![]() Unfortunately, the argument for leaving off source select is specious at best – i.e. The Class hand-held provides only volume up/down and mute, the latter particularly useful when the phone rings or one's significant other is calling from another room. Unlike Musical Fidelity at one end of the price scale or Krell at the other, Class did not include source selection on the remote. Oh, and there's the matter of a remote control, too. For a fully balanced system which delivers a perfectly adequate 75W/ch into 8 ohms and which will handle five sources plus tape and not embarrass the owner when snobs are about, £2719 is far from extortionate. This in itself is enough to elicit sharp intakes of breath among those who would rather you sent all your money including your mortgage payment to Bosnia, but that's not the point. The Thirty sells for £1320 and the Seventy sells for £1399. We are talking about Politically Correct hi-fi, classified as such because it blurs class boundaries. We are talking about just-above-entry-level pricing, the rarely-addressed niche inbetween the £999 power amps and the loony tunes gear which antagonises Labour supporters. That means the inclusion of true balanced operation (Class even includes a balanced input on the pre-amp), designer ingredients, exactly enough facilities to allow for the use of all the major sources including phono, clean styling, good build quality and a look that will not embarrass the kind of owners who actually gives a toss about the Joneses. The recipe is simple: Offer to the audiophile solid, no-nonsense products at the right price while leaving out nothing important. With the Thirty pre-amp and the Seventy power amp, Classé has entered a field populated by the few, the easiest for me to recall being Aragon and Musical Fidelity (with its F-Series tube/tranny hybrids). Read more audiophile stereo preamp reviews from the likes of Classé, Krell, Audio Research, Mark Levinson and many others.And Classe has performed a juggling act with its entry-level gear which takes care of both the tweaks and the button freaks.but with one tiny little proviso. As mass market sensibilities spread like psoriasis and as CD makes us lazier and lazier, heaping its fertiliser on the couch potatoes, so do the specialist brands have to temper their purism. But remote control? What is going on in the high end? As recently as seven or eight years ago, the mere mention of remote control would have had the Flat Earthers and the Linnies and all of the other jerk-off masochists screaming 'Compromise!', a pack of low-forehead, knuckle-dragging villagers brandishing staves and pitchforks and flaming torches as they assaulted Castle Frankenstein. Minimalism, audiophile credibility, low prices – these I understand. ![]()
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