Anthem Integrated 1 Integrated Amplifiers
Anthem Integrated 1 Integrated Amplifiers
USER REVIEWS
[Oct 12, 2020]
cegtv
Strength:
as a ham radio operator,you can have a $10,000 radio and make no contacts or dx.it comes down to antenna ,antenna and antenna. with HIFI .it comes down to speakers . you just have to find the right mate for this amp. i run my anthem 1 with J.M.labs electra 915's bass is very good . i worked at hi end store tell people 90% of budget SPEAKERS ! just my opinion. Weakness:
weakness a remote and sub out would have been nice Price Paid: $800.00
Purchased: Used
Model Year: 1995
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[Mar 24, 2001]
John Rousseau
Audiophile
Strength:
soundstaging, imaging, tube mid's, absolutely no listener fatigue, value for money
Weakness:
needs subwoofer support to obtain a strong presentation across the musical spectrums I've had 2 years with this little integrated and gone through all the necessary doubts and uncertainties as to if it should remain in my system. This was an initial purchase and since them I have added in a Rega 25 table with Benz Glider cartridge and Target wallmount, an Audio Analogue CD player, a vintage Kenwood 600T tuner, mostly Cardas wire all around and Monster power conditioning. Right now I'm running Mirage OM10 speakers which I got for a song. I've also made another recent purchase I will explain later. A speaker upgrade also seems to be in my future. |
[Dec 06, 2000]
Sei-Young Jang
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
detail, smothness, transparent
Weakness:
Bass, power level I write this review for those who own this and love this amp AND who hopes to improve this. Anthem Int1 itself is a good tube amp, even though has many limitation as written in the reviews listed below. To me this was my first tube amp and I loved it from the beginning. As time goes by, I began to realize its limitation and my desire to hear more and better grew as well. Having been an electrical designer for years, I started tweaking the design by replacing the parts and modifying circuit. The result was tremendous and too big, I simply wanted to share with you. |
[Dec 06, 2000]
Sei-Young Jang
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
detail, smothness, transparent
Weakness:
Bass, power level I write this review for those who own this and love this amp AND who hopes to improve this. Anthem Int1 itself is a good tube amp, even though has many limitation as written in the reviews listed below. To me this was my first tube amp and I loved it from the beginning. As time goes by, I began to realize its limitation and my desire to hear more and better grew as well. Having been an electrical designer for years, I started tweaking the design by replacing the parts and modifying circuit. The result was tremendous and too big, I simply wanted to share with you. |
[Feb 15, 2001]
zach
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Amazingly clear and warm sound.
Weakness:
A couple of circuit board fires. Although the fires were probably due to the quality of tubes that I was using, it did cost a lot to repair. Besides that, I've loved this thing ever since I got it. I've had a lot of audiophile-type people stop by for a listen and compliment the sound. I'd recommend it to anyone. |
[Jun 13, 2001]
Erik
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Openess, focus, transparency, midrange, ease of use, finish.
Weakness:
Will not drive speakers with that are very hard to drive in tha bass region A genuinely great sounding amplifier, with smooth yet detailed sound, good focus, and nice top-to-bottom tonal characteristics. Similar Products Used: Audio Research CA50, Anthem Amp1, Krell KAV-300i, Audion Silver Night 300B integrated, |
[Dec 14, 1999]
Brian R.
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Huge Soundstage! Wonderful on vocals and small ensembles.
Weakness:
Gets hot. Careful about changing out those Chinese tubes! I concur with many of the comments others have made about this fine amp -- wonderful sound for the price. But several folks seem to have gone ahead and replaced the stock Chinese 12AU7 tubes in the preamp with something else (NOS perhaps). Be careful about doing this. My Int 1 came to me with Phillips JAN 12AU7s and I was hearing a lot of microphonic ringing. This was very faint and only audible in very quiet passages of music. I listen to a great deal of classical and chamber music -- there is a lot of silence in this type of music and I could occassionally hear this microphonic ringing and pinging. I determined by tapping on the tubes that it was coming from the 2 preamp 12AU7s, so I went ahead and bought a set of GE Goodyear tubes (supposed to be very low microphonically). This did not improve the situation at all. You may not hear microphonics if you listen to "busy" music such as rock or loud jazz which does not have much silence in it. |
[Oct 23, 1999]
Hoooo
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Clean vocal, Good value !
Weakness:
Hot I just brought this two weeks ago, before that I tried several other AV amp like Denon, Yamaha ..etc. Finally, I decide to select this Tube Amp. Although it only give 25 W power, it is powerful to drive my B&W speaker(87dB)to give you a very smooth and clear vocal and reasonaable bass. I have a Denon AV Amp in my living room rated 100W, but I would say this tube amp is much better than my Denon when it play music like jazz, vocal and even Pop. I am very happy with this amp, however once I replace the two chinese make 12UA7s with Mullard 12UA7 it even sound much better. |
[Oct 26, 2001]
nikos ploumakis
Casual Listener
Strength:
Build(it's like a tank), velvet sound,
Weakness:
none for me This is the best amp i've ever used. The sound comes out from this lovely machine like thick velvet, sweet & smooth. Similar Products Used: marantz pk80II SE |
[May 06, 1998]
Dan Mason
an Audiophile
I have gone through an upgrading process with my budget system which started out as Optimus Pro LX-4's, an NAD 304 Integrated Amp, a Rotel 970-BX CD player, Kimber PBJ and 8TC cables, and black diamond cones under everything. I had purchased a pair of Impact Technology transmission line speakers from Bob Cohen of The Cable Company/Ultrasystems fame and realized that these new speakers were revealing problems with my amplification. I want to tell you all about the amplifier I purchased to replace my NAD, the Anthem Integrated 1. It's a 25 Watt push-pull integrated made by Sonic Frontiers which uses 2 sets of 4 Sovtek EL84's in the output and 2 matched pairs of 12AU7's and 1 12AT7 in the input. First impressions were good, the amp had more power, more bottom end, more AIR, a wider, bigger, more defined soundstage, more detail and more smoothness. The pace was somewhat slowed I felt and I will return to this. The bigger problem was a stridency which was unexpected. I felt the highs were strident even though they were more liquid. I suspected the Chinese made 12AU7's which were used at one of the 2 pairs. The other pair was some Jan Philips. So, I replaced the Chinese tubes with some RCA's and left the Jan Phillips alone. Gone were the strident highs. More smooth overall, maybe too smooth?? I also later changed out the stock 12AT7 in favor of a Mullard. Better yet. (Don't listen to the SF techies who claim that the stock tubeset is the best for the preamp section--bullshit!! The Chinese tubes suck!!) Later on I switched from Kimber to Tara Klyma and Synergistic Research Sterling Alpha. The Alpha interconnects were superior and brought back some of the speed I mentioned before. The Tara's were smoother overall, yet not as bass intensive, nor quite as revealing as the Kimber 8TC. I say it's a toss up there on cables. Now as far as the Integrated 1 was shaping up, I was having a good time with it. It's a system which can be converted from integrated configuration to either preamp or amp by making a simple snipping of two internal wires. The internal wiring is kimber anyway, so go get yourself a pair of PBJ's and snip away. You can use the PBJ's to externally convert the separated component back to its original integrated form. (Strange as it may seem, I got better sound with the .5 meter PBJ's hooked up post snip) I mention this feature of the unit because it allows you to evaluate the sound of each part separately and it also allows for you to upgrade without trashing your entire amplification system completely. With tube upgrades in place, the amp section I felt was still the better section. There was plenty of power, punch and volume to work quite well in my 15X13 room and with three different types of speakers: the transmission lines, the Optimus's, and the KEF Q20's which I borrowed. This is for sure a good amp mate for transmission line speakers. As far as the preamp goes I'd say it's pretty good, but not hands down better than the preamp section on the NAD 304, so if I were buying the Integrated, I'd look to upgrade the preamp section first. I would also expect the preamp of the Anthem Pre 1-L to be superior. However, it's good enough with the tube upgrades I mentioned that you'll appreciate the synergy of the two sections well enough that you won't want to go looking for a better preamp for some time. And if you do go looking, try a passive that's cheap but good like the Purest Sound Systems stuff or the Creek line of passives, which are less than $500. The amp: A- the Preamp: B+ The Integrated: 4 Stars. |