“This amp doesn’t sound like what the cliche of a valve amplifier’s sound. It is not warm and cuddly, it is not “pipe and slippers”. The integre is a fast and incisive amplifier with power by the bucketload and a sense that it’s certainly in control of the music and the speakers. Detail is fine if it is not achieved by pushing the top end and the integre isn’t doing this, it sounds natural and “right” but it certainly doesn’t try to mask any nasties – it’s a very honest sounding amplifier.

Soundstaging is solid, stable and realistic. Power is plentiful and the amp reacts quickly to dynamic changes in the music. It doesn’t have the same grip on the bass as our reference amplifiers, it was never going to, but I think you would be hard pushed to find a sub 10K valve amplifier that has this kind of grip.

Overall, I thought this amplifier demonstrated that when valve amps are done properly they can sound sublime, and needn’t cost the earth. I was particularly pleased with how quiet the integre was in use and had I not been able to see it on the rack, I’d have assumed I was listening to a very good solid-state amplifier.

I think there is a fear with some people about putting valves into their systems. They are often finicky and frankly a pain in the arse to maintain, but the integre makes all this pain disappear with its simple biasing and set up. Plug it in, wait 60 seconds for it to go through the start-up procedure and enjoy your tunes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this amplifier and I’d be very happy to have it in a system.

…It’s built to be highly adaptable in that it’s not flea-powered and should work with pretty much any real-world loudspeakers you care to put on the end of it. With all this in mind, I’m giving it our top award. As I say, I laboured over this bit of the write up of my notes and looked very hard for negatives I could shine a light on, but the truth is there aren’t many negatives to this amplifier and the ones there are are easily overlooked when you just sit and listen to your tunes”.

– Stuart Smith