LEAK: The world of their Stereo 20 valve amplifier

Haden Boardman (HiFi World) writes .....

Leak's power amps may be great at their best but the same can't be said of the matching pre-amplifiers, the Point One and the Varislope. They might suffice as a stop-gap to partner CD players, but they are members of that select breed of British pre-amps that have an output signal substantially smaller than the line-level input. To top that, the phono stage is poor and the controls are noisy. The best thing you could say about the earlier versions is that they look nice.

But the main thing is the great sound of the Stereo 20. The quality of its output transformers was impressive, and due to this the performance  considering its price in standard form is excellent. Pay about £200 for an un-modded Stereo 20, less for a non-mint example and up to about £350 for a fully rebuilt and modified version.

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