That setup would likely have vanishingly low noise, so-good-as-nonexistent distortion…and quite low fidelity to the source material. Unless one’s listening room is the size of the Musikverein, in room the upper bass and lower mids will be lower fidelity compared to a modern signal chain, i.e. one with bass management and room correction and a thoughtful target curve, or well executed manual modal region EQ. See, e.g. Amir’s
KEF R3 review and thread. (Executive summary: he disliked them at first listen despite the superb NFS measurements. Later, he realized the problem was an upper bass room mode and not the loudspeaker.)
Put another way, in a blind preference test between a well calibrated
NAD T758 or MartinLogan Forte (which is a
Paradigm PW-AMP with better streaming support) and a “purist” magic SINAD signal chain with this amp, one should expect to lose money betting against the SINAD-fail AVR with Dirac Live or budget baby integrated with the latest Anthem Room Correction.
That also goes to the point that, however one ranks a super quiet low power low distortion
power amp, as an
integrated amp one can’t sensibly consider this one better than headless failure, because it lacks bass management or at least a preout/main-in loop to allow for real signal processing. I hope soon Topping and other such newer audio companies backed by serious engineering chops start actually taking fidelity seriously by thinking about how to incorporate modern features and the required UI, rather than just chasing numbers.