Next up, I plugged in my Astell&Kern AK120 into the rear-mounted optical port and played Dire Straits’ So Far Away from their Brothers in Arms album. Allowing each instrument within the mix to be presented on its own, adding to the complexity of the presentation.
#MISSION CYRUS 1 MK3 BLUETOOTH#
What I liked about the 6000A’s take on Bluetooth was the creation of a wide soundstage and, because lots of space was now on offer, the instrumental separation that also followed. In fact, the 6000A made the best of a bad job, providing a perfectly listenable track without any nasty sonic responses. So while the midrange was lacking insight, bass was hardly focused and treble was almost a non-entity, none of that was the 6000A’s fault. The 6000A was able to calm any possible issues. Often, playing such a file in this way results in a bright and edgy play response but not here. I played Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me as a lossy file. That is, you select Bluetooth as a source on the amplifier and the 6000A pops up on your Bluetooth screen on your phone. I then turned to Bluetooth which I paired to my iPhone 8. Buy an external model when you can, though. An external model is better but the internal model will be fine for those of a budget. So no, don’t expect that but do expect to hear everything that a £599 amplifier can provide: complex and chaotic lead guitar with enough precision to make sense, wind instruments that feature a character and lightness of touch and a layered soundstage that revealed even shy instruments lurking at the rear of the mix.īefore I moved from vinyl, note that the built-in phono amplifier is a good one. I never saw reverb tails of filigree lattice flowing from cymbal taps but this is a £599 amplifier we’re talking about here, not a £5,999 design. The upper midrange was delightfully detailed and accurate although fragility and delicacy were not great priorities, I have to say. I really haven’t heard anything like it under £1,000. Tonal balance is the underlying strength of the 6000A. In fact, you could ally tonal balance as being the killer feature of the 6000A. If I was going to pin one all-important factor for the success of the 6000A it would be tonal balance. In fact, let’s pause for a moment here to dwell and emphasise this one feature. Frequency discipline was paramount so bass stayed put and never bloomed into the mids.
Again, that never occurred with the 6000A. That is, there is a danger of allowing too much bass into the soundstage because it may create a warming feeling, leaking into the midrange and creating a sepia-like effect. That said, I’ll give them all a test in due course. Anything that takes me away from a pure, default, flat signal is an experience as near to abhorrent as I’m likely to find. I’ll say now that I normally hate these sort of things. Tagged to these are user-selectable digital filters: Fast Roll-Off, Slow Roll-Off and Minimum Phase. Continuity again.Ĭonnected to the DAC are the 6000A’s four digital inputs – two coaxial and two optical – which handle 24bit/192kHz. Again, this chip is not a foreign component. The ES9018 Sabre32 Reference DAC is one of those, featuring 32bit HyperStream architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator. This is an amplifier but it features other components too. So I already had a sense of confidence going into this one. There’s nothing worse than a single line of products that feature a host of designers who not only constantly reinvent the wheel but often make the same old mistakes over and over again (it’s happened many times in the past). Jan Ertner took the basis of the latter to create the former which meant that hard won knowledge was now being refined and improved upon. It’s a firm design choice.īefore I began the review of this box, I was comforted to know that the designer of the 6000A was also the same designer of the older 8300A. Again, I’m not damning this amp with faint praise when I say that. You can see it for what it is at 30 paces. The 6000A – at least on the outside – is the Mother’s Pride processed white loaf of amplifier design. Even slightly conservative half-width amplifiers can be an issue for some. Weird and even slightly off-kilter designs can scare and make certain hi-fi fans feel uncomfortable. If you saw this box in the 80s, it would look rather racy, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t look too out of place.įor some users, that is all they want. There’s no chic fashion sense with this one. You would never accuse the chassis of ever emerging from an Italian design studio.
I say again, the 6000A looks like a traditional integrated amplifier.
The thing about the 6000A, when the aesthetics are considered, is that it looks like an integrated amplifier.
Adopting a traditional and solid form factor on the outside, Paul Rigby realises that the magic is occurring under the lid
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