I bought the SU-G700 in 12/2021 and it has been a surprise. ANdrew Robinson, who I respect greatly reviewed this integrated amp and was as surprised as I was on its attributes. I have several kits in my home and office and through 45 years of audiophile madness have owned moderate to outlandish pieces of hifi equipment so I decided to take a plunge into what I consider to be the future of HiFI--Not class D, but digital.
There have been a plethora of reviews from Stereophile, home theatre, and The absolute sound to name a few, but until you hear this amp, you can not imagine how much technology and quality has been baked into this piece. For starters, had been using a Class A Nikko Alpha 1 amplifier that simply, after 38 years, wore out and repair costs were ungodly. I wanted to downsize anyway and began looking at integrated amps. My home office has a Mcintosh MC152 with an excellent Rotel RC-1590 pre-amp aboard. My business office runs a restored Mcintosh MA6300 integrated and I started my search there.
The new McIntosh MA5300 just did not sound as warm as the MA 6300 and at over $5,000.00 seemed to be out of sync with some other comparable offerings. I then demoed a Yamaha A-S2100 which to my airs, added coloration to the music I diod nto like--also its sound stage was a bit muddy (to my ears). I liked the Rotel 1590 preamp and bought the RA-1592. That was a nice piece but it lacked the final finish of the McIntosh's in my stable, so I continued to look down the Class A/B pathway.
When I stumbled on a youtube review of the SU-G700 from World Wide Stereo, I decided to take a look. On its face, at $2,500, it was on the low end of my budget and I was not expecting much, but I bought under with a 30 day return policy. I warmed it up for about 20 hours letting it bleat out average signals from my Yamaha T-1 vintage tuner (excellent by the way) until broken in. This thread seems to mix up the units in the Technics stable so I am strictly commenting on the SU-g700...At first I thought the 70 watts per 8ohm/140 watts per 4 ohm would be too light to power my B &W 702 S2s. I was surprised then when the volume reached 28 that the sound was loud and powerful--Given the fact the B & Ws go down to 3.1 ohms I was worried about a 'D" amp handling the load. In fact, this amp stays cool and pumps out as much clean sound that you need to blow an eardrum.
I characterize the sound as neither warm or 'tubelike' no is it robotically reproduced, I think it portrays a neutral pleasant sound and does so in a unique way. I refer you to the various reviews, kudos and specs this amp has without going into detail here. The irony is everything enters this amp digitally and it waits until it exits the amp to return to analog....fascinating and refreshing. Panasonic, the parent company of Technics wanted to return to audiophile relevance. Well, very few companies have the R & D budget this company has, but they created an excellent line of products, smart looking, yet techno forward. I wanted to spend more, but I spent less and got more in this Integrated. A+
