Whilst this kit represents AGD's entry offering, secret concerns over cut corners evaporate once one lays hands on these heavy little bricks of sandblasted AI. Popping hoods confirms serious walls. These are miniature hifi bunkers not bent sheet-metal bunkum. Incoming ultrasonics and WiFi carrier frequencies might want to change course and look for easier prey. Penetrating these safes to expose their circuitry to RF and UHF seems rather hard work. If not, pride of ownership still pulls hard. These goods look and feel the money. Only the included plastic version of Apple's classic remote wand seems a bit declassé.

Use mouse-over for loupe enlarger.

That 400 bridged 4Ω watts would need no more to come about than such tidy innards—power supply included—could freak out old-timers with class A behemoths. If these were shoeboxes, my size 43 loafers wouldn't fit. Enough parts worship. Lids back on. Into the main sound room.

Here Tempo replaced a Crayon CFA-1.2 in full-gain amp mode. The Austrian combines a switching power supply with a current-feedback circuit of high speed. The changeover fell into the same sonic ballpark but still shifted emphasis.

"Soul Driven" from the Miles_Gurtu album condensed this offset within a track. The liner notes explain how the two collaborators worked diligently in the studio to place sundry sounds in most specific locations. Plainly put, it's a well-mastered production. While Tempo leaned less into tone body, it ratcheted up a spooky sense of 3D by tracking the many percussive beats with exceptionally locked acuity. Image localization is down to transient exactitude aka timing. That demands high slew rates to create the necessary immediacy and rhythmic decisiveness. Add uncut upper registers. They light up the stage from above. Banish all shadows. Here Tempo's lit-upness eclipsed the CFA-1.2 hence its leading edges were the still more specific. The compound effect was super-specific stage mapping. I can only call it a most tacit sense of holography. True, it requires good recordings to present to that extent. But that's why racetracks are free from rain grooves, pot holes, gravel, sheep and oil slicks. Maximizing certain qualities relies on curated conditions.

Staying with the album, "Loom" is my other go-to track. Its edgy rhythms, on-a-dime bass pulses and small noise shards build up an intense tapestry of small and big impulses all blitzing about in shifty constellations. Play this at nearfield drum-kit levels and one listen should clean out all mental cobwebs on an overcast winter day.

"Yeah but… didn't this all get a bit too cool and hard?" Compared to my resident, yes it did just a bit. But Dawid's review had already explained how preceding Tempo with its stablemate preamp would fix it. So that's what I did next. Having solutions is so much fun. Not all amps prefer DAC-direct drive despite 16Ω output impedance and purist variable reference voltage on multi-paralleled R2R ladders. Now the question becomes how to inject just the right dose of tonal bloom without engaging the brake even a little. It should still be full speed ahead, just with a slightly softer suspension for some extra harmonic moisturization.