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TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 09-10/2013
—
The Audolici A1/25 is not
only design wise different
from other tube amplifiers.
It has another unusual point:
its price. While an audiophile
tube amplifier like the AU-
DOLICI-50 Jazz has a price
tag of around 7500 Euros
for the end user, the Audolici
A1/25 aims at approximately
half that price. This repre-
sents an unbeatable bargain
for an amplifier of this class,
particularly because Valeriy
did not manage to make this
amplifier sound worse than
more expensive models.
I was able to test this am-
plifier twice: first at my home
and then in a proper audito-
rium for audiophile music
systems, owned by a private
collector and audiophile ad-
dict. This dual test enabled
me on one hand to get to
know the A1/25 in a famil-
iar acoustic environment. On
the other hand, it was also
important for me to hear
the amplifier with speakers
evenly matched in a truly
optimized space, along with
high class components.
The first contact with the
A1/25 is marked by the
weight of the amplifier. Being
used to the keywords „com-
pact“ and „light“ – common
marketing keywords nowa-
days - it is surprising how
heavy a „real“ amplifier can
be. The A1/25 brings an im-
pressive 11.5 kg to the scale.
The casing is perfect. An
elegant front panel with only
two knobs and a switch and a
characteristic minimalist de-
sign. The left knob allows se-
lection of the input (CD, Tun-
er, AUX 1 and AUX 2), while
the right knob controls the
volume. Both knobs are solid
and heavy and have a high
quality finishing.The volume
knob uses an Alps 100k log
potentiometer, which again
is a sign that only the best
components have been used
to build this equipment. The
centre lever indicates the ON
state by means of a green
LED, which is integrated in
the switch. The colour of my
test equipment was graph-
ite black, but the receiver is
also available in silver.
On the rear side, the A1/25
presents itself again with
a high quality finishing. All
RCA sockets are gold plated
and the output terminals
for the speaker use a WBT
type binding post, which will
totally satisfy the most de-
manding user. Although the
unit is assembled by hand,
the A1/25 by no means looks
like a “do it yourself” am-
plifier, as opposed to many
of the tube amplifiers to be
encountered in the mar-
ket from other brands. The
manufacturing of the device
is very professional as you
would expect from a premi-
um Hi-Fi component.
The arrangement of the
speaker output terminals in-
dicates the internal architec-
ture of the amplifier, for they
are distributed symmetrically
and allow the connection of
only one pair of speakers,
which may be of the 4-6 Ohm
or 6-8 Ohm type. Having only
output terminals for one pair
of speakers cannot be re-
garded as a limitation, be-
cause the A1/25 is to be used
with a matched high qual-
ity speaker pair and it would
not make sense to connect
more speakers, nor to spend
money in the purchase of two
speaker pairs. Instead, Au-
dolici has been rather gener-
ous with the 4 inputs connec-
tor pairs. In this segment, it
is not that usual to have this
number of input connectors
available, but it does make
sense in the present days,
since music lovers no longer
want to swap cables to be
able to alternate between
different sources, like a CD
After setting up the
amplifier we were ready
to enjoy a long afternoon
listening to a huge
amount of CDs.
