Dazzle

Dazzle. It's a most confident even flamboyant possibly arrogant name for an integrated amplifier which doesn't make a cappuccino or streams wirelessly. As it happens, this purely analogue 300/560wpc into 8/4Ω class AB power house from the pen of Kinki Studio's Ivan Liu in collaboration with Vinshine Audio's Alvin Chee wears it rightfully. Its vault-like build, fastidious execution, twin 800VA power transformers, Goldmund-esque mechanical grounding, DC-coupled high-speed circuitry, built-in switchable AC filter, preamp bypass for power-amp mode with 23dB voltage gain all spell flagship effort well beyond its Sino origins. It also competes directly with the stablemate EX-B7 monos and shows them that interim experience gained can package more advanced sonics in less cubic volume, add 5-input preamp features – and shekels. It doesn't just weigh 33kg but ~€7.5K depending on the day's exchange rate with the Singapore dollar used by Vinshine's webstore as global currency. This isn't Ayoshida/Amazon-traded ChiFi as an impulse purchase. This is a legitimately serious high-performance proposition which for all the well-known reasons would cost at least twice if not thrice were it made in Europe or the US and sold on the High Street. That puts it out of bounds for sufferers of selective yellow fever. They only shop Chinese at the very entry or appliances level because all their high-flung reasons not to shop Sino suddenly (cough) stop to matter when stuff gets cheap enough. For them there's Topping & Sons; Stopping for short¹.

Dazzle doesn't stop there. In fact, it doesn't even begin there. It looks at another audience altogether: worshippers of Chinese SuperFi.

Could you be such a one even if this was the very first you ever heard of the category? Follow the embedded review link to find out whether you might be a latent candidate…
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¹ For my desktop I bought Topping's B200 monos which suit their purpose perfectly. I'm far from dissing the brand. But there are layers and levels. That of the Dazzle is simply in another league altogether.