Absolute Sound

equipment report
YBA Intégré Integrated Amplifier
Neil Gader
First impressions don’t always
hold true in life—or in audio,
for that matter. However, this
was not the case with the YBA
Intégré Passion. The rich and
rewarding sense of musicality I noted at
the very start of my listening sessions
with Yves-Bernard André’s 100Wpc
integrated amplifier never changed,
from the first day to the last.
This story begins with a wave of nostalgia
when I found myself comparing an
old Columbia pressing of the original
cast album of Camelot to the recently
released digital remastering. The Passion
had been warming up and I decided to
slide it into the reference system. During
Camelot’s overture and trumpet fanfare,
the YBA reproduced brass and upper
harmonic textures so naturally that I had
to listen to the cuts again. The sound was
dynamic without edge. Sustained notes
didn’t have even a hint of graininess.
Dense orchestral low frequencies seemed
to rise from the very foundations of the
stage and billow into the room. The star
quality was there without a doubt. Yet,
as I listened further I noted that the
Passion’s overall character wasn’t overtly
voluptuous or extroverted in a Marilyn
sense; it was more akin to Audrey
Hepburn—leaner, more angular and
pert, but with a deep inner radiance.
There are two primary characteristics
that define the Passion’s excellence. First
is its lack of noise or distortion artifacts.
Great amplifiers have the capacity for
coiled stillness during musical silences.
They suggest a tranquility that can turn
into blinding acceleration, as if by the
pulling of a trigger. The Passion idles
like it’s holding its breath. This allows it
to replicate micro-dynamics, transients,
and harmonics in near-effortless fashion.
Second, and probably as a direct result of
the aforementioned low noise floor, the
Passion allows musical images more
elbowroom, revealing more of their body
and the sound of each recording venue.
In the same delicate breath it also creates
a soundstage width that even my reference
Plinius 8200 couldn’t match.
The Passion seemed to pluck lowlevel
inner details and offer them up
shining and unsmeared, whether it was
the bluegrass mandolin of Nickel
Creek’s Chris Thile, the rattles of a tambourine,
or a vocalist’s sigh between
phrases. During full-tilt symphonic
works like “Baba Yaga” [Mephisto & Co,
Reference Recordings], instruments
such as marimba, harp, and bassoon took
on stronger focus and clarity, and not in
a hard-edged sense. Occasionally, I heard
a hint of darkening in the upper treble,
especially on tipped-up pop music. The
Passion didn’t, in fact, sound quite as
bright as my reference. It might be a
small coloration or a credit to the amp’s
vanishingly low distortion levels. Either
way it was subtle.
The YBA performs well sorting
through complex juxtapositions of
instruments. During Jennifer Warnes’
“Too Late Love Comes” [The Well,
Cisco], the Passion delineates the signatures
of mandolin, acoustic guitar,
acoustic bass, and violin with unqualified
ease. The violin, though not as burnished
as I’ve heard it, seems to stand
out in slightly greater relief from the
mix, just as Warnes’ voice is more finely
focused. This was a constant trait during
the listening sessions—the physical
presence of solo players on the soundstage
seemed heightened.
Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel’s rendition
of “Shenandoah” [Sings Favourites, RCA]
had a rounded midrange character, his
vocal dynamics slightly softened but not
blunted by any means. The YBA delivered
perhaps a little less chest resonance
than I like (to be fair my own midrangeweighted
bias needs to be factored in).
However, the Passion hit its stride with
the details of the Scots bagpipes and the
delicacy of the harp. It didn’t quite hold
onto the decay of the lowest bass-drum
notes with the tenacity of some bigger
amps, but it defined pitch so expressively
that this deficit was small potatoes.
Is the Passion sheer perfection? Not
entirely. In contrast to its exceptional
soundstage width, the Passion is less
decisive defining the front-to-back layering
of a symphony orchestra, as on the
previously cited Mephisto & Co. And
other amps add a bit more bass, though
62 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND ■ JUNE/JULY 2004