Constellation Audio Inspiration Integrated 1.0 amplifier

At the rear, connections are much as expected. Balanced or single-ended inputs with an additional pair of balanced outs should you want to employ it as a preamplifier. The standout features, though, are the Argento speaker binding post connections which feel great and are among the best I have found. But they are designed for spade terminals so, if you have 4mm terminations you will need to source some adaptors rather than trying to jam them in place with all the inelegance that engenders. Far easier to change to spades, I would have thought, and well worth it for the quality of that particular and crucial interface.

At a (conservative) 100 watts per channel into 8 ohms, doubling into 4 ohms, the Inspiration Integrated 1.0 is going to have enough power for most people. It was certainly enough for me and the Wilson Audio Duette 2 speakers it was asked to drive. Cabling was Nordost Odin 1 and the source was both CD and streaming through a dCS Vivaldi transport and DAC, and the dCS Network Bridge streamer.

I have always subscribed to the unavoidable conclusion that so much audio equipment sounds rather like it looks. Yes, I know it’s an odd thought and open to all sorts of exceptions but, if the Inspiration Integrated 1.0 looks sharp, clean and ultra-cool then, believe me, that is how it sounds. Upon switch-on, the amp goes through a ritual of warming that takes only a short while before it’s ready to use but my suggestion is to leave it playing for a short while before settling down in front of it. It not only sounds better as time passes, but you are likely to be there for quite a while, so bring refreshments.

What struck me initially was how bright the music sounded. Brightness can often be used as a pejorative term and though I would say that the amplifier is tonally bright, I really mean that it is bright in a musical sense. It is bright, as in alive and dynamically so, too. It reminded me, with a none too subtle prod, that so many high-end systems can be rather conservative in their balance and despite their rather clinical nature, rather dull tonally and even musically. Sit with a quality musician and listen to the sound that he conjures from his instrument and you will hear a world of high frequencies gushing forth. Even a double bass or a cello are bristling with finger noise and high-frequency components. Within those areas are the realities of the instrument and what the microphone hears. The Constellation just lets them all happen. There’s no sense that the amplifier is rolled off or too polite. It sounds wide-open all of the time and it took me by surprise at first, but then I learned to trust it and there’s the rub. It got me thinking of how audio systems lead us toward certain types of music, because they sound good. Consequently, we perhaps subconsciously avoid playing music that we might like but which we know doesn’t really work as well. Having complete confidence in a go-anywhere system is comparatively rare. But this set-up, with the Constellation as its beating heart, just took off musically. Play anything and it was there, telling the story in an ultra-dynamic and completely impartial way regardless of the difficulty of the music. In fact, it thrives on complexity and simply adores multi interweaving themes from intense instrumentation.

It is fast – very fast – and right through the bandwidth too. Fast to deliver and equally fast to recover. There’s no sense of the music being remotely vague anywhere. No feeling that anything within is inconsequential or unresolved. It simply shows you what you are listening to in a completely straightforward fashion. Is it slightly cool or clinical? In certain systems it might just come across that way, but it is as good a partner to the Wilson speakers as just about anything I have heard and it can bring its full weight and control to bear with startling results from the manic to the contemplative.