Bonawatt Triton integrated amplifier
There is often talk of technologies becoming obsolete and even in the world of audio it occasionally happens, but more often than not older tech carries alongside the new. Vinyl was written off as dead in 25 years ago yet appears to have the upper hand on its enemy CD today, tubes are another example, they must have been dead in the water when transistor amps came along in the sixties yet today there are hundreds of components on the market that use them.
Bonawatt is clearly keen on tubes and makes two integrated amps that have the low wattage outputs typical of the breed, yet they are also clearly knowledgeable about more contemporary amplification technology in the form of Class D and beyond. The Triton is one of the most unusual hybrid amplifiers I have ever used, it combines tubes, op-amps and Class D and produces 250 watts into eight ohms, doubling this into half the load. The tubes are used in the preamplifier section alongside 16 op-amps which handle the connection with the power amplifier half of the Triton.
Bonawatt named the amplifier after the mythological god of the sea who was half man, half fish, and given the strange nature of the technologies used in the Triton this does make sense. It’s a proper tube preamplifier too, the 6SL7GT double triodes at the back handle gain while the VR150s are voltage stabilisers and the GZ34 at the front handles rectification. Many tube hybrid designs have solid state devices in all but the gain stage to save on cost but this can compromise ultimate performance.
The Triton has an unusually minimalist control system, just one knob for everything, including power on and off. And it’s not a minimalist amplifier either, the screen above the knob allows a wide range of changes to be made, all you have to do is master the timing of your knob pressing. A short press wakes it from standby but it takes 75 seconds to actually turn on, which might seem like a while but is a quarter of the time it takes to go into standby (5 minutes). Bonawatt say that this is done in order to extend tube life which is fair enough, glass audio components are not getting any cheaper after all.
Control knob functions include changing display brightness (2x 0.2 seconds), muting (02.seconds), accessing sub menus (1.5 seconds) and putting the Triton into standby (5 seconds). This might sound complicated but you don’t need a stopwatch to navigate and I found it quite intuitive after a couple of days. One reason for including submenus is that the Triton, which is a line only amp with three analogue inputs, can be expanded with expansion modules whose set up is accessed through the display.
The remote handset is an RF rather than IR device that mimics the amp itself with a single rotary control that responds to the same timed commands and sets the stepped attenuator clicking when you change volume. I found it more useful for level control than changing parameters largely because you need to be fairly close to the Triton to read the various menu options. One that doesn’t get much mention in the manual is a wireless input mentioned in the DAC menu, this is apparently for a future expansion module of which there are a few variants in the pipeline, these include MM only phono, a less expensive DAC lite and XLR line inputs.
The MBD-1S DAC module was developed in collaboration with Muzg Audio and offers USB, coaxial and optical inputs. It offers a choice of six filter settings for PCM and the manual has a few notes and a graphic illustration of what these do, there are two options for DSD with one attenuating high frequencies and the other allowing wider bandwidth. Further tuning via Sound Modes is also available with four options ranging from reference to flat, the manual providing an idea of the character provided by each.
The MBPH-1P phono stage is an MM/MC module that also offers a range of settings for attached cartridges, these include separate gain for MM and MC, impedance and capacitance options. There is a good range of impedance options from 35 to 470 ohms for moving coils, and two gain settings which seem quite high at 75dB and 81dB – the higher setting worked the best with my 0.35mV output Rega Aphelion 2 cartridge.
Sound quality
When the Bonawatt turned up in its huge wooden crate I was in the process of reviewing a pair of Davone Reference 3 speakers which had made a good impression with their relaxed yet revealing presentation and all-round ability to engage heart and mind, that they also look great is of course a bonus. I was quite surprised when hooking up the streamer to the Bonawatt’s USB input and hearing a much more lively and edge of the seat sound, clearly these speakers reflect what they are fed quite accurately.
I don’t usually use the USB connection from my Lumin streamer, the coax sounds more musically fluent, but at this point I hadn’t figured out how to change inputs on the digital module, and the results were so immediate and exciting that I didn’t feel like doing so. The first track was Salika Molika (Erlend Apneseth Trio and Frode Haltli), an unusual scandiwegian folk song with modern twist that seems to sound its best with more lively systems. It certainly did that here with an ethereal presence that was immediately captivating thanks to the two fiddles, drone and deep drum notes as well as a voice that must have come out of the archives.
This piece fizzed with electric atmosphere, as did It’s Easy to Remember (Keith Jarrett, At the Deer Head Inn), I once again had a hunger for a tube amp but had to remind myself that the Bonawatt is no such a thing. It’s a hybrid Class D with tube preamplification, but clearly those tubes were injecting their magic and making the music sound much more vivid and real than usual. It delivers deep low end action in the bass where the recording warrants it, and encourages higher level playback by being so clean, as a result the dynamics are outstanding. The Class D power amp is where this power comes from but there is none of the hollowness that is typical of the class, this is fast and controlled but also has body and transparency. There is no overhang or blurring of leading/trailing edges and plenty of atmosphere from low level signals.
I suspect that speakers on the clean and smooth end of the spectrum will be the best match because anything forward or bright will have these characteristics emphasised, but as ever amp/speaker matching will be down to taste.
Any speaker that is evenly balanced should work well, the Davones certainly did and brought out the muscularity of Bill Frisell’s live electric guitar on Pipe Down to great effect. It also encouraged me to revel in the sumptuous tone of the Cinematic Orchestra, bringing out the dynamics of the final crescendo on The Awakening of a Woman (Burnout) with authority but no sense of electrical grip. Dynamics does seem to be a strongpoint and when this is combined with the immediacy and transparency on tap it makes for enthralling results.
With PMC prophecy9 speakers the Bonawatt delivers remarkable 3D imaging, scale and body with the right piece of music, the sound totally escaping the speakers and filling the room. With something less expansive like the Rolling Stones’ Moonlight Mile, the tone is absolutely gorgeous, it makes this track sound great even via digital, which for a vinyl junkie is quite an admission. On more recent tunes such as The Weather Station’s The Way It Is the female vocal is remarkably natural and beautiful, making the album very hard to pause.
I listened to the digital input with the ‘short low dist’ filter which is described as “Natural, excellent stereo stability. Best for critical listening”, which pretty well describes the reviewing pursuit. It explains why the DAC sounded quite feisty by contrast with my own converter, however it was also in ‘textured’ sound mode, which is described as warm, organic and rich, thus probably smoothing things out a little. When I got around to experimenting with these settings I found that the ‘short slow’ filter had more appeal thanks to notably better timing, to be honest the timing was pretty good to begin with, but what Bonawatt call a “relaxed and fluid tube feel” was even more engaging. The Triton DAC module is extremely flexible and could probably be tuned to almost any taste, it is certainly far more versatile than most standalone converters.
I tried the line inputs with my Bricasti DAC which sounded more relaxed and revealing, but it’s worth remembering that this converter is more expensive than the Bonawatt itself. It reveals that the onboard DAC is a little on the eager side, and this is what makes it engaging with the right speakers, but also that the amp is capable of greater depth of image than was initially apparent. I also got excellent results with a Microgroove phono stage on the end of the Rega Naia turntable, where the agility and timing qualities of the source were made obvious in this remarkably coherent amplifier. The onboard phono stage is a little less extended in the high frequencies which makes it sound mellower but it times nicely and reveals an awful lot of the signal coming in.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed using the Bonawatt Triton, it has a life and vitality that eludes many solid state designs but offers far more control than any tube amplifier. The way that Bonawatt have tied these two disparate technologies together is really very impressive, and provides a best of both worlds result. The DAC module is extremely successful as well, not only is it hugely tunable to personal tastes but it delivers results that you would have to pay several thousand pounds for in a standalone converter.
I see that Bonawatt have a number of new amplifiers in the pipeline, if they are anywhere near as good as the Triton I will be very keen to give them a try. In the meantime let me know if you can find a better integrated amp with digital inputs for less money, I suspect it won’t be easy to do so.