A12 review by What HiFI
French firm Advance Paris offers its own high-end power amps and preamps, but today I’m looking at its A12 Classic integrated, which it describes as an audiophile model. And – spoiler alert – it lacks nothing when it comes to performance, nor indeed flexibility.
In short, the Advance Paris A12 Classic is a proper high-powered, analogue stereo amplifier, offering all the features of classic amps from old, but updated with modern digital audio too.
Within its substantial dimensions – the usual 43cm width but 19.5cm height and 44.5cm depth, making for an impressive mass just shy of 18kg – is an analogue preamplifier, a Class A/B power amplifier, and a DAC.
The preamp section is fitted with a phono preamp, and not just the usual cheap moving-magnet module either. Next to its RCA inputs are two switches for setting gain and capacitance. There are three gain levels: one for moving-magnet cartridges, one for standard low-output moving-coil cartridges, and one for high-output moving-coil cartridges (which are generally, despite the name, lower in output than moving magnet ones). Three capacitance settings are also available.