“The LAB12 integre4 Mk2 Toroid Version is a 65-watt-per-channel push-pull integrated amplifier built around a quad of KT150 power tubes, and it is not the amplifier its category leads you to expect. This is not a romantic valve amplifier. There is no golden haze, no soft focus, no bass line that turns into a suggestion when the music gets difficult. What it does instead is considerably harder: it keeps the tonal density and liquid, continuous midrange that make people love valves in the first place, then adds dynamics, grip, and micro-detail that would not embarrass a good transistor amplifier at the same price.

Its greatest achievement is control. True dual mono, with two separate toroidal power transformers and fully independent supply stages, gives it a noise floor I did not expect from a tube integrated and an authority that never sags when both channels are working hard. It drove everything without reaching, and it simply got louder when asked.

Its second achievement is one you will use every week rather than admire once. The built-in bias system, with direct anode current on the OLED and four trimmers under the screen, turns the worst chore in valve ownership into a pleasure. The KT150 window runs from 38 to 45 mA, and LAB12 leaves the choice to you, which means you can genuinely voice this amplifier to your own room in an evening with a screwdriver. The compatibility list runs from EL34 through 6550, KT88, and KT120, so the tube rolling is real, not theoretical.

It is hand-built in Athens, component by component and joint by joint, with its own tubes matched and numbered to its own sockets, and it carries a five-year warranty”.

“It leaves with our Highly Impressive Award, and it leaves reluctantly”.

-Catalin Cristescu