I chuckled today when I read a magazine review on some new separates that were dubbed “relatively affordable.”

The preamp is an ARC LS-2. Price $8450 line stage, $10k with phono and DAC.

The power amp is an ARC S-200, $13k

The reviewer offers that most buyers will order the preamp loaded, hence $23k for preamp and amp.

If you’re a pro athlete or CEO, $23k for a preamp or amp might be downright cheap, or “relatively affordable.” If you’re workingman paying $14 a year for your magazine subscription, I doubt you’ll agree.

By the way, just what do you get for your $23k? That’s a more interesting topic.

The LS-2 has a spartan face with an obnoxious numerical readout displaying volume. It uses two 6H30 Russian tubes. Beyond that the transformer is an unshielded, small E-Core design with a boatload of wire running around the chassis. Some of those wires are linked via car audio type Molex connectors. Ouch! You’d think you’d get a higher end toroidal transformer and through-put components for this price point. The internal images of the unit reveal the box is more than half empty.

The S-200 is a solid state 200×2 class AB amp, with switching power supply. Yuk. It uses two, unshielded toroidal transformers. Filter caps? Try to find ‘em. It uses 8 Onsemi output transistors which you can buy out of a bin for peanuts from Digikey. Hi-fi news finds that the meters aren’t remotely accurate. It’s fair to say most meters aren’t. Why pay for them? And… they found an 8dB boost at 3Hz, which has to influence the performance and sounds like it’s due to a skimpy power supply to me.

Now, I’m not saying these pieces don’t sound “good.” The boys at ARC certainly know how to make some crazy high end stuff.

My point herein is, how might you spend your money more WISELY… than what you’re getting here for $23k?

First of all, I will recommend an integrated amp to you seven days a week. You get much better value and don’t complicate matters with the issue of interconnects. YEP, they sound different from one another. Why introduce that cost and variable?

An integrated amp made by Atoll will sound GREAT! You can waste your time parsing nuances between the different smells of roses vs daffodils. But that’s unnecessary. If you wanna pay $23k to do THAT- suit yourself.

My goal is to get 95% of state of the art performance for a truly affordable price. THEN… you can wisely spend your money where you can actually APPRECIATE it = speakers/source.

The Atoll IN300 integrated amp runs $4k, 150×2. It has two, shielded, 440VA transformers. Atoll has these custom built for them in Spain. Atoll uses 82,000uF power supply caps, which they have custom built for them in Japan (not China). IN300 uses a dozen MATCHED MOSFET output transistors. Yes, they are MATCHED for focus, not just plucked out of a bin. Internal wire is a cut above as well, Absolue cable made by Absolue Creations of France. Atoll uses through hole construction. It doesn’t run global wiring all over the chassis.

IN300 sounds big, warm and prodigious. If you music demands, it will bash your speakers into next week. Yet what I love about IN300 is its smooth and rich character to depict the best flavor of the human voice or acoustic piano / cello / guitar, etc.

You can spend 8x more to buy ARC or some other brand. The sound will be a tad different, not better.

The smart money says you should go with the Atoll IN300 and keep $19k in your pocket.