POWER AMPLIFIER REVIEWS

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<LI>Price: $5,990</LI>
<LI>Channels/Power: Five channels; 350-Watts per channel into 4 ohms </LI>
<LI>Inputs: Single-ended and balanced</LI>
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<LI>Price: $2,299/pr.</LI>
<LI>Channels/Power: Monoblock; 200-Watts per channel into 8 ohms/325-Watts into 4 ohms </LI>
<LI>Inputs: Single-ended or balanced</LI>
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<LI>Price: $15,800/pr.</LI>
<LI>Channels/Power: Monoblock; 400-Watts per channel into 8 ohms/650-Watts into 4 ohms</LI>
<LI>Inputs: Single-ended and balanced</LI>
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When we think of a power amp today, we think of that large, heavy, hot-running, often ugly block of metal we hide away so we don't have to look at it. Or, if it's impressively large or expensive we proudly display it on the floor&mdash;an amp that's large, impressive, and expensive enough to show off is too heavy to put anywhere else! There, we willingly subject our ankles and shins to its sharp heat sinks on the sacrificial altar of great sound.

The concept of "investing" in a rapidly depreciating commodity strikes me as patently stupid. Just look at EBay and Audiomart. They are chockablock full of yesterday's stratospherically priced audio components now available for ten cents on the dollar. I believe the best values in audio or video components come from companies that refine bleeding-edge, hyper-expensive technology into attractively priced products.

Power amps get little respect in the home theater world. They're the heavy, black (or silver) boxes that sit somewhere in the dark, serving your speakers with a generous supply of power.

After the parade of international system mates that we've had in every other installment of this column recently, we finally settle into a system whose parts share their nation of origin. Don't be too quick to assume that it is the United States or Japan I speak of—this month's system hails entirely from merry old England. This isn't terribly surprising, but it does give me an opportunity to say a few things to our friends across the pond that I've been meaning to say for a while, such as: Sorry about that whole revolution thing (although I don't really mean that sincerely), and thanks for the Rolling Stones, Lord Stanley (who gave us the Stanley Cup), and Elizabeth Hurley—in no particular order, of course.