TEAC HA-507 / AP-507

The ‘real hi-fi, just smaller’ trend seems unstoppable: while companies like Britain’s Cyrus stroke the grey beards of experience and mutter ‘see, told you so’, everyone from the new Chinese brands making waves in the market to long-established names like Rotel are rolling out a new generation of room-friendly hi-fi.

The idea is simple: you can have excellent sound without filling your room with masses of anonymous black boxes. Let’s face it, even companies like Naim (who at the peak of its offerings had systems consisting of two huge racks of components) can now give you a set-up comprising just a streamer/preamp and a power amp (or even an all-in-one like the current Uniti range, if you want to make things really simple).

Japanese company TEAC, with over 70 years of history behind it, has previous form in this area. As well as its enviable reputation in pro recording equipment, and its just-about-full-size 700 series hi-fi components, it has long been offering its smaller 300 and 500 series models – and has recently reinvented the last of these into something even more impressive.

Think ‘systems with a separate preamplifier and power amplifier’ and we’re already back into that world of room-filling electronics, right? Wrong. The £1899 AP-507 stereo power amplifier I have here may deliver 70 watts per channel, maxing out at 140wpc, and it can be bridged to create a mono amplifier good for up to 380wpc - but its footprint is just 29x27cm, and it stands 8.5cm tall. Imagine the size of a sheet of A4 paper, and you won’t be far wide of the mark.

To partner it, you have a choice of a couple of DAC/preamps: the HA-507 I’m using here (also £1899) is a purely analogue, minimalist preamplifier/headphone amp, while the identically priced UD-507 adds onboard digital-to-analogue conversion and can be used with a computer as a digital source to create a streaming system. Oh, and there’s still more to this 500 series: you can also get a network player, a CD transport and even a standalone phono stage for a record player, all from the previous (but still current) ‘-05’ iteration of this line-up.

However, as soon as you unpack the preamp and power amp, and before a single note has been played, you get the sense you’re onto something a bit special here. In either silver or black finishes, the two components have a feel of substance and quality about them, from  their substantial build to the smoothness and precision of the control - and the standard of finish is remarkably high. They each sit on a trio of loosely-attached steel feet for maximum stability, with pads provided to protect delicate surfaces. Real high-end hi-fi in miniature? You bet!

So what I have here is a stereo power amp, made compact and power-efficient by the use of the widely-adopted NCORE digital amplifier technology from Dutch company Hypex (here in its latest ‘x’ version) and custom-tuned by TEAC. That old idea that digital amplification is inferior has long been dispelled, by the way, to a great extent by the work Hypex has been doing - some very serious amplifiers, including this one, are based around this technology.

And what’s around the power stage is similarly impressive, from the toroidal transformer to the dual-mono design, from the inputs to the output section avoiding interference between the channels. And yes, there are those meters on the front panel to complete the ‘big amplifier’ look – as if the AP-507 needed any help in that respect!

That bridged mode? If you need more power (which is debatable, given the way the amplifier performs in stereo) it’s a simple matter of flicking a switch on the rear of the panel and changing the speaker connections to turn this into a truly mighty mono amp. Oh, you’ll need a second AP-507, of course…

The HA-507 preamplifier is a fine example of minimalist analogue preamplification, with two sets of stereo line inputs on RCA sockets and two of balanced XLRs, with the option of pass-through working on RCA 2 and XLR 2 (if, for example, you’re using a source component with its own volume control). There’s the choice of balanced or unbalanced outputs, along with a good choice of headphone outputs. Whether you have conventional ‘phones or balanced models, you’re sorted here - there are 3.5mm and 6.3mm outputs for the former, and XLR and 4.4mm for the latter, along with a three-position switchable gain to allow the amp to drive even the most demanding cans.

All the options are chosen using little retro-style flip-switches, leaving simple rotaries for volume, balance and source selection - it’s all very functional, and undeniably cool. The accompanying remote control handset is similarly uncomplicated, with the functions you’ll need and nothing more. A 12V trigger connection allows the power amp to be fired up or put into standby via the remote control, but that’s about the only frill here.

SOUND QUALITY

If unpacking and setting up the TEAC duo is a pleasure, all to do with the quality of the components and that whole ‘high-end in miniature’ thing, then the performance on offer comes as no disappointment. Put simply, feed the components with a high-quality source, let them drive some rather good speakers, and this little amplifier duo has all the sound quality most of us could ever want. It requires no allowances whatsoever to be made for its dinky dimensions.

After trying it in several set-ups, I settle for using the EverSolo DMP-A6 Master Edition, running at line-level, as my streamer. And the speakers? The excellent PMC Prodigy 5 floorstanders, which are more than capable of making the most of the TEACs’ warm, rich, yet beautifully detailed, sound in this set-up.

Or should that be the amplifiers’ lack of any discernible sound? Whether using the power amp to drive speakers, or the preamp’s headphone outputs to drive a comprehensive range of personal audio offerings, the TEACs just let through what the source components are doing, and do so with enough power in reserve to drive whatever you’re listening with.

Playing the anthemic Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star from Suede’s recent Antidepressants release, the TEACs are capable of driving the PMCs hard while keeping the mix clear and open - and as the track gives way to the rocking Broken Music for Broken People the amps charge hard, those meters on the front of the AP-507 kicking joyously. These aren’t just amps best saved for closely recorded jazz and ultra-detailed classical recordings: the wide-open preamp and gutsy power amp are more than capable of getting down and dirty when required. Then they can dust themselves down and glide through the fabulously detailed and oh-so-clean Jonas Kauffman recording of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, the voice set against wonderfully measured piano accompaniment before showing they have all the power and control required for the BBC Philharmonic recording of Shostakovich’s First Symphony.

And with the recent remasters and new tracks on Joni Mitchell’s Joni’s Jazz set, the TEACs do a fine job of big-band tracks such as Trouble Man, her voice superbly showcased against the big band, and Kyle Eastwood’s always precise bass holding it all together. Playing through the PMCs, there’s all the low-end definition and scale one could want, and a magical sense of three-dimensionality in the sonic picture.

Even the slamming onslaught of St Etienne’s The Go Betweens, from the new International album, complete with guest vocals from Nick Heyward, doesn’t faze these amps – even playing at high levels there’s always a reassuring sense of plenty of power in reserve, not to mention the giggle factor of watching those power meters dancing to rhythm-driven music. By the way, you can dim or turn the meters off if required, or boost the meter sensitivity by 20dB for maximum kick-tastic action. Go on – you know you want to…

Living with the HA-507/AP507

These compact amplifiers put up such a high level of performance that it would be tempting to use them even if space wasn’t at a premium. They’ll slot into a wide range of systems with ease, thanks to that straight-through preamp design and the seemingly endless output of the power amp, allied to the clarity and consistency that’s a hallmark of the Hypex power amp modules.

Set-up is simple and straightforward - I’d find some way of having the two units on separate shelves or side by side, although neither heat nor interference seems to be a problem should you have to stack them. However, you might want to leave space for when you go crazy and decide to add a second power amp, bridge the AP-507s and get some for very serious power...

CONCLUSION

Defy expectations, and forget any idea that this TEAC duo might be too compact to be anything more than ‘lifestyle’ audio. Yes, it’ll fit in almost anywhere, and be quite a talking point into the bargain, but it’s got what it takes to deserve the ‘high end in miniature’ tag.

Listening notes

Joyce DiDonato Dido’s Lament
Taken from the recent Erato release of Purcell’s Dido & Aneas, DiDonato’s voice in this celebrated aria, at once both powerful and fragile, will push any system’s high-frequency reproduction to the limit

‍Pino Palladino & Blake Mills Sonambulista
The latest collaboration between the ‘bass player’s bass player’ and guitarist Blake Mills, That Wasn’t a Dream, is unsurprisingly full of superbly recorded bass, especially on this spiky track. Give your room a shake!

Peter Gabriel The Rhythm of the Heat
Classic Gabriel, recorded live at the WOMAD festival back in 1982, and recently re-released: the voice is ethereal and brittle-edged, the percussive backing tight, other-worldly and with fabulous low-end weight

There’s nothing small about the sound here, and the refinement of the design, styling and build delivers a pride of ownership more than matched by the sonic precision, openness and detail on offer. Put all that together and you have an amplifier combination that’s both immensely enjoyable and truly covetable.

The transparency of the TEACs will reveal what any source component is doing: at one point during my test it’s Naim’s ND555 and a pair of power supplies, which sounds hilariously good but is, perhaps, a little unbalanced in budgetary terms, given the front-end would cost the thick end of £40,000!

The headphone amp is more than good enough for a huge range of personal audio: I try everything from high-end IEMs from Final Audio to the likes of the Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature and Austrian Audio’s super-revealing The Composer, along with Oppo’s old PM-1 planar magnetics to make use of the balanced output, and in every case the HA-507 shows it can drive just about any ’phones with complete control and confidence.

And speakers? Well, take your pick: the ability of that Hypex NCOREx technology to take tricky speaker loads in its stride, and play hard without ever sounding like it’s doing more than just ticking over, means you can be ambitious when it comes to choosing speakers to suit your room.