This is a review written by Terry Ellis December 2024.

For my video review please see my YouTube channel link here

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Making a BIG impact

If there is a HiFi manufacturer that knows how to release products that make you saw wow out loud the first time you see them it’s definitely HiFi Rose. I have had my eye on many HiFi Rose products for some time now and I have been waiting patiently for the opportunity to get my hands on, in particular their amplifiers. They have some design attributes that have been of real interest to me such as their use of GaN-FET or gallium nitride amplifier technology, said to be a better Class D amplifier technology, or Class A/D as HiFi Rose classify it.

The RA180 Flagship

I have both the RA180 and the newer and more affordable RA280 integrated amplifiers here to review because as I wanted to experience both and share my thoughts on the differences. There is a big difference in price between them and the RA180 was HiFi Rose first ever released amplifier so what does that mean? Could a second released amplifier be better even though it costs less money, it seems unlikely given how HiFi works but I thought it could be possible. For a quick synopsis there is a huge sonic difference between these amplifiers and I think that is very much by design, and I can think of a number of reasons to recommend the 280 to you over the more expensive 180, but the 180 is very stand out in some specific ways and its the amplifier that made the biggest mark on me from the two.

Maybe I feel like this because I remember vividly the first time I saw a video of the 180, I think it was on Facebook, it was a close up of the volume control moving with its visible cogs and how it all glows, I was amazed to see something like this on a HiFi amplifier and it did make me saw “wow” out loud. I automatically assumed it would be a typical HiFi thing where a manufacturer releases a statement, hugely expensive product thats physically huge too and part of me was a little disappointed when I first saw the 180 in the flesh because its not huge, its a normal sized integrated. The volume control while very impressive in the flesh kind of gets lost because there are so many controls on the amplifiers front face plate.

I can see the aesthetic splitting opinion but no one can dispute the build quality of this amplifier, its exceptional. Its really heavy for starters, not Gryphon heavy but still heavy for a Class D based amplifier with every control or knob or switch feeling very solid and extremely well built.  One star feature for me is how the input changes itself physically when you select them on the remote control, there is nothing new there but the way the RA180 does it is more cool for some reason. I think it’s the noise it makes or maybe just the way the selector moves its fast but silky.  This is very impressive.

Confusing amplifier

I love the top plate of the RA180, it’s very Luxman like which is high praise indeed.  The rear of the amplifier is very confusing at first with all of the speaker cable terminals that are certainly not obvious what they all do. In fact this is the first amplifier I have felt I needed to read the manual before I could get music playing because the 180 has two sets of amplification built in allowing the option to bi-amp your speakers or you can power your speakers and amplify a set of super tweeters or you can double up the power by bridging the channels. This is a fantastic level of flexibility but it makes it very important to connect speaker cables to the right outputs and to select the correct mode with a switch thats not obviously positioned, and is very small located at the bottom of the rear. My advice, don’t do the typical man thing, read the manual thoroughly and know that BTL is the same as bridged, that term caught me out and caused me to wire up incorrectly initially.

I was happy with the amount of analogue inputs and the quality of the connectors, I had to double take on the custom speaker cable terminal posts with HiFi Rose written on them, another very nice quality touch.  There are independent inputs for  MM and MC cartridges to use the built in phono stage which seemed very strange to me because you can adjust the phono stage for different record pressings.  You can select between the standard RIIA curve or the DECCA curve or the Columbia curve which is impressive but there are no options to change the impedance its fixed at 47ohms. I assume Rose expects people to use loading plugs to adjust the input to match your cartridge but none are included I don’t have any and don’t really understand how you use them. I would have preferred just the RIAA curve and a normal set of phono stage loading options for different cartridges so this is certainly an unorthodox phono stage implementation. I think I found it more confusing because the same controls will adjust the crossover if your bi-amping to use a super tweeter so its all just a bit busy and a bit confusing for me, maybe I am just not used to these types of options as I have never desired them, or even seen them before. They might be the reason you would buy this amplifier over others, they wouldn’t be the reason for me.

When you use the RA180 in BTL or bridged mode you almost have a pre and bridged mono amplifiers all in one relatively small chassis and that is kinda crazy to consider. There is a lot of very clean power on offer when you do this 400 watts per channel into 8 or 4 ohms and the amplifiers are driven from a maximum 1.1 kW smps power supply.

When I stop and think about it the RA180 is a distinctly styled and heavy weight high quality built amplifier with a custom high purity aluminium chassis with custom terminals and connections and remote control, with a crazy flexible in its own way phono stage and a lot of power from a pre and bridged mono amplifiers all for £5499.  This is still a serious chunk of HiFi money but so far that seems fairly reasonable for what we get and its a lot less than I originally expected when I saw the video of the, lets be honest pretty amazing volume control.  So where is the catch.

Sound to match the style

All of this amplifier loveliness is just bling unless the sound quality matches up. The first thing I found was just how important it is to the let the RA180 warm up, the second is how important the tone controls are and lastly is the DAC’s output voltage. Starting there, I found using the Chord Hugo TT2 I got a better result lowering its output level using its preamp feature and then raising the volume on the 180 more. To explain this, it could be the RA180’s balanced input is rated to 2V, the Chord outputs 2.5v as standard in its DAC mode so lowering the voltage some seems to make sense.

The next extremely important aspect this is the usefulness of the RA180’s tone controls. I know tone controls can bee seen as a “dirty tool” by some audiophiles and quite often when I test them I prefer to turn them off. But here Rose have developed a proper active circuit specific for the tone controls and they have even plotted a series of graphs in the manual showing the behaviour change or exactly what they do, I have never seen that before.

So I used them and preferred a little lift in the bass and a slight reduction in the treble to give a more pleasing musical balance because this amplifier sounds pretty extreme in ways with its biggest strength also being the reason someone might not like it, but the tone controls allow you to adjust this. I am going to use the word intensity, there is an immediacy and intensity and an energy to the sound of music from this amplifier that is really rare, music is alive or has a live intensity to it that I can only remember experiencing from the Gryphon Essence pre power setup I had here earlier in the year, that’s a £35k amplifier setup.

I found it difficult to explain for that review too, you feel like there is less between you and the music. You don’t feel physically closer, quite the opposite but you feel like there is less of a filter on the music, music feels more raw and energised. This takes a little getting used to but it can be awesome for sure, especially when you can go hard on the volume and the cleanliness of the sound doesn’t change, instead the scale of the music continues to grow as you turn the volume up. You can listen very loud and the RA180 sound is so clean you notice the volume more in your ears later on, but at the time its just an immensely energetic music experience happening in your room. This wont be a presentation for everyone or every system or every room but if you get it right it can be a next level awesome music listening experience.

In part this is because of the way music is presented with what seems like extended dynamic range, with more space or spatial cues in the music, the feeling of better separation and organisation and musical layering. The bass is big from this amp and solid and fast and articulate. This amplifier driving speakers like my SVS Titan the bass can be an immense physical thing in the room that has so much energy and impact but it always stays out of the way of and never congests the sound, its always only ever an underpinning to the music that is locked in place with crazy amounts of control. That is a big pro but there is a con to this.

The high frequencies sound extended so the height of the sound in the room feels taller with a fantastic sense, maybe even slightly exaggerated or better resolved see through the speakers onto the music happening behind them or out into the room.  A musical example of this is was with Lady Blackbird Did somebody make a fool out of me, the double bass back right in mix sounded taller, set back more and like someone was playing an authentic sized instrument, more so than I am used to. Height spatial cues in music can be very powerful for our perception of pseudo-realism.

However, there is a but here, the RA180 could sound just a little on the edge and just a little too lean for me and that made the vocals sound a bit cold and hard, especially as they sound so clear and grand in size. Yes the vocals had a great raw energy and focus to them some will love that but I found the vocals and the whole sound lacked some tonal colour and sweetness. This was the perfect time to test the 180’s tone controls and you engage them with a very nicely clunky switch. With a little bass lift of about one or two marks really helped to flesh out the vocals and add more fullness to the mid bass. I do really like how the light from the tone control indicates the level so clearly, its a lovely design touch. I also found lowering the treble some too by about 1 mark so only a small but important amount also helped to soften the sound a little, which in turn also warms it up a touch too. This was a much better balanced sound for me overall. Now the Rose amplifiers special characters of its energy and clarity and really tight powerful bass and space in he sound stage was combined with a more full and warm vocal and it made for a fantastic overall listen. This was still not a typical Sunday afternoon relaxing listen, it was still a sit up and pay attention and be energised by the music listen.

The 180 sum up

This was not my typical sound preference, but after you live with it for a while it leaves a mark on you because you appreciate music when it sounds full of energy and I was loving the bass and I was debating how the RA180 might be one of my favourites amplifiers to date with the Titan speakers because of how it energised me sitting in the listening chair. It was also really enjoying the fantastic sense of spatial resolution and clarity as that is not one of the big strengths of the Titan speakers so to get more of that from them was a nice bonus and I think this was happening because the Rose had fantastic control over the drivers.

The RA180 left a huge mark on me but with some questions still to be answered and I am holding that thought until I get a chance to listen to it again with the new HiFi Rose RD160 DAC.  I have my name down to review it with the RS130 Digital music source, its going to be very interesting to listen to a fully synergised whole Rose system. This will be important as the negatives I have for this amplifiers sound at the moment, such as it could do with a little sugar sprinkled on it to sweeten things as it can sound just a little ruthless, especially in the vocals. I am wondering if this is all related to a system mis match with the Chord DAC and when matching the whole Rose system it could get something pretty special so look out for this update in the future.

Please don’t let this final comment deter you from a demo of this amplifier and remember to check how its been setup, or what modes its in as that really matters and dont forget to try the tone controls, they really are very effective.

The RA280, the better amp for the majority

The HiFi Rose RA280 is newer and more affordable integrated amplifier, with a price of £2999 it costs around half that of the RA180, but straight away you can see it shares the same design DNA.  The RA180 has the same input signal VU meters and very cool illuminated tone controls. The chassis is nice and feels well built but overall the 280 feels very scaled down, its not as heavy for starters. It has a more normal volume control that is still nice but clearly not as eccentric as the 180. Even the remote control is similar but scaled down with less buttons and no auto changing of inputs. Scaled down or not its still a very nicely designed amplifier, very modern, still with some retro flare going on and I like the design.

On the rear it’s a much more simple affair too where you don’t need to read the manual to get wired up and music playing, I appreciate the kindness in that to my simple brain. We still get a balanced input and a subwoofer output some might use along with enough single ended inputs to satisfy most audiophiles. There is only a moving Magnet phono stage built in here which could be great for some but part of me wishes there was no phono stage and this was just an integrated amplifier because this is a very good integrated amplifier, worthy of a very good turntable setup and cartridge which is possibly going to be moving coil. Call me old fashioned but I would rather this type of amplifier just be an amplifier and it would force me to match its quality with my other system components.

For power there is a lot on paper 250 watts into 8 and 4 ohms of again GaN-FET based Class A/D running off a 500watt smps power supply, so good amounts of power.

Easier on the ear but not as clear

I used the RA280 in my system with everything exactly the same as my RA180 review and I found it to be just as interesting an amplifier. I had the same issue as before with the Chord Hugo TT2 DAC where its balanced voltage seemed too high and it was causing some distorted sounds. I lowered its volume and turned the 280 amplifier volume up and again that was the right method to achieving the best overall sound, in particular the best bass control. Letting the amp properly warm up mattered again, no surprise there and the tone controls are again great for tuning the sound, really great.

Lets start with the bass because its very good from the 280 because its powerful and its full like there is a lot of amplifier authority driving the speakers and I like that for all music. The bass control and articulation is also very good with the 280 having impressive control over the demanding Titan speakers.  There is a big difference here between the two Rose amplifiers. The bass of the 280 I thought at the time seemed deliberately a little bloomed, just a little bit, to add some fullness and essentially warmth to the sound of music. In isolation the bass is still tight and articulate and very impressive, but when you compare to the 180 you can hear the bass bloom is “fattening” the sound making it seem like there is more mid bass.  I found this aspect of the 280 a little nicer, a little more pleasing and fun to listen to as it makes for a less fussy overall sound, making it easier to relax as the listener because the bass is presented a little softer and less raw energetic. Looking at this with a little bit of hindsight maybe the 280 was not controlling the Titan as well given their less power and smaller power supply. I can think of some some speakers that would likely benefit from an amplifier with a little bass bloom, a not as tight grip on the speakers such as the KEF R11 Meta I had here for a few months this year. The SVS Titan don’t mind either way but I think a lot of audiophiles will find the 280 easier and listen fussy of the two amplifiers in this regard.

That same bass bloom also helped the vocals to sound more full and solid with a nicer more pleasing tonal character, the same for male and female vocals. The vocals from this amp are fantastic and this is compounded by the treble sounding I think quite play it safe or dark maybe, this of course makes for a warmer overall, more “pleasing” sound. However in my very acoustically treated, low reverb room this is where I noticed the second huge difference was between the Rose amps. I found the play it safe treble of the 280 was “suffocating” the height aspect of the sound stage that was so stand out about the 180 and also it was stopping the leading edges of the music from cutting through and giving the music a nice crisp edge, which in turn reduced the impressive sound stage spatial clarity. In crude terms its like HiFi Rose took the RA180 tone control and turned the treble down about -3db but that is not exactly it. Thinking like that meant I could engage the tone controls of the 280 and raise the treble by about that much 2 – 3 marks to close the gap between the amplifiers. Using the track Schack Matt by Riltons Vanner, I took some time messing around with the tone controls with the aim of getting the 280 to sound as clear and crisp for 3D for spatiality without overdoing it as the RA180 and I could get it close, but it was never quite the same.  But close will be close enough for many given the price difference.

A better comparison

The tone controls really are amazingly useful in the 280 as the sound responds perfectly to how you adjust them, tone controls very rarely do that.  In isolation the sound stage clarity and spatial cues in music the 280 delivers is very good as its combined with a very pleasing mixture of a full bass and good separation and organisation of the overall sound stage. In isolation everything is a step down from the RA180 but the interesting part is the 280 is a more relaxing amplifier to listen to because it doesn’t have the same raw energy to it, its easier to relax and enjoy the music, but at the same time it doesn’t have that same raw energy special hard to describe character of the 180, so when you do compare you know something is missing with the 280, however if you dont you would never miss what you dont know exists, that is how HiFi works and in some regards ignorance is bliss.

So far I had only compared the RA280 to an amplifier twice its price which is unfair.  I also wanted to compare it to a Class A/B amplifier as close in price as possible and I have here the excellent Audiolab 9000a. The 280 is 50% more expensive than the Audiolab do bear that mind but it the closest priced amplifier I had available and I was more keen to see if I could hear any obvious difference between very long established Class A/B amp design and the new Rose GaN-FET Class A/D. Yes I could hear a difference between the amplifiers of course but not in the ways I was expecting. I had to listen past the designed in slightly mellow easy going, listen all day sound of the Audiolab and I had to focus on the small details. I chose a track Mental State by Jonjan which is quite aggressive percussive guitar. The 280 with the slight treble increase from the tone controls that was best matching the RA180 could twang a little with the fast guitar fret work and I wondered if that was a Class A/D emphasised sound, a negative of the amplifier technology but it was not at all. The Audiolab sounded more twangy but with less clarity overall. I found the musics fats fingers on the guitar playing details easier to follow with the Rose amplifier because it was the faster, clearer sounding amplifier of the two and nothing was being emphasised or tonally changed. This was the same through loads of vocal tracks and other music. The Audiolab is a very nice sounding amplifier that I still like a lot for they more money but the 280 sounds faster, clearer, more authoritative in the bass, more energetic and surprising maybe more full and tonally satisfying in the vocals with albums like Colter Wall Songs of The Plains. The Rose is also more flexible thanks to the tone controls.

Most interesting for me, I could not hear where Class A/D was worse for essentially being Class D in any way, in fact it was better in every meaningful way, again factoring in the £1000 price difference between the amplifiers.

Final Thoughts

I have massively enjoyed the overall experience of starting to get to know HiFi Rose amplifiers, to appreciate what they are trying to achieve and how they are looking to stand out in a very crowded space . I think the RA280 will be great for many audiophiles due to its inherent strengths and intended sound that you can easily tweak, it’s a real cracker of an amplifier as it delivers great sound in every way and is a real over achiever and easy to recommend.

The RA180 is the more difficult amplifier to sum up. Its very special in some stand out ways that make it really stand out and it certainly made its mark on me, but I did find it quite confusing too. I wouldn’t mind seeing a mark two version with no phono stage maybe and no active crossover so its more simple to use but still give us the bridged amp performance so we still get the amazing bass power and control and the overall sound clarity, but I would like to see the vocals sound more tonally rich and pleasing, a little more like the 280 and that would be some amplifier.

As I said I am holding all of these thoughts until I try these amplifiers with the new Rose DAC and that is a very exciting prospect.

For the full specification of the HiFi Rose amplifiers see their website linked here