An integrated amplifier could be seen as the beating heart of a separates system. You can have the best sources out there, and the best speakers to drive the sound. But without a decent integrated amplifier to drive it all, you may as well not have any of it.
Naturally, there’s a lot of choice out there. And for such an important item, it’s hard to know what to go for. Thankfully, the critics do some of the heavy lifting themselves, and bestow awards on the best examples, including integrated amplifiers.
Take, the focus of today’s blog:
The Creek Evolution 50A Integrated Amplifier is an amplifier which successfully scooped up up a Hi-Fi Award in 2014, and still remains a key player within its price point.
This is a very slender and smart looking amp, with a brushed aluminium front panel, available in either silver or black. It features an OLED display and hugely tactile push button controls (alongside a very heavy duty remote control). But what makes the Creek Evolution 50A special, is its power supply:
“The EVOLUTION 50A uses a 200 Watt toroidal mains transformer with separate windings for high and low current analogue and digital circuitry. This solution produces a good power to weight ratio and low magnetic interference. Creek’s policy of paralleling several low impedance capacitors to create an ultra-high specification capacitor to smooth the DC also helps to produce a very powerful and accurate sound from such a relatively small amplifier.” ~ Creek
A brand new bi-polar transistor power amplifier circuit was designed especially for it 50A with “very high open-loop gain and low distortion”. This circuit boasts low output impedance with high output current. A winning combination, resulting in excellent control over pretty much any loudspeakers, making the Creek Evolution 50A wonderfully versatile.
On top of this superior power source, the Creek Evolution 50A is very a feature heavy amplifier, witth multiple input options and a full array of controls. It also features the ability to plug in a phono stage. You can also fit a Tuner module, should you want to. The unit will recognise each, and adapt.
Versatility really is the key to being an award winner in the amplification world, and the 50A’s ability to handle pretty much any source and any speaker is clearly its strong suit.
If you’d like to take a closer look, click here for the full listing including the tech specs.