The 4cm thick plinth recalls Goldmund's mechanical grounding scheme to act as a massive resonance drain for the circuity floating above it on "directional resonance-conducting spikes". Dazzle's chassis structure thus revisits a concept first explored in the extremist separates of 790 preamplifier + 791 monos below. No wonder it's such a heavyweight. It goes for a deliberately low centre of gravity as resonance sink.

The 'pre-in' RCA on the back which I marked red support pure power-amp mode in fixed gain so volume/preamp bypass. The XLR inputs are convenience items and convert to single-ended internally.

I found learning that Dazzle is a direct descendant of the three-chassis 79 separates in one box very exciting.

To refresh our memory, Kinki's current catalogue contains a ¾th-width headphone amp, a full-width integrated, DAC, preamp, stereo amp and roughly half-width mono amps all in matching livery. Dazzle doesn't reinvent these stripes, just carves them a little deeper and alters the heatsink detailing of the cheeks. The mechanical extravagance of suspended circuit-board mounting remains nicely concealed though anyone paying attention would notice the unusually thick base plate.

To gild this lily further, Alvin's collab with Ivan Liu's factory has bolted on certain enhancements. Those include six ShoonTH fuses cryo-treated for 120 hours; Exact Express Flame hook-up wiring for flying AC, DC, signal and speaker leads; ShoonTH pure-copper output terminals and a matching cryo-treated IEC power inlet. Such refinements would usually source from Furutech or Oyaide of Japan. Here they source from a Kinki tech partner inside China. Input impedance is 50/100kΩ on RCA/XLR, S/NR @ 1kHz better than 115dB, THD+N 0.0054%, damping factor 420. Standby power consumption is a Brussels-approved 0.8W, max draw 1'600 watts.

The binding posts of the standard Kinki Studio version.

We can get dazzling in either silver or anthracite grey.

All three VinshineX collaborative models on the wall posters, with Kinki's own collaborative cable brand with ShoonTH called Exact Express on the far left.