately, it’s hard to pass judgement without a listen.

Although, I think it may be so cool looking that it would be hard for me to write an unbiased review if I ever got my hands on one.

[image source designandgadgets]
[source TFTS]

Filed under: Gadgets | Technology, Home Audio — Santi @ 8:42 pm