Neodio HQA Amplifier…

By Roy Grégory.
Original article: https://gy8.eu/review/neodio-hqa-amplifier/

The TMA gets more minimalist still!

When it comes to audio components, does anything project attitude in quite the same way as an amplifier? From the techno/brutalist styling of the Gryphon Antillion to the glitzy high-tech sheen of the Devialets, the unashamedly artisan appearance of the original Audio Note amplifiers to the effortlessly cool Lectron JH50, there’s an unmistakable quality to each and every one. It’s a quality that extends past the exterior appearance, into the interior construction and the sound that results: muscular, dark and heavy or compressed, flat and shiny; basic and direct or unhurried, calm and detached. If amplifiers look the way they sound (and a surprising number do) what does that tell you about the Neodio HQA?

On the surface, not a lot: A simple but elegantly constructed black box with an equally simple copper stripe inlaid across its front panel. But look a little deeper and what’s happening on the outside is a direct extension of what’s happening on the inside – and what’s happening on the inside is distinctive indeed. In fact, what is happening on the inside is simply dripping with attitude – and it ain’t the sort of attitude we normally associate with high-end audio.

The HQA story starts with the company’s TMA integrated (https://gy8.eu/review/maximal-minimal/), an amplifier with an agenda as distinctive as its appearance. The Minimalist Amplifier concept has been taken a step further and – crucially – become even more purist in the form of the High Quality Amplifier, simply by dint of eliminating the input switching and volume control. Physically, sonically and philosophically, the HQA is a direct development of the TMA, sharing much more than just the thinking behind that product. It is, quite literally, a stripped back, power only TMA – but when it comes to performance and system building, it’s much, much more than that.

In an age where electronic circuitry is getting more and more compact, increasingly sophisticated (for which read complex) and where closely packed componentry, proliferating ICs, multi-layer boards and DSP/software control are fast becoming the norm, at €4,600 the HQA goes beyond retro and well into throw-back territory. Yet there’s nothing lazy or accidental about its design. This is deliberate, even premeditated and it starts with the construction itself.

With an increasing number of products suffering ever-shorter shelf lives, the ability to access components and even the circuit itself has become a concern where longevity and serviceability matter. Yes, you can buy a streaming capable DAC/amplifier that’s little bigger than a stack of a half-dozen CDs, off the internet for around $100 USD. It even works – at least after a fashion. But when (as opposed to ‘if’) it goes wrong, the assumption is that it’s so cheap that you just bin it and buy the next, newer model. But if we are at all concerned with the longevity or repairability of our investment, its carbon footprint or consumption of raw materials, let alone the creation of waste product, this manufacturing model is catastrophically unsustainable. It’s also the context against which Neodio designer and engineer Stephane Even created the HQA.

When I bought my first car, its parts and principles of operation were clear and unambiguous. This was a vehicle I could work on myself. If it broke down, I could probably fix it and I could certainly service it. My current car? Well, it still compresses and ignites fossil fuel, but there all similarities cease. It is turbo-charged and engine-managed, with electric everything and ‘driving aids’ up the wazoo. Service it? I struggled to find the battery the first time it needed charging! Electric cars? I’m not sure that they are even safe to service without specialist training…

In many ways, audio has trodden a similar path. The essential task remains the same, but the technology and even the raw material (source storage formats) has moved beyond the every day. Where once turntables were open to considerable tuning, with today’s network replay solutions they tend to either work or they don’t, with computer/network knowledge and understanding outweighing any musical or system tuning considerations.

Against this headlong plunge into software-dominated operation, the Neodio HQA might be considered the audio equivalent of a step back to when cars still had carburettors and a handy mechanic could lift the bonnet on anything.

What’s under the hood…

Reviewing the TMA integrated amp, I wrote that:

“Inside… you’ll find more, thoughtfully executed aspects to the design. A 300VA transformer and 44,000uF of reservoir capacitance is plenty for a 2x80W output, without being overkill. The output stage, built around high-current MOS devices has its own, shunt-regulated supply. The amplifier is built on a single, large PCB, with the well-spaced dual-mono circuit specifically designed to aid clarity and ease future servicing – even if the technician doesn’t have a schematic. Cables from the output stage to the speaker terminals use Neodio’s cotton insulated Fractal 8 and the low-mass connectors are mounted on a PMMA rear panel, to help damp the all-welded chassis, and decouple the sockets, both electrically and mechanically. The amp stands on three Delrin feet and, like everything else to do with this product they have carefully auditioned for maximum sonic and musical goodness. Pick up the (amplifier) and, at 14kg/31lbs you’ll notice that it’s reasonably but not overly heavy. You’ll also notice that the lid can ‘clank’ – but like the feet that has been listened to and critically damped for maximum musicality. Kill it completely and you kill the sound too.”

It’s a physical description that applies, word for word to the HQA. But removing the input switching and volume control has resulted in one of those less is more revelations that litter the audio landscape. Where the TMA is a one-box solution, with a narrow brief and a clearly defined performance envelope. The HQA, by simply dropping the ‘integrated’ aspects of the amplifier design, has become something more capable and far more versatile. Where the TMA was complete, stable and contained, the HQA is more immediate, quicker and more direct. It’s not a better amplifier per se. But it makes more of the amplifier it is – a lot more with a little judicious application.

The secret of the Neodio amplifiers’ inherently musical qualities lies in their balanced design. That’s got nothing to do with the fact that it’s equipped with XLR inputs or whether it uses symmetrical circuit topology (it doesn’t). In this case it is to do with balancing the size and complexity of the different parts of the circuit. If we take the transformer as an example, it needs to be big enough to maintain the reservoir capacitance without sagging under load, but any bigger than that and it starts to eat the budget that needs to be spent elsewhere. Likewise, simply overbuilding elsewhere comes with real performance costs and a direct impact on value. Huge power supply caps need to have their sluggish delivery off-set by (inevitably expensive) bypass capacitors. Doubling up output devices can cause more problems than it solves. In each case, the essential infrastructure to mitigate the downside of such steps eats even further into the design budget. Simple, well-executed engineering is the order of the day, with clear design priorities and a brief that extends to the mechanical as well as the electrical aspects of the design.

On the face of it and in this Class D day and age, a bulky, full-width chassis and a chunky 14kg weight might seem like overkill for an 80 W/ch amplifier, flying in the face of material efficiency. Sure, even retaining the linear power supply, you could cram it into a box maybe one third of the size, but that would in turn seriously undermine one of the essential goals behind the design. Look inside the HQA and you find the dual-mono circuit laid out on a substantial PCB that occupies all of the space not colonised by the chunky transformer. That allows for well-spaced components, many of them discrete, with a circuit that it’s easy to trace – and thus repair should it ever fail. These are mainly conventional components: specially selected but ultimately replaceable for value and function if not type. So any competent service engineer should be able to look at (and fix) this amplifier, long after I’m dead and gone.

But being big gives also gives the circuitry space to breathe. That translates to thermal stability, a reduction of thermally related distortion mechanisms and lower levels of component interaction. The socketry is suitably minimal, with single pairs of RCA and XLR inputs and 4mm sockets for the outputs. These passed from popularity decades ago, replaced by glitzy binding posts that also accepted the spades demanded by global markets and certainly looked more impressive. But those of us with longer memories and who have ever done the comparison, know that those prosaic looking 4mm banana sockets sound as good or better than all but the very best (and most expensive) binding posts.

Old fashioned – but in a good way…

It’s a design choice that encapsulates and sums up so much of what the Neodio HQA is all about: Nothing flash, nothing extraneous; just simple, clear priorities, an uncluttered signal path and an appreciation of those aspects of mechanical design and component selection that help sound quality but have got lost in the high-tech wash.

Doesn’t that just make for an old-fashioned amp with old-fashioned sound?

In one sense (the good sense, where ‘old-fashioned’ stands for musical integrity and a rhythmically coherent performance) the answer is, “Yes”. But that is far from the whole story. The HQA treads a fine line between maintaining musical integrity and the cost of doing so – whether that relates to the componentry in the circuit or the contribution of the casework and hardware. This is a holistic design in the true sense – and it shows in the completeness of its performance.

Finally, this wouldn’t be a Neodio if there wasn’t something innovative or unusual about the circuit and, in this case, it’s a new approach to Global Feedback. Neodio claims to have developed a new approach that delivers the control and transparency of GFB without the all too frequent downsides of poor timing performance and musical articulation. While being understandably coy about the details, it’s a claim that’s certainly bourn out in practice, one of the things that makes this amp so special.

Plug the HQA into almost any speaker and even faced with a genuinely demanding load it will give a surprisingly unflustered account of itself. I ran it variously with the Wilson Sasha DAWs, the Vienna Acoustics Liszt Reference and the Peak Consult Sinfonias – all speakers that are considerably pricier than the HQA, all speakers that like power. Yet the modestly rated and modestly priced Neodio delivered a remarkably coherent and engaging performance, even in these unlikely scenarios. Timing, phrasing, articulation and musical communication were all first rate, even if it lacked the absolute weight, scale and dynamic authority that comes with vastly more expensive amplifiers. This wasn’t the stumbling, clumsy and inarticulate result you normally get when a modest amp is over-faced by its partner speakers. It’s almost as if the HQA was intentionally sacrificing the last ounce of bandwidth, weight and low-frequency impact in order to preserve its remarkable musical coherence, a coherence that extends well either side of the middle.

Which brings us to an oft neglected but universal audio truth. Making an amplifier’s job easier results in a better sounding system. Yes, the HQA’s musical equanimity is unperturbed by even quite awkward loads, but just because it can drive difficult speakers without falling in a disorganised heap, it doesn’t mean that it should. The easier the load you present it with, the more it blossoms. Pair it with a relatively sensitive, non-reactive speaker like the Living Voice OBX-RW4 or the Stenheim Alumine 5SE and the results are seriously surprising. Start to exploit its inherent versatility, with a better preamp or bi-amping and the system becomes almost shockingly musical and engaging, especially given the modest price of the amplifier(s).

It’s really not hard to understand why. Put a 1600cc, four-cylinder engine in a family saloon and the performance will be sluggish: slow to accelerate, lift off the gas and sheer momentum will keep it gently rolling along. Take the same engine and build it into a lightweight sports chassis, like a Caterham Super 7 or Lotus Elise, and you get serious acceleration and engine-braking that throws you at the steering wheel as soon as you lift your foot. The engine can dominate the dynamic performance of the car, in exactly the same way as an amplifier can exert better control over a more sensitive speaker. Your Lotus Elise might not have the top speed of a Ferrari or Bugatti, but in the performance range that matters and can actually be used on real roads, it’s remarkably competitive at a fraction of the price.

Willing partners…

The challenge with any musically capable but affordable power-amp is finding a pre-amp that doesn’t kill its performance. I reached straight for the TEAD The Vibe with its match Pulse power supply. It proved a remarkably cost effective combination, punching well above its musical weight. After living with the TMA, it’s no surprise that playing the Rouvali/Gothenburg Sibelius 1 (Alpha Classics 440 the HQA captures the halting conclusion with perfect poise, gradually gaining momentum before allowing emotional release and the music to expire in the final two, gentle notes. It’s a case of perfectly structured control, but combined with a presence and immediacy that evokes drama and emotional range. In the same way, it captures the pulsing rhythms and abrupt changes of pace that typify En Saga.

This is the stable, organised and unobtrusive patterns of the TMA – but with added clarity, colour and impact. The HQA jumps quicker and higher than the integrated, tracking dynamic demands more faithfully, be they the subtle shaping of a lyrical phrase or the percussive detonation that punctuate orchestral works. Just like the TMA, the HQA never leaves any doubt as to what is being played. Just like the TMA it is musically unobtrusive. But it does an even better job of mapping musical intent and moves the listener much closer to the sense and presence of the performers captured in the recording. Anastasia Kobekina’s cello (Ellipses, Mirare MIR604) is more solid and dimensional, her bowing more vivid, her musical commitment more apparent. It transmits the deeply personal nature of her ‘encore piece’, Gallardo, written by her father, the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ that she is playing. The TMA is a great, integrated amp and you can build a really musically rewarding system around it. But the HQA elevates things to a whole different level, simply by moving you that much closer to the original performance – and allowing the rest of the system to move in the same direction.

Use the HQA in almost any context and it’s an impressively musical and capable performer. Exert a little care in choosing the matching speaker and, especially if you add a second HQA in bi-amp mode, it suddenly becomes quite exceptional. As good as a single HQA most certainly is, a pair delivers more than twice the musical and emotional impact. Although I spent a lot of time listening to a single HQA driven by The Vibe line-stage, it ultimately found its way into a bi-amped system, driving the Living Voice OBX-RW4 and fed by the CH Precision L1/X1 – with spectacular results. This is where those balanced XLR inputs come in, positively encouraging you to pair this apparently modest amplifier with far more expensive front-end components. It isn’t necessary. The Vibe proved an able, high-value partner that delivered plenty of musical bang for your bucks. But when the HQA emigrates to audio La La Land, things get really interesting. Partnering it with the likes of the CH Precision moves the HQA into a completely different market sector, but it’s a market sector where it sits extremely comfortably.

As impressive as Kobekina’s Gallardo is through one HQA driving the OBX-RW4s, adding a second amp injects so much life, substance and energy into proceedings that it moves beyond intent into almost physical presence. But it’s another ‘difficult’ recording that really shows up the step change in musical performance. Read the OBX-RW4 review (https://gy8.eu/review/living-with-the-living-voice-obx-rw4/ – which also features the bi-amped HQA set up) and you’ll see what this system did for the Pike/Davis Sibelius Violin Concerto (Chandos CHSA 5134). The results were so impressive that it encouraged me to dig out the Sayaka Shoji recording of the same piece (coupled with the Beethoven, accompanied by Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg – DGG UCCG-1811, a Japanese pressed SHM-CD). Shoji is one of my favourite live performers, the power and intensity of her playing belying her diminutive stature. The very fact that she performs with Temirkanov pretty much says it all. Yet, like many a great live performer, she is poorly served by recordings, by discs that struggle to capture the incredible, almost physical intensity and authority in her playing…

Double the fun…

This disc is definitely one of the better attempts. It opens with the Beethoven, which is played with considerable zest and authority by both the soloist and orchestra. Listening with a single amp driving the speakers, the performance is impressively present and articulate, lending explicit shape to Shoji’s phrasing, capturing the carefully paced and weighted accompaniment. This is very nice indeed, if maybe not quite front rank. But moving on to the Sibelius, things start to fall apart. There’s a fineness to the opening line, but musically it lacks drama and tension. The §orchestral playing seems detached and out of line, the recording flat and uninvolving. It would be easy to conclude either the performance, the recording or neither is up to the standard of the Beethoven. But having played this disc on bigger and more capable system, I know what it can do – and that it wasn’t doing it here.

Which is where the second HQA came into play. Switch to the vertically bi-amped set up, and the performance is transformed. It opens with air, space and an immediate impression of anticipation and tension. The hanging line of the violin solo is at once more delicate and fragile, but also more poised and focussed. The fragility comes from technique, the poise focus and intensity giving the notes, their length, modulation and the gaps between them a clarity and purpose that perfectly reflects Shoji’s live presence. That familiar opening line takes on an almost sculpted, filigree quality, illuminated by its tonal and dynamic shading. There’s an intensity to the playing that evokes the drama and emotional depth of the piece, a sense of purpose that extends to the intimate relationship with the conductor and orchestra. The central Adagio is beautiful but the third movement is a model of building energy, momentum and drama, maintaining that emotional tension right through the extended and convoluted finale. It shows Shoji as a musician as utterly in command of her instrument as Temirkanov is of his – which is praise indeed.

Using the bi-amped system isn’t just better, it’s captivating: The improvement might be expressible in sonic terms, but its importance is firmly in the realms of expression and communication. This is all about capturing the performance and bringing it, live, breathing and emoting to your room. I can talk about control and dynamic range, micro dynamic discrimination and harmonic development, the tail of notes and the gaps between them, the timing of the orchestral parts or their weight and tonality – and it would all be clearly audible in the sound. But this isn’t about sound. It is about a stunning performance, captured and reproduced, on cue. It’s about the very essence, the fundamental purpose of hi-end audio – and it’s being produced by a system that’s barely beyond mid-fi, at least in terms of price.

What works for solo violin clearly also works for the orchestra – as well as anything else you care to throw at the HQAs. Víkingur Ólafsson’s Goldbergs (DGG UCCG 45082) are lucid, sure-footed, and beautifully weighted, with explicit spacing between notes and pace through the phrases. Curzon’s seminal recording of the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27 K.595 (Esoteric ESSD 90014) is fluid, delicate, graceful and precise, the agility in his playing bringing beauty and shape to what is so often an almost florid solo part. The earthy smooch that underpins ‘Autumn Leaves’ (Cannonball Adderley, Something Else – Blue Note 0777 7 46338 26) offers an enticingly seductive groove, Miles’ trumpet drawing sharp lines above it while Cannonball’s sax gets down and positively dirty. The undulating, interwoven arrangement on ‘September Song’ (Art Pepper, Straight Life – Galaxy CA802 98.175) is suitable articulate and motive, the perfect foil for Pepper’s inspired solo. Voices too – to many to list. This is a do it all system that doesn’t dominate the room or decimate your bank balance – and the cheapest single element? The amplifiers…

After you Claude…

A large part of what makes the HQA so musically engaging and allows it to play and partner way above its price point, is its ability to put the music first. While getting out of the path of musical proceedings should be the goal of every unit in the chain, it’s an area in which this amplifier excels. The extra immediacy and transparency, resolution and speed/control that it exhibits compared to the already impressive TMA allow it to step behind the signal rather than standing in its way. Just as the RW4 crossover and bi-amping have reduced the grubbily audible fingerprints left on the recording by the passive network, the carefully optimised elements in the amplifier allow it to do its job without fuss or fanfare. You don’t suffer the blurring of multiple, poorly matched output devices, the non-linearities that come with poor mechanical and power supply design, the timing errors introduced by overly complex circuits and sluggish reservoir caps. This amp can’t go as deep as the best, big amps. It doesn’t have the resolution, dynamic or harmonic discrimination of an amp like the CH Precision M1.1, the scale, substance and rich tonal colours of the VTL S-400. But it does better than most in most respects and (perhaps more importantly) has no intrusive failings. Doubled up, the HQA has a place for everything and everything stays firmly in its place. It’s a musical tour de force – and pretty darned impressive hi-fi, by the by.

But it’s also more than that.

The Neodio HQA succeeds on a number of levels. By careful, inclusive engineering and doing the simple things well, it offers remarkably coherent musical performance at what is in today’s marketplace, an absolutely bargain price. It then extends its performance envelope by offering a low enough price and sufficient input options to actively encourage bi- or even tri-amping. Along the way it demonstrates the oft-forgotten fact that it’s a lot easier to build a decent power amp than it is to build an un-intrusive pre-amp: forgotten that is, by all those who think the answer to simplifying systems is to stick a volume pot on the front end of an amplifier (and call it Integrated) or on the back-end of a DAC (and call it a System Controller). The TMA is way better than most in this particular regard, but the HQA is in a different musical league.

Finally – and perhaps most significantly of all, The HQA makes an irrefutable case for the cost-effectiveness of bi-amping. By easing the load on each driving amplifier, each amplifier can concentrate more on quality than quantity, meet limited rather than universal operational goals. As a way of reducing the overall cost of high-end performance, there are few things that come close. Products like the big CH amps offer both active and passive bi-amp inputs as standard, further cutting the ancillary cost by reducing the cable requirement, but let’s not ignore the fact that the facility has also been extended to the company’s ‘budget’ Wattson line, in the shape of the recently announced Madison Amp, a product that is in many ways, a direct challenger to the Neodio HQA (although how it stacks up on musical grounds remains to be seen). Yes, the HQA could take a step further and add a switchable bi-amp input option (so that one input gets routed to both outputs) but that does rather fly in the face of its ultra minimalist stance.

As a simple stereo amplifier – perhaps the ‘simplest’ stereo amplifier – the HQA offers remarkable musical performance at its affordable price. The fact that that price makes adding a second amplifier much more than a distant possibility opens up real system building options. Just as the TMA lives up to its minimalist moniker, the High Quality element in the HQA name is no idle boast. Removing the switching and volume capabilities has revealed just what an astonishingly capable and quietly confident amplifier this is. Whether you use one or two HQAs, it’ll deliver more music than anything else I can think of (or recommend) at the price. Neodio’s talent for lateral thinking delivers again! When it comes to high-value, highly musical products, there are few companies that can match their track record. As good as the Origine CD player was, the HQA might just be their most significant product yet.

Price and availability

Neodio HQA stereo amplifier – 4,600 (inc. 20% sales tax)

Manufacturer:

SEVEN AUDIO

Bordeaux, France

1. +33 556 40 19 50
2. seven@neodio.eu
3. www.neodio.fr