Dan D’Agostino Pendulum integrated amplifier
Owning a new amplifier designed by the legendary Dan D’Agostino just got more affordable – meet the remarkable new Pendulum integrated amplifier, now shipping to the UK. Of all the high-end amplifier designers during the last half-century of hi-fi, Dan D’Agostino is perhaps the most influential and admired. He spent 29 years as the CEO of Krell after forming the company in 1980, subsequently founding Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems (DDMAS) in 2011.
From the beginning, Dan’s designs were famed for realising the benefits of high-power, high-current solid-state amplification – dynamic headroom, bass response, grip and control – uniquely combined with a clean, pure, transparent sound enabled by their Class A bias.
Dan’s current creations under the Dan D’Agostino banner are instantly recognisable visually as well as sonically, with their use of copper for heatsinks (copper’s thermal conductivity is 91% greater than aluminium) and analogue meters inspired by Swiss watch faces. Every Dan D’Agostino amplifier is lovingly made in the DDMAS facility in Cave Creek, Arizona, USA.
The DDMAS range consists of three main series: Progression, Momentum and Relentless. The cost of owning the Progression Integrated Amplifier starts at £25,000 and prices head north from there.
Summary
New for 2025 is a more accessibly priced integrated amplifier that sits outside DDMAS’s three mainseries. Offering versatile features and a compact, streamlined aesthetic, the Pendulum Integrated Amplifier is designed to take D’Agostino’s revered technologies and design principles to a broader high-end audience.
Clever design choices enable a lower price point without compromising D’Agostino’s core values, inside and out. A central, circular LCD display incorporates a digital representation of the gorgeous analogue meters that adorn other D’Agostino amplifiers, inset into the amp’s sleek and sturdy aluminium casework with signature copper trim. The LCD display is mirrored by the remote control (pictured below) – surely the most instantly desirable remote ever created for an amplifier.
The Pendulum’s power supply circuitry is of the same industry-leading standard expected of a D’Agostino amplifier. Its output is rated at 120W per channel into 8 ohms, doubling to 240W per channel into 4 ohms. Sonically, the Pendulum is every bit a D’Agostino – full-scale, wide-bandwidth power and poise, maintaining an unerring grip on the music whilst delivering its emotional impact in full effect.
The Pendulum’s base model supplies four line-level analogue inputs (three balanced stereo XLR, plus one stereo RCA). Vinyl lovers can add a factory-fitted phono stage, providing an input for moving coil (MC) phono cartridges, while an optional digital module incorporates a hi-res streaming DAC with HDMI, optical, Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Price and availability
The Dan D’Agostino Pendulum Integrated Amplifier was first revealed in prototype form at the High End audio show in Munich in May 2024. Since then, the design has been tweaked and perfected, and the first full-production units are now shipping worldwide from the DDMAS facility in Arizona, USA. The UK RRP for the base model is £18,000 inc. VAT. The optional digital module and phono stage add £2,850 and £1,150 respectively.