“Which amplifier do you recommend to go with your loudspeakers?”
It’s a difficult question to answer. But hi-fi shows are always a good opportunity to experience new amplifiers and to demonstrate how brilliantly EJ Jordan speakers perform with them (advert).
Last September, EJJ exhibited at the Hi-Fi Live Show (described in our blog here). This was held in the stadium at Ascot Racecourse, a huge venue which required a lot of walking to get to our room. To minimise the amount of equipment to be set up, I wanted an integrated amplifier that was reliable, simple to use and required no special requirements to function properly. But could I find one that was of high enough quality?
Enter Karma-AV, a home entertainment dealer and importer near York. I’d dealt with them before and noticed that they imported Primare, the Swedish amplifiers that have been around since the 1980s. I contacted Tom at Karma and he recommended the Primare i35, a modular integrated amp which could be fitted with a DAC.
The i35 is a model of Scandinavian minimalism, as you can see from the photo at the top of the page. It has controls for volume, source selection, a couple of extra buttons and that’s it. All presented on a rather swish aluminium front panel. The secondary buttons cycle through a number of options which are displayed on the subtly-lit screen in the centre. A very nice remote control handles the rest. In addition to 5 analogue inputs (two balanced), it has several digital inputs, including optical and USB.
I used it with my trusty MacBook, playing files from the hard drive and via streaming. I defaulted to the optical input as I’m more comfortable with that; when demonstrating at a hi-fi show, you don’t want any sudden surprises from the technology.
The i35 a class-D amplifier, so it runs cool and fuss-free. Primare have developed their own technology for their amplifiers and the result is as close to straight wire with gain as you’re likely to get. The sound was clean, transparent and beautifully delivered. The DAC worked flawlessly, with one customer asking: “How can you get sound this good from an optical input? I thought you had to use USB for that? This is better than my £15,000 streamer.”
It’s an ideal amplifier, lovely to look at, not too heavy to carry around … but sadly a bit too large to slip under my coat and make off with, so I gave it back to Tom at the end of the show.
(Well, I say ideal but I do wish amplifier manufacturers would give us back tone controls.)
I can also thoroughly recommend a visit to the Primare website, where they talk about Swedish fika, the pleasant habit of socialising, having coffee and maybe a Swedish cinnamon bun. In fact, there’s a recipe for some on their website.
Not to be outdone, given that EJ Jordan Loudspeakers is now based in Cumbria, I think I should reciprocate with a local recipe …
Westmorland Pepper Cake
85g raisins
85g currants
110g caster sugar
85g butter
140ml pint water
230g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
4 tbs milk
1 beaten egg
Oven – preheat to gas 4/fan 160 ºC
Grease and line a cake tin with greaseproof paper. Put the fruit, sugar, butter and water in a pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes and then cool.
Put everything else in a bowl and then add the fruit mixture, mixing it thoroughly. Put the mixture in the cake tin and bake for about 50 mins. Take it out, leave it to cool on a rack and then eat whilst listening to good music.