We used the Zero system in a fairly large room and found it able to fill the space with relative ease. A slight forwardness in the upper midband, ensures the music projects into the room with plenty of authority and presence. The AZ-Two loudspeakers make the absolute most of what they're given, sounding lively and assertive, with lots of brilliance and detail. It really is a CD player for those who don't like CD. The CD Zero/II provides a smooth, clean, refined-sounding source that combines dynamic presence with a rich, beguiling silky-liquidity. But, on most music, most of the time, you can play as loudly as you like without obvious power-limitation problems. If you push it past its power limits, the sound tends to compress slightly and maybe gets a wee-bit congested. When partnered with sensitive speakers, like the AZ-Twos, youu'd never suspect the IZero has so little power – it sounds unfeasibly immediate and assertive. And, allthough 'only' eight watts, the sound has remarkable presence, plus surprising weight and drive, with impressively crisp transients. The innate naturalness of the amplifer's ECL82 output tubes helps ensure a gorgeously smooth and richly detailed sound that has excellent clarity and definition. They seem fairly easy to drive, too our guess is they don't represent a nasty difficult load and this helps maximise the IZero's limited output. Fortunately, the speakers offer reasonably high sensitivity (around 93dB) and make the most of the power available. Since the IZero amplifier offers just eight watts per channel, power output could be an issue. While its lack of power makes it expensive on a pound-per-watt basis and limits its usage to efficient speakers only it sounds absolutely gorgeous – the audio equivalent of smooth rich chocolate! The CD player is especially good, giving a rich warm, yet open tonality that is unusually 'analogue' in nature. The CD/II and AZ-Two speakers are both very fine-sounding products that will easily stand comparison with comparably priced (and dearer) equivalents from other manufacturers. So, whether or not it offers good value is intimately related to how highly you rate its sound quality. Given all this, it's unlikely that anyone will choose the Zero system for 'battleship build quality' or stylish appearance. No grilles are supplied, but these can be bought as accessories for about £60. The AZ Two loudspeakers can be obtained in black ash, rosewood, beech, or cherry veneers and again styling is fairly traditional. Both amplifier and CD player exude a distinct retro appearance and will appeal to those who prefer hi-fi with a traditional look. Each item is nicely finished, but the plain somewhat 'boxy' styling means there's not much 'wow' factor. There's nothing flashy about the build quality. Our review samples came in the former and look understated, but smart. The 6111WA tube is soldered in place and Audio Note claims its lifespan should exceed 100,000 hours.Īudio Note offers its Zero electronics with a choice of fascia plates – silver alloy, or black acrylic. The transport is a modified Philips L1210. The CD player features a single 6111WA tube in the analogue output stage, with a Philips TDA 1543 filterless DAC used without up-sampling. The amplifier employs four ECL82 output tubes (two per channel), run in Class A up to about 80 per cent of their power and then switched to Class A/B. There are additional buttons for volume and input selection that, unfortunately, have no effect on the IZero amplifier.īoth amp and CD player feature tubes.

A remote handset is supplied with the CD player and there are buttons for direct track-selection and fast-search, a button to dim or turn off the illuminated display, plus buttons for repeat (one track or the whole disc), random track playback and time – either track elapsed time, remaining time (track or disc) and total elapsed time. The Zero CD/II CD player is only a little less Spartan: you get the usual operational controls, a single set of unbalanced analogue outputs, plus a digital output.

Audio note m zero preamp review