FOCUS/INTEGRATED AMPLIFIERS

More is revealed

Exposure 2010

VERDICT Good dynamics, transparency, pace.

PRICE R13 000

SUPPLIED BY Extraordinary AV (021) 552-0014

WEBSITE www.extraordinaryav.co.za

Small change from big money for a 50 watt, 2-channel integrated amplifier might sound a bit hard to swallow, and it is for anyone in this day and age. But what price can you put on music, the uniquely human universal tool of communication?

It’s difficult to say, but with the plethora of equipment available to our ears for reproducing this particular means of communication, one has to be careful with both budget and quality of the end product. Quality for an audiophile is more about the intangibles that are heard rather than the tangibles which can be seen and touched.

And so it is with the 2010 integrated amp. Its only external pretensions to the high-end arena that are immediately apparent is the physical 19-inch format and the quality of the pots, which have a good solid feedback feel to them. The remote control does the system, at this pricing point, no favours whatsoever despite its compact size.

But we’re not interested in tangibles right?!

Looks-wise the 2010 is striking, along with the power amp and CD player in the range. A handsome silver-finish front panel complete with blue LEDs makes for a unit that oozes class and sex appeal. The two rotary dials that control of the volume and input selection are complementary to the look, and the machining on the dials is superlative. They’re silky to feel and almost make you want to use them rather than the remote!

The gain control appears to be linear which is a little disconcerting – the amp gets really loud really quickly and then takes a good crank to get any louder. That’s a hackneyed way of expressing it but, it is a little unique quirk in the amp that took some getting used to especially at the lower listening levels.

Not that one spends much time there  - the 2010 is an exuberant, boisterous amplifier that loves music – feed it music and it grabs hold of it, spits it out at you and forces you to sit up and take notice. I think that the 50 watts is a conservative rating as there seems to be no reserves to the amp’s power levels until you start getting to stupid levels. And the great thing about all this punch is that there is no variation – you get a total picture right throughout the tonal spectrum from start to finish.

But before getting ahead of myself, the back of the unit sports flush-mount, banana-type speaker jacks which look great and do a good job, but I would have preferred the traditional binding posts. Why? Because they’re practical for stripped cable ends, and I like stripped cable. Hell, I like anything stripped…

Then there are the gold-plated RCA inputs for everything and a set of pre outs for the 2010 power amplifier, reviewed in a forthcoming edition of your favourite mag, Audio Video. And that’s the complete picture of the amplifier.

Returning to the music, the 2010 acquits itself well with most forms of the language. Rock is particularly good with the dynamics of a good bass line really making themselves well felt. This is not at the expense of the midrange, and there is a translucency to the music that makes it sound smooth and tempered. Ultimately it’s satisfying and leaves behind a lot of the ‘feel good’ factor afterwards.

Switching to classical music it’s interesting to note the subtlety of the changes within the amplifier. It’s not a case of it ‘knowing’ that it’s playing classical, but rather a case of it adjusting to the different way in which the music is portrayed without so much as a tremor. Air and space is suddenly generated out of the recording and the sound stage is revealed to its depth and breadth with startling efficiency.

Instruments are given the correct weighting with pitch and timbre being kept natural and real. Again, this is so recording-specific that you have to be careful to audition with tracks that you know well - in this spectrum of the market there is little margin for error!

On that point, I think the Exposure is going to attract a lot of criticism for its pricing. It’s not cheap. But equally so, it is not nasty. And although it’s conservative in terms of power output, the sonic delivery that it achieves is of a very, very high standard. It unquestionably belongs in its price bracket and a close audition with it is essential.

William Kelly