Ypsilon's First Integrated Amp

by The Audio Beat | June 25, 2014

he Phaethon ($24,800) is Greek manufacturer Ypsilon's first integrated amplifier, and it incorporates a few of the company's core technologies, including hybrid circuitry and a "bridged single-ended" output stage biased in class A. This comes as no surprise, as the Phaethon is said to combine "many of the technical solutions developed in our Aelius monoblock amplifier and PST100 Mk2 preamplifier."

The Phaethon has only three active gain stages, two of which use low-noise tubes. Attenuation is handled via a transformer in "a novel post-attenuation technique," according to the company. The output stage is said to offer "the flavor of pure single-ended designs with the power of push-pull designs." There are separate power supplies for the tube and output stages, and these use five power-supply inductors for low noise filtering. Parts are of the highest quality, including Ypsilon's own in-house-designed and -manufactured transformers and proprietary pure-silver wire.