PERREAUX 250i

Since the very beginning Perreaux had made MOSFETS their design priority as the company was not happy neither with tubed sound nor with early bi-polar transistors. As Perraux puts it „MOSFET could, if used correctly, go a long way towards achieving the sonic warmth, sweetness and realism of valves combined with the physical practicalities of transistors“. Also the 250i - which is a part of Perreaux’s Eloquence series - is built around MOSFETs in strictly dual mono architecture. The 250i is capable of continuously delivering 360W into an 8Ω load (530W into 4Ω respectively) and as such it is among the most powerful integrated amps on market. It has 3 separate transformers feeding 4 independent power supplies plus high damping factor of 800, which combined with its power should easily drive any imaginable speakers.

The unit is controlled by a microprocessor chip which makes custom-setting of all user’s parameters possible: assigning names to inputs, setting the start-up volumes, display feature, power off options, you name it. The settings can be done easily with the help of simple blue display. Personally I do not like its style and illumination but some other astronomically priced devices like DCS use it too so I assume it is just the matter of preference. The operating safety is also guarded by a microprocessor to protect against over-current, over-temperature, DC offset, internal AC supply and DC fuse protection. The protection is said to be non-invasive and does not degrade the signal path. The main power switch is from behind the unit – a nice feature that is less and less seen.

An integrated headphone amplifier is built-in (with two types of output cinches) and as an add-on one may receive a slots for digital inputs and MM/MC phono preamplifier. If your speakers are bi-wirable then you will make a use of dual speaker terminals of the 250i.