Used with Lindemann 825 and Sonus faber Cremona Auditor

This is an extraordinary amp. It makes the music come alive through pure naturalness. It just sounds like the music is played live in front of you. Now this may sound like typical hifi babble but this amp really succeeds.

There is absolutely no harshness up to the highest treble yet everything is very clear sounding, bass is strong and ultra precise but in no way bloated and mids are warm but in no way warmed up. The amount of detail you can hear is stunning, be prepared to hear things you have never heard before on your albums, even if you know them for decades. This amp even transmits the ambience of the room the music was recorded in (if the source material delivers, of course), sometimes you can easily locate where the microphones must have been placed.

The soundstage is quite holographic in every dimension. You are engulfed and surrounded by the music as you take your seat on stage right between the musicians, not in one of the front rows. At times, this can almost be disturbingly intimate. The spaciousness is not only to be found in the room but also in every instrument itself. A double bass is a double bass in it's full dimension. The same with grand pianos or in general all acoustic instruments with a resonant body. However, I have heard deeper soundstages with tube amps (that had other, far more severe flaws).

The amp handles dynamics very well, too. Sudden orchestral outbursts in classical music for example are presented as precise and sovereign as a delicate breathing sound.

The amp does not seem to prefer a certain style of music, it can handle them all. Classical, Jazz, Rock, Pop, Electronic, you name it. If you are looking for a fly in the ointment, I would say that its ultra precision does reveal bad (re)masterings up to a level the music may lose its coherence. Rock remasters may suddenly sound unnatural because you notice what the sound engineer focused on (too much) and what he has overlooked. If not done well, electronic music may sound cobbled together, you can suddenly identify the moment a loop repeats etc. It's often easy to identify songs that haven't been recorded all together, where for example the singing was added later.

On the other hand this amp does incredible things to bad recordings, even 128k mp3s of real bad recordings. Astonishingly it often is able to separate the instruments from the dull mash you expect (at least a little) and to reveal a hint of spaciousness. That came quite as a surprise as I had expected the opposite.

The only real flaw, if you can call it that, may be the fact that you need to turn up the volume a little above average room volume before the magic really starts to develop. If you are a low volume listener, this amp should not be your first choice. It doesn't sound bad or dull in any way at low volumes, mind you, but you will not be able to hear what this amp distinguishes from other amps half the price.

The internal fan is completely inaudible. It keeps the internal temperature at 54° or 55° Celsius. You can always check the temperature, which is displayed if you press the 'Info' button on the remote.

Conclusively I have to say that the 825 CD-Player is a good part of the equation. I haven't tried the amp with a cheap CDP yet but I am sure it fully reveals the quality of the source unit. Together, the 825 & 885 are pure musical bliss.