Modwright Instruments KWH 225i integrated amplifier

Listening commenced with the KWH 225i hooked up to an iFi Pro iDSD DAC, using the tube output stage setting, and a pair of PMC twenty5.26i floorstanding loudspeakers, a pairing that proved to be highly engaging and entertaining. Wright says that “Sonically, I like black backgrounds, low noise and clean detailed sound, balanced with the right amount of tube body and weight.” And that is what I heard; this amplifier has excellent transparency to detail allied to bass that is fuller and juicier than found on an all transistor amplifier. Wright has clearly managed to combine these two technologies rather well because it was all I could do to press pause and drag my sorry arse off the listening seat and over to the keyboard.

Initially I put on Skylab’s #1 [Astralwerks] just to warm up the system in the background, but the quality of burbling was just too interesting to ignore and I was soon bathing in some seriously subterranean rumblings that were as much physical as aural. What’s more, the melodic bits over the top remained open and inviting at the same time; this album has deeper bass on it than most but usually this aspect becomes tiring after a while. Here, the Modwright provided the low end in context so that the music came first and the sound second. Something that valves seem to be rather good at more often than not. With Keith Jarrett on the stage [‘Part VII, London’, Paris/London – Testament, ECM] his stomping was low enough to feel yet not overpowering nor injurious to the brilliance of the playing. What’s clear is the solidity and power of the piano, it has a greater physical presence in the Modwrights hands than usual but this only enhanced the performance by putting the player and instrument in the room.

The KWH 225i positively encourages music with decent low end, and I don’t need much encouragement in the first place, so Bob Marley’s ‘Natural Mystic’ soon found itself in the play queue. Here what strikes one initially is the reverb on the voice, which is not usually a clear characteristic, but this amp is particularly transparent and reveals such details with ease. That said, the bass guitar does sound particularly good in a chocolatey way; it’s open strings seemingly looser and more relaxed than usual. Realising that I was being pulled down a river of bass I switched to an orchestral piece where other qualities might be revealed. Maxim Emelyanychev’s take on Schubert’s ‘The Great’ [Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, Linn] is a large scale work with plenty of scale and dynamics that the Modwright revelled in. The emphasis image-wise was more on depth than width/height but the sense of musical flow was very powerful and made me want to listen for longer. Another classical piece with solo violin revealed the tonal qualities of the amp, bringing out the character of the instrument and player, the slight extra warmth of the balance countering any tendency to stridency in the higher notes.

Going back to more contemporary instrumentation of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Gravity’s Angel’ [Mister Heartbreak, Warner Bros] underpinned the sense that you can hear an awful lot through this Modwright; it zooms in on the quiet stuff somehow and shows you just what’s going on. At the same time there’s power and weight in the bass line, and it’s a great bass line, and there are some weird phasey effects with sounds shooting around the stage, the combination making for a very solid sonic picture for the listener to watch and wonder at. As Dan is a vinyl fan I put on a couple of records via a Tom Evans Groove SRX phono stage and this proved to be a very worthwhile exercise. The new Abbey Lincoln re-master from Craft Recordings (Abbey is Blue) sounding superb with very clear acoustic from the venue and excellent image definition, the beautiful tone of the original tube electronics bringing out the soul of this fine singer.