PureAudio ONE Integrated Amplifier Review: Part 2

Before I brought the PureAudio ONE integrated amp home from the California Audio Show, I had been listening to my reference system with the LTA MZ3 preamp combined with the Pass Labs XA30.8 power amp. For this review, I took those two components out and replaced them with the ONE.

The only other change I made to my system was the speaker cables. The only ones I had with spades were the Audience AU24 SXs. John McDonald, president of Audience, sent me some gold and some rhodium spade adapters to use on my Audience frontRow speaker cables. As I will describe later in the review, these made a big difference.

Experiencing Musical Performances

This part of my review really is about how the ONE sounds. If you want to know more about the amp itself, I encourage you to read Part 1. I use “Listening” as the title for this part of the review, but that doesn’t really describe the experience of hearing performances with the ONE. Let me share something from my life that might help convey the experience I’m trying to describe here.

My dad drank Lousiana chickory coffee and said if the spoon wouldn’t stand up on its own in the cup, the coffee was too weak. I started drinking strong, black coffee as a child and eventually shifted to espresso. As years went by my love for good espresso has grown; maybe I am an “espressophile”. Then one day I purchased a blend of Cuban coffee beans that had been prepared for espresso. At first, I thought they were very good, but then I experimented with how long to pull it. Eureka, I had it. It was the best espresso that I had ever tasted. The crema was perfect and the taste heavenly. I have tried blends that cost three times as much, but I can’t get the same result. I have had a double nearly every morning (sometimes in the afternoon too) for the last three years.

How does this relate to audio? Well, I know I love music, especially live music. Music is an experience; it lets me relive previous experiences, and it takes me to places where I have never been. I am also an audiophile. The PureAudio ONE seems to be the musical equivalent of that special Cuban espresso blend. Like the Cuban espresso, it is not inexpensive, but it is nowhere near the most expensive. So, let me see if I can share with you the sound of the PureAudio One.

The Experience

There are lots of ways to listen to music and a few ways to experience music. I have very seldom heard live music in my home or in someone else’s. When I have, it was a very small performance like a guitar, violin or piano. Most of the time I have experienced live music in small halls, large auditoriums, clubs or outdoor venues.

It seems that after years of listening to the incredible intimacy and alive sound of the Teresonic speakers with the Lowther drivers I had forgotten what an emotional experience it can be to hear music in my home. The first LP I played with the PureAudio ONE driving my speakers was Leonard Cohen’s Live in London. From the minute the stylus left the lead-in groove and the music started, I felt enveloped and involved in a musical performance. I had never heard music sound like this in my home. It wasn’t perfect, but who cared? Not me!

Then I streamed Cohen’s Live from Dublin album because I prefer the performance and the accompanying performers. Now, I was even more shocked by what I heard. The system with the ONE in it sounded very analog-like, but it was abundantly easy to hear the things that I prefer abut the Live in Dublin recording.

The second LP I put on was Gillian Welch’s The Harrow & The Harvest. This is a very different recording, and it was recorded at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, TN. The problem with studio recordings is that we have no idea what the venue (studio) should sound like. Still, I doubt the goal of the recording engineer was to make them sound like they are playing in my 15 by 20-foot listening room. With the ONE in my system, the LP sounds as if they are playing in a small hall and I’m sitting in row E or F. The result is a musical experience that is truly magical and memorable. I think this is as much as we can expect from studio recordings being reproduced by a stereo system.

While I was listening to this LP, I began to think that something about my system with the ONE in it reminded me of the big Von Schweikert/VAC system, known at “The Ultimate System” at shows a couple of years ago. I am not implying here that the system was anywhere near as good as that system, but the experience was similar.

So, I chose Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s recording of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade for my third LP to listen to. This LP is one that I have listened to multiple times on the big Von Schweikert/VAC system. As I listened, I was enveloped in the music. I was there in about row I or J. Harry Pearson, founder of The Absolute Sound, used to write about speakers that could float an orchestra in space. He would be referencing big speakers like the Magnepan Tympani Ds or the Infinity IRS speakers.

This was the sound that I could remember hearing from the big Von Schweikert/VAC system at shows. What I was not expecting was to hear it from a pair of DeVore gibbon Super Nines, but I did with the ONE as the amp in my system. No, the bass wasn’t as deep, the top-end wasn’t as extended, but the experience of the performance was very similar.

The sound of massed basses on this recording was the most realistic reproduction of an orchestra that I have ever heard in my home. There is a section where the basses and cellos are all plucking the same note at the same time, and it was mesmerizing. My mind did not think about how great the space, air and dynamics were. Instead, my first thought was how can they all do that at the same time, for so long and with such intensity. When the LP was over, I could hardly believe how great this music and this performance was.

A Few Words About Sonics

This is an amp that is all about listening to music, its timbre, harmonics and tone, and the emotions of experiencing a musical performance. Still, there are many things about the sonics that I also enjoy. So, let me share just a few of this amp’s sonic attributes.

The Bass

The bass has more power and authority than I had ever heard before in my room. The bass also plays deeper than I had heard from my DeVore gibbon Super Nines. There is a quality to the bass that is tube-like. I actually mean that as a big compliment. Years ago I was at Auditions in Birmingham, AL visiting with the owner, Jim Smith, who is also the author of Get Better Sound. We overheard a customer talking to a salesman, and the customer said he wanted an amp that had a tube-like mirage and a transistor-like bass. Jim quietly commented to me that if he was honest, he would have to prefer bass from a good tube amp.

Over time, I came to understand the reason for this. Yes, if you are only talking about bass below 30Hz then what you need from an amp is power, giving transistor amps an edge. If you are talking about playing music below middle C then most transistor amps sound thin in the lower midrange and upper bass. This robs a system of the ability to sound lifelike. This is an area where the PureAudio ONE simply defies everything I had come to know about amplification. It is a transistor amp that outperforms great tube amps at their own game.

If you are looking for really fast, tight bass with powerful slam this amp is not for you. The bass from the ONE is about timbre and harmonics. It’s about hearing the air and space around and within the bass instruments. It’s about hearing the power and reverberation of an electric bass. If you can’t tell, I really like the bass with the ONE in my system.

Soundstage

I used to say the soundstage isn’t that important to me. About five years ago I was visiting with Jim Smith, and I shared that with Jim. He said well it wasn’t his either but if you got everything else right, he sure enjoyed a great soundstage. Well, I have to admit so do I. I just don’t like a soundstage that distracts from listening to the performance. With the PureAudio ONE, there was no sense of instruments or vocals sounding disembodied instead of being grounded in the recording space.

Comparisons

When I put the PureAudio ONE in my system it replaced the Pass Labs XA30.8. When I took ONE out for the first time, I put in the fabulous First Watt SIT3. The pure Class A XA30.8 is faster, more immediate, and has tighter, faster bass than the ONE. It is also more transparent.

By comparison, the SIT3 has more tonal color than any amp that I have ever heard. It also brings incredible pace and timing to my system, but the ONE is only a hair behind, and the ONE let me hear the rhythm and musical flow better.

Simply put though, the PureAudio ONE reproduces performances in a much more interesting way that envelops me in the music. It also has the most correct lower midrange and mid-bass that I have ever heard in my system. It elevates the realism of most performances beyond what I have heard in my home before.

Complaints

Well, I don’t have any complaints that deal with the sound. I do so wish, however, that balance controls had not gone out of fashion. I have TMJ and on days when it is really bad, I could use a balance control.

Another complaint is the volume control; it is a little hard for me to get the volume just right with the remote control. It’s right on the borderline, and just slightly a problem.

Wrapping Things Up

If I had to choose one sentence to describe this amp, it would be, “With the PureAudio One, my system enveloped me in the performance more than I had ever experienced before and by a significant margin.”

The performances were just as evocative whether I was listening to jazz, rock, classical, or solo piano. I particularly enjoyed the way it took me to the venue and that on certain recordings I was able to transcend the sense that I was listening to recorded music.

I could not imagine giving a piece of audio gear a higher recommendation. I would feel the same if it cost $50,000, but luckily it costs only $10,000.

Note: Read Part One of this review here.