Alluxity The PRE ONE and Power ONE amplifier review part 1

I’ve heard Alluxity The PRE ONE and Power ONE amplifier combination at quite few high-end audio show, but never really had a chance to experience it in full impact. When the opportunity arisen for the review of both as the package I’ve happily oblige and the packaged headed quickly towards the Mono and Stereo.
For all of you that don’t know, Alluxity is a brainchild of Alexander Vitus Mogensen, son of renowned Hans-Ole Vitus from Vitus Audio. In the era where everything in high-end audio seems to be wanting to pump up to the extreme proportions Alexander took the opposite, bold move and envision more of the 21st century high-end audio lifestyle products, that are compact, with pleasing modern minimalistic aesthetics and packed with practical functionality. 
Everything with Alluxity is done in discrete way, without global feedback and no parallel output transistors. Alexander wanted to simplify both design and functionality wise. 
The chassis were designed in a seamless way to be both neutral and easy to manufacture. The unibody shape is not only of contemporary design cues, but also highly practical. All the main boards installed are actually designed as modules. This helps with easy replacement for servicing and future upgrading.  SMD components are used for a shorter signal paths and to increase quality control. 

THE MAN, THE PATH, THE MACHINES

A seed was planted in Alexander Vitus when he started to work for his father in Vitus Audio at the age of 13. Alexander mainly focused on soldering by hand at the time, doing the time consuming things, but slowly learning and adapting to what it would say to build High-end audio equipment. This was the daily life of Alexander for around 5 years, learning about production, 3D modeling, designing, getting better and learning more.

When Alexander started his last year in school he could quickly see that the school would take up most of his daily hours and wouldn’t be able to spent his at the office at the open hours. He agreed with his father to take work home and operating with minimum amount of hours every week. This was usually focused onto SMD soldering, and even though the components used wasn’t the smallest available, solder by hand would take a long time. 
After a long dialog with his father, spanning over a few weeks, they both decided that to be of efficiency and for Alexander to evolve and learn even more, he should found and start his own company – invest in the SMT machines.
Alexander got hold of some old used machines, an Autotronik BS383 with a Martin dispensing unit, a 4 zone reflow oven and a DEK screen printer. Not the most advanced machines, but they offered a good start.
During the next 3 years Alexander got used to how to run his own company, manage the production and plan for the future. And he did set out the future plans in more then modest way… 
Designing the Alluxity products was a time consuming project. Alexander didn’t know exactly where to begin, but he had a few ideas. He knew he wanted to go with a much different approach in design than his father. More lifestyle oriented products were envisioned, with more refined selection of mechanical parts,  everything being module based with different type of controls than the average buttons.
Putting all these ideas together resulted in the products that Alluxity is offering today; the Pre One, Power One, Int One and Media One. They’re all unibody based products with a powder coat painting, module based design and a touch display on every unit. All can be controlled via local network on the Media One. 

FUNCTIONAL 

It shows from the first hands on dealings, that everything unneeded was stripped off the Alluxity Pre ONE and Power One. With the multiplexing contemporary mindset most audiophiles and music lovers really just strive for something functional and instantly functional. Without fuss, just simple and straightforward hands on operation. And both Alluxity preamplifier and power amplifier delivers this instantly. Called it Apple like, derived functionality…

All the Alluxity products implements 5”, 800 x 480 pixels resistive touch display. This is not as fast as we’re used with iPads and mobile phones. You’ll have to put a bit more pressure to get fully tactile via use tip of your finger or fingernail.
I can see people instantly scorching their head and asking themselves about the the need of touch commands on high-end audio gear. You won’t believe it how quickly one adopts to such operations and how seamless it feels after few hours of use. With the much more affordable touch screen modules being easy obtainable I’m really wondering why more of the high-end companies are not taking the similar path…
Both Alluxity Pre and Power One shares the same power save mode. It doesn’t turn off device, but simply puts them into the operating mode where much less power is being used and it’s either warming up the amplifiers or keep them warm and ready for the instant use. 

THE PRE ONE

Alluxity Pre One comes as fully functional, fully balanced, module based high-end audio preamplifier with a relay based volume control. Under the hood, two large toroidal transformers serves power for the left and right channel. The Pre One is a zero global feedback design, assembled with the logic of the building blocks, making future upgrades or replacements both affordable and easy to do. 

Relay based volume is adjustable from -69db to +6db in intervals automatically fine tuned when increments goes up to the loudest setting.
Beautiful chassis is milled out of one piece of aluminum and  covered with the fine layer of powder coat paint (black or silver).
Front panel is as minimalist as it gets due to the touch display based interface, but the back side reveals much more physical inputs. You can connect your sources via one of the five inputs. There are three Balanced (XLR) and 2 Unbalanced (RCA) inputs,  two outputs – 1 Balanced (XLR) and 1 Unbalanced (RCA), power IEC connector and ethernet connector that links all Alluxity devices.  
The Main preamplifier Interface offer wide array of functions: 
• Volume Up
• Mute / Unmute
• Volume Down
• Setup
• Power save mode
• Volume
• Different inputs from RCA 1-2 to XLR 1-3 (RCA 1-3 and XLR 1-2 on Int One)

THE POWER ONE

Alluxity Power One follows the same technology as the Pre One, implementing fully discrete balanced modules for the power amplifier. Power one uses no global feedback and sports the same  building blocks DNA, letting easy upgrades or exchanges. As with other Alluxity gear, chassis is milled out solid aluminum and coated with black or silver powder coat paint.
Each of the left and right power stage have it’s own separate power supply and 600VA transformer. Alluxity Power One is rated at 200W in 8ohm RMS, nearly doublling into 4ohm and 2ohm.
Front panels follows the the design of the Pre One and on the backside you have either one balanced (XLR) or one unbalanced (RCA) inputs, power IEC connector and left and right speakers terminals. 
​Alluxity Power One front panel touch interface is logically a bit more scarce with commands providing the primal functionality: 
• Change of the inputs
• Brightness level
• Power save mode

SUM UP

In the era where we’re constantly bombarded with Class D revelations/indoctrinations and being educated of its supremacy by so called “higher-minds” sadly including even some of the well renowned reviewers its great to see and hear a product in absence of this “high-tech” 21st century fools gold. 
I prefer AB power amplifiers by far compared to the distortion field of the “grand” D class where mindbogglingly many still cannot decipher the simplest obvious thing… Music is different sounding not only by each genre, but by each song and flat unified sound translates to 2D ant like projection of the music and not linear full scope high-end audio performance. 
So, what not to like? Solid aluminum chassis, touch screen hands on control, plenty of the inputs and warm, involving potent sound, that can emerge and expands with complex tuneful colors…
I love the direction Alexander took with his Alluxity venture. Nagra 7 like simplicity via touch/remote logic of the menu offers instant simplicity of functionality combined musically involving sound taking more then reasonable and highly aesthetic ally pleasant portion of the living space. 
Stay tuned for the part two where I’ll focus on the music/sound performance and conclude the review
Text: Matej Isak

PRICE

Pre One: €6750
Power One: €9250

TECHNICAL

Pre One:
Inputs : Total of 5 – 2x Unbalanced RCA and 3x Balanced XLR
Outputs: Total of 3 –1xRCA,1 x XLR and a Bypass out (RCA)
Dimensions: 43.5 x 10.5 x 31.5 cm / 7.1 x 4.1 x 12.4 inch
Weight : 14,0 Kg / 37,5 Pounds
Power One
Inputs: 2 –1xRCAand1xXLR
Dimensions: 43.5 x 10.5 x 48 cm / 7.1 x 4.1 x 18.9 inch
Weight: 31.0 Kg / 83.0 Pounds

CONTACT

AVM-TEC
Dueoddevej 6C
7400 Herning 
Tlf.: +45 27636306
E-mail: avm@avm-tec.dk