One of the chief reasons I fly to woebegotten Las Vegas, USA is: I love all the wild, eccentric audio persons that treat CES as a business-building pilgrimage site. The other is that CES is the best place to find new products to review. This year I found several, and the one that has me the most stoked is the Rogers High Fidelity 65V-1 class-A, single-ended EL34/KT88 integrated amplifier ($3999). Not to mention: I have never seen an amp painted with industrial-black crinkle paint that I didn’t love.
I have met Rogers’ president and chief designer Roger Gibboni several times, at his New York dealer Stereo Exchange. I have auditioned his amps powering a variety of loudspeakers, including the fabulous DeVore Fidelity Gibbon XLs, and they always sound vivid and athletic—fast-moving and excitement-generating. But I’ve never felt the urge to review one, until now. This time it was love at first sight.
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