The Orpheus requires a minimum operating time to fully express itself and reveal all its qualities. After about half an hour, it captivates with a skillful blend of musical integrity and sonic distinction, unveiling an extremely rich yet velvety smooth palette of colors.  The A Four I200 will not impose any coloration on the signal it receives but will instead liberate all its flavor, including the subtlest nuances.

It seeks truth, contrary to the typified sonorities found in some tube models, which are often excessively warm and seductive but far from reality. This authenticity is truly captivating, as the Orpheus explores a heightened realism in timbre delineation, with an ideally balanced tonal equilibrium, neither too dark nor too bright: sheer transparency.

Dynamic nuances express themselves freely on this integrated amplifier, which is very powerful but does not openly flaunt its muscles. The dynamic progression is masterfully expressed in the bass, as on Didier Malherbe’s album Zeff, impressive here for its energy and the quality of the sound textures, admirably highlighted by the recording.

The expressive power and mastery of the dynamic range never depart from a certain distinction, without unnecessary brilliance but rather satiny, well supported by the qualities of the enormous dual-mono power supply, which offers total control and allows the amplification to deliver up to 850W on instantaneous peaks: impressive for an integrated amplifier.

After more than an hour of operation, the soundstage truly opens up, revealing a landscape of great depth, majestic, rendered with suppleness and relaxation, never giving the impression of approaching the limit, which indicates extremely low distortion. One perceives qualities already noticed in the impressive monoblocks H Three M800 of the higher Heritage Opus II range, albeit to a lesser degree, but showing rare talent for an integrated amplifier at this price point.

Eschewing flashiness and the superfluous, the A Four I200 may seem somewhat ascetic to some, but this is to better highlight the rigor of its design and its first-rate technical and musical qualities, faithful to a certain Swiss spirit.

It will be the heart of an open system thanks to its 3 RCA and XLR line inputs and its generous power, suitable even for a demanding yet remarkable speaker like the TAD CE1. At €17,300, it will be difficult to find such technical assets, so well-built and endowed with so many musical qualities, made in Switzerland.

Bruno Castelluzzo, Haute Fidelite, February/March 2025

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