This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

At the beginning the amplifier drove Wilson Audio Sophia Series 3 speakers, then TAD CR1. The first combination was not entirely satisfactory so the latter one became the default because of its unquestionable advantages. I’m perfectly well acquainted with the outstanding sound of the TAD CR1 monitors especially with TAD electronics. So I was able to determine precisely the contribution of the SA Lab White Knight. Fortunately my apprehension was groundless. This contribution turned out to be very substantial and positive. It was obvious that the desirable partner for this amp is exactly this type of extremely honest speakers. I must remark that, having acquainted myself earlier with the TAD CR1 and their flagship Reference One, I’ve defined the sonic signature of those speakers as ‘a laboratory for musical organism research on a molecular level’. The speakers were too business-like, inviting listeners not to appreciate the beauty of music but rather to examine it under a microscope.

Obviously these peculiarities must be the result of the Pioneer subsidiary’s imposing pedigree. The impression created by the system of TAD CR1 and SA Lab White Knight was fundamentally different. The sound retained its utmost strictness but prose gave way to poetry. The reader may ask whether poetry can be strict. It obviously can by being interpreted in a strict fashion. Whilst analysing the sound of any audio system, I always try to determine the corresponding ratio of intellectual and emotional origins (this balance is instrumental to many artistic phenomena). It’s important to discern the ‘mind-oriented’ and ‘heart-oriented’ elements of any hifi interpretation. My opinion is that for the TAD/SA Lab combination the corresponding balance was nearly ideal. It’s been one of the most convincing combinations of mental and emotional origins I’ve ever encountered. In tandem it was capable of offering an incredible bundle to those of us who regard music as an aural encoder of emotions as well as to those who are inclined to listen to the trumpet/piccolo part in the background of the violino principale with a copy of the Brandenburg Concertos score in hand.

The tonal signature and colour balance of the Knight left nothing to be desired. The sound of academic piano recordings was ideally balanced. The natural and smooth transformation of piano timbre from lower to upper octaves translated with truly loving care. The timbre of the grand piano, an instrument in which the main tones (with the exclusion of overtones) embrace the range of 30-4'000Hz is one of the most difficult to reproduce. An experienced listener immediately notices the prevalence of the string (metal) part over the body (wood), the tiniest colorations, the compromises in timbre depth, an exaggerated or languid attack, overstatements or a tendency to bass bloom etc. In these cases not only the sound suffers but the perception of music and its interpretation do also. In all these aspects the White Knight was impeccable.

As to timber richness, the instrument with the widest frequency range is the organ. No other instrument can surpass it. But it’s easier for the audio system to interpret its sound properly because of its non-unified more diverse colour palette. Different organs can sound poles apart which is not the case with the more recent grand piano. Nevertheless the sound of a big organ can reveal dynamic and frequency drawbacks in a playback system especially in the extremes. Clearly feeling the acoustic greatness of Notre Dame-de-Paris and even the vibration of the cathedral’s arches on the last notes of Bach’s Chaccona and Prokofiev’s Toccata [SACD Deutsche Gramophone Midnight at Notre-Dame], I understood that nobody would question the abilities of the White Knight in that respect.


As soon as I started listening, I got the feeling that the amp was very quiet i.e. noiseless. This immediately recalled the claimed 140dB S/N ratio. It was meaningful then that the buzz of a fluorescent lamp and some low-frequency street noise quite unnoticed earlier began to annoy me. It was that very sound the English-speaking reviewers refer to as a completely black background. Usually our hearing doesn’t identify noise as such although our electronics almost invariably serve musical dishes with a touch of a subdued but discernable noise garnish which pollutes the sound ‘optics’ and prevents the system from revealing the original musical colour intonations and flexibility. In this very rare case there was nothing of the sort. It was during the White Knight test that it occurred to me how greatly we tend to underestimate an audio system’s ability to manipulate silence when operatating on the verge of sound and silence.