Best Of British
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 17, 2003
We have bemoaned in the past that many of the most famous names in British audio are no longer in British hands, nor made in Britain. So when we glimpsed a Malaysian address on the new brochure for Exposure's 2010 integrated amplifier, we assumed the worst.
We shouldn't have. This amplifier is still being built in East Sussex, mostly by hand. It's available in titanium and black finishes, but, having lived with the titanium version for several weeks, we wouldn't touch the black one with a barge pole.
The front panel has clean lines with iridescent blue status indicators for the power switch, volume control and input selector. Designed to appeal to the audiophile fraternity, the amplifier lacks tone controls and loudness contour circuitry. There isn't even a channel balance control, even though it would have been handy for older CDs, which were often recorded louder in one channel than in the other. The most contentious omission will be a headphone socket. Although some audiophiles prefer to use electrostatic headphones, which connect to the speaker outputs rather than a standard headphone socket, it seems madness not to include one on the 2010 - particularly given the high price.
Exposure also hasn't done itself any favours with its HS-1 remote control. It's a small black plastic unit that doesn't even approach the build quality of the amplifier. It controls all the amplifier's functions, as well as those of Exposure's matching CD player, and adds a muting control that is not fitted to the 2010's front panel. The muting circuit works correctly if the remote is used to operate the amplifier, disengaging automatically whenever the volume up button is pressed to prevent your speakers being blasted by high power levels. However, it isn't clever enough to disengage if the volume control on the front panel is moved instead. Another design oversight is that there's no light on the front panel to show that the muting circuit is active, which can be a source of confusion. Most other manufacturers would design the blue light emitting diode on the volume control to blink. The LED on the 2010's control blinks only when it's rotated by remote control.
Up to six source components, including a CD player, can be connected to the 2010, but a turntable isn't one of them unless you pay an extra $248 for the optional phono stage. There's only one record/play loop, so only one audio recorder can be used at a time.
Exposure rates the 2010 at 50-watts per channel at 1kHz (eight-ohm load). Our sample managed this quite easily, producing 78 watts per channel under the same test conditions. Into more difficult four-ohm loads the amplifier's output increased only marginally, to 82-watts per channel.
Whereas many audiophile amplifier designers try to tailor the sound of their amplifiers to be different by playing tricks with frequency response or output impedance, Exposure plays it straight with the 2010. There are no lush soundscapes or soft-sounding highs; just good honest hi-fi sound that's faithful to the original music.
Info file
Exposure 2010 Integrated Amplifier
Price: $1998
RPM Audio Imports Pty Ltd
323 Goodwood Road, Kings Park, SA 5034
(08) 8272 7922
jamest@exposurehifi.com.au
www.rpmaudio.com.au
Correction on 25 Mar 2003
Correction: There was an error in last week's review of the Exposure 2010 integrated amplifier. The amplifier's single-channel power output into 8-ohms was tested at 55-watts (8-ohms) and 61-watts (4-ohms).
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald