I live in Florida and have the esoteric f03. Even with the demo it is thousands more here. That said, matched with efficient 8 ohm speakers the 30 wpc is more than adequate. You also get a dead silent phono section that powers my lomc. Demoed the luxman into kef blades and wasn’t my cup of tea. If you have the cash, the f03 is a keeper
Recommend me a Class A Integrated Amp (or sound like Class A amp)
I have been rocking a Cabasse Riga setup with a Sony TA-A1ES (a heavily biased Class A design outputting first 15 watts as Class A). I absolutely love the clarity and natural sound of it. I’ve decided to keep to Class A to upgrade if possible because the Riga does not need a lot of juice to drive.
Accuphase Class As are eye-watering expensive in my country, but thankfully Esoteric prices their Class A F-03A at much more reasonable $8600 USD. Luxman unfortunately has stopped producing Class As, so they are out of equation and besides strangely they are more expensive than Esoteric in my country. Pass Labs, well, way out of my budget.
So, for around $8600 USD or less what are my other options if I want a similar sound to Class A without going down the tube route?
I’ve heard the new HifiRose RA180 sounds quite class A like. And I think the Yamaha AS series sound quite close as well. Any more options should I consider? The pricing of other brands should be similar to US.