Atoll IN50 Integrated Amp $1200 (50×2)
(3.75h, 17.32w, 12d, 16 lbs)
Made in France!
Priced as Line Stage With Remote, 3 Year Warranty
Optional Boards Available: Phono MM $130, DAC $320, DAC/Bluetooth $500
Atoll’s IN50 Signature is my new fave, inexpensive integrated amp on the market. It has surpassed various NAD and Marantz pieces by a significant margin. And yup, it’s made in France, not China.
Atoll offers a culture of making its products with larger and higher quality parts. This attention to transformers, filter caps and matched output transistors, unsurprisingly leads to a warmer, richer musical presentation- sans gadgets.
We have always known that what an amp sounds like boils down to the way it is built, more than the number of watts it produces. At higher price points especially, we have found modest wattage can outperform higher wattage amps. If you leave off some features at a given price point, your total investment can result in noticeably better sound quality because you can afford to use superior versions of the components mentioned above. Buy the sound quality first and spend on the features YOU need- after.
Never… have I seen such a disparate relationship between modest wattage and the prodigious nature of the amp’s performance at such an inexpensive price point, as with Atoll. IN50 Signature sounds fluid, large and beefy.
If we compare the Atoll with a classic integrated like Rega’s English made Brio, the IN50 is much warmer, richer and dynamic. The Brio is clean and lean- to a fault. It simply can’t drive hungry speakers like Magnepans and heavyweight towers. IN50 CAN, and DOES drive this echelon of speaker while seemingly coasting. I make this comparison with commendation to the Brio, which delivers better detail than all the Chinese built integrateds in this range.
IN50 has a weighty, smooth sound. It sounds like it’s coasting and yet will bring bass out of your speakers- you didn’t know they had. You’ll know in a few seconds by the feel of the volume control that IN50 Signature is something unique, very robust and musical.
If we compare Atoll to other top brands, as a family, Atoll sounds more earthy and muscular than other quite credible integrateds from NAD, Hegel, Cambridge & Marantz, for example. The latter group sounds more cool and lean.
IN50 is a superb match with speakers you might infer would need more juice. Take any Magnepan or Bryston speaker as an example. IN50 drives them very well. You won’t believe the colossal bass these speakers produce with Atoll.
IN50 is such a strong performer that I’m tempted to tell you not to spend more on an integrated amp in a cost effective system. Spend every extra penny you can on higher end speakers, where that investment will pay off handsomely.
IN50 has a commensurate stable mate with Axiom’s impressive M60 towers for $2k. Or, even better, up your speakers to Bryston A3s ($3290pr) or A2s ($4k pr). The good news is, any of these combos will deliver a powerful, clear sounding, dynamic duo that will make you proud to buy French and N American.
