Monthly Archives: March 2012
The Rogers High Fidelity EHF-100 vacuum tube integrated amplifier is one of the newest additions to our showroom. Designed to uncompromising specifications and hand-made in Warwick, NY, with military-grade components, the EHF-100 is one of the finest tube amps I’ve heard for under $10,000 (and at $6335.00 it’s truly a bargain). It’s also a finely-crafted piece of electronics whose build-quality can rival amps costing many times more. How well built is it?—the manufacturer offers the best warrantee I’ve ever heard of: lifetime, transferrable. What this means is that—as long as you don’t drop it, spill your bourbon on it, or otherwise abuse it—Roger Gibboni guarantees that his amp won’t break: ever (excluding the tubes, of course).
So how does it sound? Exquisite. Unlike almost any other tube amp on the market, Mr. Gibboni chose to use a pentode input stage rather than the typical triode design. Why? I’ll let him explain: “Using a pentode input stage yields all of the amplifier gain in a very short signal path; this reduces phase induced distortion and layout anomalies with very controlled linearity. [This results in] lots of bandwith, detail, depth of soundstage and incredible transient response.” I don’t have Mr. Gibboni’s engineering background, but after listening to his amp for several weeks now, I have to say that my ears are convinced: this tube amp is truly second to none, especially at this price. It has the rich, liquidy sound that tubes are famous for, but combines it with a fast, punchy (and ample) bass response that is remarkable in the world of relatively inexpensive integrated tube amps. Very conservatively rated at 100 watts per channel, the EHF-100 seemed ready to blow the front windows out of my showroom when mated to the Totem Wind loudspeakers. Of course, if you DO need more power, two EHF-100 amps can be run as a monoblocks.
Curious? Come in and have a listen! You WILL be impressed.