Galion Audio TS120 SE integrated amplifier

The logo on the front and top of the Galion Audio TS120 SE valve/tube integrated amplifier says a lot. It says ‘Galion’ but comes with a logo that looks like three sails on the main mast of a blue water heavily-armed cargo carrier of the 16th–18th Century. That ship type is a ‘Galleon.’ French speakers spell it ‘Galion.’ And sure enough, Galion Audio is based in Québec, Canada.

That’s not all. The prefix ‘TS’ comes from ‘Thomas & Stereo’ the YouTube channel of Thomas Tan; the man behind the Galion. ‘120’ comes from its ability to run the relatively new KT120s. However, it has two matched pairs of Pavane KT88s as standard. The ‘SE’ suffix separates the standard warmer and punchier-sounding model from the Special Edition’s more neutral, textured bass. The amplifier is also a fast and capable integrated design that packs a punch, even in its SE guise. So, however you choose to spell the name, ‘Galion’ is apt.

Fancy tickling

Let’s avoid the semiotics of amplifier names and look at the amplifier itself. Built to Thomas Tan’s requirements, the TS120 SE is made in China by electronics manufacturer Doge. Tan wanted a pure valve/tube amplifier with the power and drive of solid-state bass. This tickled the fancy of Doge’s lead designer – Mr Liu – especially as Tan suggested Doge approach the project with no budgetary constraints. If the amp costs a fortune, so be it.

With 30 years of amplifier design under his belt, Mr Liu designed an integrated amplifier sub-divided into preamplifer, power amplifier and separate power supply in the same box… and the Galion TS120 was born.

Or almost. Tan had to convince the Jupiter Condenser Company of Ohio (which sounds like it comes straight out of 1950s sci-fi but is a bunch of like-minded audio enthusiasts) to build custom capacitors for the TS120 while running auditioning and listening tests. But eventually Tan completed the voicing with the new capacitors – adding Clarity caps in the SE version – and the amp was finally ready to launch.

Corporate world? No thanks!

The design and development of Galion’s TS120 is far from the usual process today. We live in a more corporate world, with companies considering balance sheets and the bottom line. Thomas Tan’s company isn’t that kind of audio maker; this is a pure, unadulterated audio nerd at its finest—a product born out of passion rather than range-filling or necessity.

The amp uses a pair of 12AT7 and a pair of 12AX7 double-triodes, with the latter interchangeable with ECC83 and 702S tubes. The amplifier can use two pairs of KT88s (as supplied), 6550s or KT120s for the power pentodes. Tube-rolling is not frowned upon by Galion… as I said, it is led by enthusiasts.

For an all-tube amp design, the specifications are comprehensive. It features four line inputs with a Home Theatre bypass input and tape and two subwoofer outputs, all using gold-plated RCAs of solid stock. It has taps for four and eight-ohm loudspeakers. Both flavours of TS120 include a microprocessor-driven auto-bias circuit, but to ensure it isn’t constantly in the circuit dragging the performance down, this sits outside the signal path. You operate it by pressing the ‘change’ then ‘bias’ button (on the front panel and replicated on the remote), and you watch a quartet of red LEDs turn to blue LEDs on the front panel as it runs through its auto-bias, then it powers off. For the same reasons, you flip between Class A and Class AB by pressing the ‘change’ button before the ‘Class’ button.

Time for TAB

There are tone controls on the amplifier that work surprisingly well but can also be defeated, by moving from ‘T’ to ‘A’ or ‘B’ on a rotary knob on the front panel. Setting ‘A’ and ‘B’ have different levels of global feedback, I preferred ‘A’. Neither the tone controls nor this ‘TAB’ knob are replicated on the hefty remote handset.

The amp has a solid look and feel, vaguely reminiscent of Ayon Audio in its curved side cheeks but lacking the shiny chrome round transformer cans. I think it looks classic.

20:20

Power it up, give it 30 seconds to soft-start and another 20 minutes to come up to its thermal happy place and the TS120 SE starts to sing. It’s not the most obvious ‘tube-ampy’ sound, but in a very good way; the amplifier delivers excellent bass and the overly thick and rich, syrupy warmth often associated with ‘hollow-state’ technology is not there. Sure, it’s ‘airy’ with a lively and lovely sounding treble and a lithe and vivid midrange, which you can almost certainly put down to the sound of valves. The Galion TS120 SE also has the characteristic ‘wide, deep’ soundstage properties so often associated with good tubes. But that sense of control, grip, and authority in the bass sounds like a fine solid-state amplifier. The combination of the two is an excellent mix and extremely alluring.

I don’t want to make this sound like an amplifier with a dual personality, though. The bass, mid and treble integrate well and the sense of top-to-bottom coherence is excellent. That grip over the bottom end could easily cause the amplifier to sound like two designs. But while the control over the bottom end is excellent, it’s also entirely in keeping with the overall tonality of the TS120 SE, which is fundamentally accurate in approach.

Not the usual suspects

I was thinking about how to express this in musical terms, using ‘the usual suspects’ in my regular collection of recordings to evaluate equipment. Still, I didn’t need to go that far. The first track I played when the amp was warmed up encapsulated everything the TS120 SE did right; ‘Five Years’ by David Bowie [The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, MCA]. Perhaps the seminal ‘opener’ to an album, the slow build from the minimalist drums building to a crescendo of screaming with Mick Ronson’s distorted guitar playing before fading out to the drum sounds once more.

Those drums had depth and intensity but were never ‘flabby’ or ‘flapping about’. Bowie’s voice was originally articulate and impassioned, but as the vocal histrionics and the Spiders joined, the sound was allowed to break free. All the while every instrument was preserved in its three-dimensional space.

Never grow up

I grew up with this record, which still gives up a few nuances on each listen. The TS120 SE didn’t disappoint in unravelling the track a little more. It also helps that the tonality of the amplifier invites long and deep listening sessions.

The downsides are trivial. It runs very hot, but it’s a tube amplifier so that’s like printing ‘warning: contents hot’ on a coffee cup. It needs a good few hundred hours of running in before it comes on song (allegedly… my sample already had enough miles on the clock). There’s a warning against using Svetlana or TAD Winged C 6550 tubes, as the company has had some issues with them. Then there’s the tube cage, which is technically required in some countries and is not that pretty (in fairness to Galion, it’s rare to find a tube cage that isn’t the red-haired stepchild of the audio industry and the TS120’s cage is no better or worse than most). Finally, like many all-tube amplifiers, powering the TS120 up without loudspeakers connected is not recommended. However, the manual mentions this (in French and English).

Rebuilding the vacated high-end

Galion’s integrated amplifier occupies a space in the market that many high-end brands have vacated. It’s also got what got people into high-end years ago and will get a new generation into high-end. In all the good ways, I was extremely surprised by the Galion Audio TS120 SE. No wonder it has become something of a YouTube ‘darling’. That combination of tight, well-controlled bass, sublime openness and soaring, accurate treble makes it an amp to remember.

Some will discover the Galion TS120 SE amplifier as their first experience of what true high-end can offer. Others know their way around high-end sound but don’t relish the radical cashectomy that usually comes with the territory. Regardless, this isn’t the last we hear of Galion, and expect the TS120 SE to fire a few broadsides into your favourite amplifier of choice.

Technical specifications

• Type All-tube Class A/AB integrated amplifier
• Power output 30W per channel (Class A); 50W per channel (Class AB)
• Frequency Response 12Hz-80kHz (Class A); 17Hz–65kHz (Class AB)
• THD (1kHz, at full power) ≤0.15% (Class A); ≤0.25% (Class AB)
• Damping factor (‘A’ Setting) 10.8 (Class A), 9.3 (Class AB)
• Damping factor (‘B’ Setting) 6.5 (Class A), 5.6 (Class AB)
• Signal-to-noise ratio ≥90dB
• Inputs 4× line (RCA stereo pair); 1× HT (RCA stereo pair)
• Input Impedance 50kΩ
• Line input sensitivity 420mV
• Outputs 2x subwoofer (RCA), tape outputs (RCA stereo pair); loudspeaker terminals (4Ω/8Ω taps)
• Standard tube complement 2× 12AX7, 2× 12AT7, 4× KT88
• Dimensions (W×H×D) 43 × 21 × 36cm
• Weight 30kg
• Price $4,495 USD ($450 USD deposit)

Manufacturer

Galion Audio

www.galion-audio.com

+1-514-618-6377

UK demonstration facility

Art + Sound

www.artandsound.co.uk

+44(0)7711 569 999

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