Description

Copland is one of the unsung talents of the high-end hi-fi industry. Despite being in business for almost 40 years, the company has rarely grabbed the limelight. But that has more to do with the way the brand operates than the quality of its products.

This small Danish company only makes a limited range of electronics (often valve based) and goes about its business in an understated manner. Its products’ life cycles tend to be fairly long, and new introductions are rare and done without much fanfare. So, when a new product does appear we?re keen to have a listen. And in the case of the CSA 100, we?re glad we did.

As far as features go, this integrated could be all the amplifier most music fans will ever need. Despite retaining the company?s trademark clutter-free appearance, this elegant design packs in a digital module, headphone output and a phono stage into its well-constructed chassis.

At its core is a hybrid electronic design, which uses a single 6922 double triode valve in the line stage feeding a high power MOSFET power amplifier section. The result is a solid 100W per channel into an 8ohm load that rises to a healthy 180W as impedance halves.

Those figures suggest that the CSA 100 will be able to drive most speakers to serious levels in all but the largest of rooms.

There?s an impressive degree of connectivity here. For vinyl fans, a phono stage suitable for moving magnet or high output moving coil cartridges sits alongside single-ended (three) and balanced XLR (one) line-level inputs.

As for digital, there?s the usual trio of USB, coaxial and two opticals. These digital inputs feed an ESS Sabre ES9018 Reference DAC used in a quad mono configuration to improve resolution. The use of this chip means the CSA 100 is compatible with up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM files and DSD128 ? enough to play just about any file potential users are likely to have.