Goodbye Rega Brio-R, hullo Sonneteer Campion

Well, I got an early delivery this afternoon from good old Canada Post – which has taken to weekend deliveries no less – in the form of my Sonneteer Campion.
This amp will be replacing my Rega Brio-R.
Out of the box, and brought up to room temperature after sitting out for an hour, I plugged it in and got it connected... and well, uh, did it ever sound good.
I left it turned on and went for a bike ride for a couple hours, picking up my Mobile Fidelity Carole King – Music, numbered limited edition 180g LP which also just came at my local RS (it's been a good day!), came back and have been spinning a few favourites Miles Davis – Milestones, mono 180g (Sony's Mark Wilder remaster), Andrew Hill – Judgement, 180g 2x45rpm (Analogue Productions' Hoffman & Gray) to start, and I have to say, the sound is really a taste of the hifi.
I'm not a reviewer, so I'm going to try to describe it like this:

organic
fatigue-free
effortless
smooth and grain-free
transparent
authoritative lower-mids and bass

Build quality is phenomenal, it's like a sleek tank, with chunky, uber-mechanical knobs for power and input selection and the volume control (manual, no remote) is so thick and smooth... like it's damped with mercury. The RCA connecters are all gold plated and the speaker posts all gold with huge, clear plastic insulators.
This, to my ears, is one hell of an amp, and at 44w into 6 ohms, has no trouble driving my Harbeth P3ESRs (83.5 dB). I'm going to do some back-to-back comparisons with the Brio-R this week before I sell it, so I'll write more another time.

Website HERE.

 

So where is the Brio-R going?

 

Congratulations. It's a beauty.

 

Great photograph. Seriously great photograph. Are you a pro?

 

A lucky home. It's a great amp, which many on these forums can attest to as well.

 

Thanks man, appreciated! It is a gorgeous amp, I love the clean lines.

 

Many thanks, very kind words, I'm glad you like it.
I'm a newspaper photographer from way back, but these days I'm an editor for video and multimedia at my paper.

 

Congrats. Enjoy.

 

Can we blame ArtK for this?

 

They misspelled "Champion" Looks fab, hope it continues to improve.

 

Yes we can. Happily!

 

Nice amp. I had shortlisted a couple of Sonneteer amps a few years back when I was looking round for replacements. In the end, the fact they were straight integrated sans any digital connectivity worked against them. Lovely understated design though. Nice call!

 

So are you using the 4 or 8 ohm taps. Also, did you learn anything about this esoteric design during secret purchasing initiation? Is this an A/B amp? Pure SS or Hybrid?

 

You'll love the MFSL LP of Carole King's "Music".

Some of that distortion you hear in Carole's vocals is on the master tape. I asked.

 

Thanks very much!
Funny, one of the main reasons I was so interested in the Campion was the fact that it was basically a two-channel amp with a phono stage and didn't have any digital connections

 

There are only standard speaker taps (four of them) at the rear, which I assume are 8 ohm, as for the guts, this is from their website:
The Sonneteer Campion is a solid state line integrated amplifier with a class A/B output stage in mode using Bipolar Junction Transistors.
Hope that helps.
This amp runs pretty hot, I had the volume at about the 2 o'clock position for a while (I find that the MoFi Carole King LP needs some oomph), and she was cooking
Remember, this amp runs the full volume pot, with max output at about the 5 o'clock position.
Explanation here: http://sonneteer.co.uk/home/magazine/2012/05/23/speaking-volumes/

 

That's great that you picked one up that was probably already burned in, so it sounds great straight out of the box. Nice looking amp!

 

Very nice. Hope you enjoy the new amp.

 

Thanks Timind! I'm really loving this amp... the soundstage is huge, instrument separation and 3d-holography is amazing. I've caught myself laughing and whistling out loud a few times tonight alone.
The Brio-R threw a decent soundstage, it never failed to impress that so much sound could come out of such an affordable amp, but nothing even close to what the Sonneteer Campion is doing ($1,800 CAN if you find one, Haider of Sonneteer told me via email a couple weeks ago that they were no longer making the Campion – even bespoke – unless they had a single large order to fulfill).
It reminds me of the nice, fat 3d-soundstage (especially vertically and in depth) of a Nait 5i-2, actually, closer to the Nait XS.
If you've heard the Nait's on a good recording, especially the XS, you know what I'm talking about – the sound elicits that quick intake of breath when the first few notes float out into the room.
And at more than $3,000 CAN for an XS-2, well... you get my point.
I have to say as well, that I take back what I said regarding the heat the amp throws off, while hot-ish to the touch, it's really not that much warmer than my Brio-R. In fact, like the Brio-R, it seems to run cooler when being used than just sitting there doing nothing.
OK, back to the 2012 Laya and Miles Davis – Four and More...

 

I've noted the same thing with my 30 watt Cairn 4808 Class A amp. The Cairn is biased class A for the first ten watts and then switches to A/B. If I leave the amp on with no music it gets extremely hot as it is running class A. When I play music it cools down somewhat but still runs warm.

 

Awesome! The Campion is a special amp...I dearly love mine. Congrats, Rafe!

 

Thanks so much Art. I'm in full agreement.
After spending another evening with the amp yesterday and having a chance to play several more LPs through it, I can definitely say the Campion phono stage is something special indeed. Listening to Joni Mitchell – Blue (2011 Chris Bellman/Grundman remaster), her voice has never sounded more natural, real and so incredibly clear and grain-free to these ears – or more right in the room before – the resolution this amp is capable of delivering to the Harbeths had me floored last night. And I can just keep turning up the volume (2 and 3 o'clock position) and there is no strain whatsoever. I've never experienced this level of quality in my home before.

 

With my Spendors I don't even get the amp to 11 o'clock very often because they are so efficient..and you are right the amp just keeps delivering a beautiful and organic sound regardless of volume. The Campion continues to improve for the first couple of days of warmup and then levels off. The phono preamp is also very special. Makes the Brio-R seem like a toy by comparison...and don't get me wrong I really like the Brio-R. We kept ours and my wife runs it with my old Dynaudio X12's.

 

Any reviews or measurements for this amp? As a solid fan of the little British solid-state amp that could, paint me intrigued.

 

http://sonneteer.co.uk/home/campion/

http://freespace.virgin.net/sonneteer.audio/campion_rev2.html

http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/archive/index.php/t-1819.html