Pre-amplifier

After 30-plus years producing industry-leading equipment, the audio engineer Dan D’Agostino remains at the top of his game. The Momentum power amplifiers and preamplifiers that he launched four years ago, not long after forming the Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems brand, have become the darlings of audiophiles—for their looks as well as their performance.  The […]

In the early 2000s, the engineers at Naim Audio (www.naimaudio.com), one of the preeminent names in British hi-fi since the 1970s, got an itch to build a cost-is-no-object amplification system. That project finally has come to fruition. Called the Naim Statement, it comprises a trio of monolithic structures: the company’s NAC S1 preamplifier flanked by two […]

Preparing audio signals for the world’s most powerful amplifiers…

With its silver or black finish and copper accents, the Dan D’Agostino Momentum preamplifier (www.dagostinoinc.com) has an unusually handsome exterior. More importantly, the latest offering from Dan D’Agostino—who founded Krell Industries in 1980 before establishing his namesake brand two years ago—features six balanced inputs and two outputs mated to a system of repeating resistors that […]

The sound of the Antelope Audio Rubicon Atomic AD/DA Preamplifier (www.antelopeaudio.com) is as retro as its styling. The $40,000 component serves as an analog preamplifier, headphone amplifier, and atomic clock, and it is the first such example to feature an analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog converter capable of delivering digital files with sample rates as large as 384 kHz. […]