Lejonklou Boazu Integrated

There are so many integrated amplifiers nowadays in the market. And still, there are new, nicely kept secrets. A few months ago, I read a small review about the Boazu integrated amplifier costing 3000 euros in Europe. I want to test this amplifier, comparing him with my Cyrus set. 

What does this little amplifier do so well? Would it be a real competitor? Even a test with the new Accuphase E800 was an absolute pleasure, costing about five times the Boazu. In conclusion, the Boazu is a very, very good amplifier. 

                                                                                                                      A very matching combination, the Bopazu with the Scan Speak Ekta Grand.

Sound

The sound is transparent, neutral, detailed, and lively, with a large soundstage. Not as big as the sound stage of the Spec RS99, but still very good. In detail, it offers more detail than the Spec can do. 

There is no warmth in the sound, but it is never sharp. You keep listening and listening to all the details in your music. My music offers with this amplifier lots of new insights.

Matching

Matching with your loudspeakers is important with this amplifier!
This impressive integrated amplifier is however not very powerful. Twenty watts is for many highly sensitive loudspeakers enough. My Seas CNO Grand (91db sensitive) delivers top-quality audio sound. But also, the combination with the Scan Speak Ekta Grand with 89 dB sensitivity, it's a great amplifier. But with the new Morel Transmissionline based on the SCM 634 Morel woofer driver, the Boazu has difficulty in driving these loudspeakers. You need more power to drive these 85dB sensitive loudspeakers. It will be interesting to see if the Sagatun with a power amplifier will do the job. 

Power consumption

With a new audio component, I always check the power consumption. This amplifier uses about 20 watts when playing with average sound volume. Compared to an Accuphase e800, more than 200 watts. So if power consumption is a criterion, you should try this amplifier. The only amplifier doing a better job in this area is the Spec RSA M99 with about 5 watts. But still, 20 watts for the Boazu is pretty good—just a simple calculation every year. Let us say you are using this amplifier for about 3 hours a day for about 200 days. 

20 * 2 * 200 is 8000-watt hour, so 8 kWh. 

Comparing to the Accuphase 200 * 2 * 200 = 80.000-watt hour, 80 kWh. 

One of the strange things about the amplifier is that it lacks an input selector. It has four analogue RCA inputs and no balanced XLR input. These inputs are always selected. So if you played simultaneously with two sources, for example, your DAC and the phone preamplifier, it would play both sources simultaneously. This is the basic design of its Upsala Swedish designer, Fredrik Lejonklou.
 

Display

Also, the volume adjustment is fundamental with two push buttons on the front or with the handset. A small led in the front panel flashes when the volume is changed from white to blue to green to orange and red at the highest volume. It's strange this way of setting your volume, but you get fast used to it. I now use this amplifier in my working room, which feels very typical.