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During my time with the Emitter I, several traits stood out: terrific see-through transparency; an incredibly low noise floor that allowed for remarkable resolution of low-level detail; and a lovely sense of dynamic ease and outstanding spatial resolution.


With the Emitter’s excellent transparency, it was difficult to pin down a sonic character. There was no sign of any solid-state grain, hardness, edge, haze or any sense of artifice - nor was it fat, bloated, slow or euphonic. I didn’t find the Emitter at all warm or soft but it didn’t sound cool or clinical either. Nothing came across as underlined or etched. It managed to walk that fine line between the best of solid-state and tubes without leaning into either camp. Balanced, neutral and accurate to the source were words that also frequently came to mind. The Emitter I was the Switzerland of amplifiers.



The Emitter offered a stunningly low noise floor where all manners of nuances and dynamic inflections were easily apparent. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting my Audiomat Opéra Référence’s superior noise floor to be bettered but the Emitter did just that.




The Emitter was resolved, quick on the attacks and peered deeper into the far recesses of the soundscape where all the cool little stuff happens - intakes of breath, chairs shifting, score sheets rustling and the like. The ASR amp offered excellent insight into the intriguing subtleties and dynamic nuances of an excellent disc of Rossini bon-bons [Channel Classics 27708] which I picked up recently. Ivan Fischer & Co have been on quite a roll of late, with several outstanding recordings of Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov winning accolades. Now comes along this lovely recording in which Rossini’s terrific gift for infectious melody and his playful sense of humor finds a perfect symbiosis with this exciting Hungarian band. The Emitter revealed all this with ease. The unique timbres of violin, oboe, flute, English horn and cello were rendered completely natural and believable in the delicate Serenata per piccolo compresso as was the jaunty String Sonata in G major, which invoked images of a pleasant bike ride in the Tuscan sun. Again, there were no signs of anything artificial or mechanical. Bellissimo!