Hot Property: Why Sugden's Class A A21SE is One of the Best Integrated Amplifiers On Sale! 

They are an amazing company Sugden. They seem to brush off fashion trends and just chug along making superb sounding and superbly made products. Good riff chaps. 🙂

I have the Sugden A21SE (Orange) - and the DAC-4. Gorgeous combination - with vintage LEAK 250 Sandwich speakers.

Love a bit of Mike and Dave and Jes's Hi Fi Riff 😂. But seriously, good to see Jes on again.

I have this amp, my days it's glorious. Instruments sound like instruments, the decay structure of bells, acoustics, and cymbals is beguiling. But it’s main strength is vocals, it places them front and centre of the performance. I have it paired with a set of ProAcs D20Rs and a R26 ladder dac and I love the combination. I will disagree with you slightly, the Sugden sounds good as soon as you turn it on, but you can hear it getting better as it warms up. I think it really gets into its stride after about an hour. Glad you all liked it though, great riff.

I have an IA4 bought a few months back and it is simply brilliant.

"If you like death metal and enjoy tinnitus".... I feel observed! :)

Love the red

Mike and David brought along their Son today. 😉 Seriously though, Jes Kerr seems like a cool guy. I really like the Sugden brand. Owned the standard, non SE, 21 Signature for a few years. Within its power limits it is an awesome amplifier.

Awesome review and banter!

Thanks for the Al Jarreau tip. Beautiful album!

David's response to that remote is like mine. Just walk across the room and turn the effing knob.

Brilliant Riff guys. The Sugden Appreciation Society will be pleased. It’s a great amplifier but if you need more power there’s the ANV-50 50w in to 8ohms/100w in to 4ohms £4,790 or the IA4 33w in to 8ohms at £6,649 all available as a custom colour for additional £135.00. It’ll last you a lifetime. My Sugden A48B is over 30yrs old & it plays rock really well as well as prog!

Nice / fun "riff" ... which as a Sugden fan, I am happy to see, again (reference their DAC-4 riff) Though as an A21 Signature (the "baby sister") owner, I do take umbrage with their characterization the SE is where Sugden "gets serious" and their slight of the preamp section of the A21 Signature ... While the A21 Signature and the A21SE Signature do in fact share the same output amplification modules, with differences in the power supplies and preamp section (though not necessarily "better"), there of those of us which prefer the "baby sister" over the bigger brothers and sisters in the entire Sugden family ... That's not to cast shade on the rest of the family ... rather, simply to say / agree, I would choose any Sugden model over most of a price peer competitor ... I personally have chosen the A21 Signature over the SE and bigger siblings based on the sound / performance of the "baby" ... Again, nice / fun review and am always happy to see a review of a Sugden model ... just, don't cast shade on a sibling, they are all wonderful and have their own "take on" / "approach to" reproducing sound, even with all (but the ANV-50) being Class A ... And for the record, my A21 Signature replaced a significantly higher powered and priced (4x) integrated amplifier, which the A21SE Signature would have been more a peer of "macro dynamically", but there is just a bit more of the "continuous-ness" of a live, un / minimally amplified, acoustic instrument's sound with the baby's reproduction ... though most would not place the A21 Signature in a signal chain with sources (TT & CD) and speakers each being 3 - 4x its retail ... Though, again, the A21SE Signature certainly has more macro dynamic swing and slam ... It all comes down to one's system, musical preferences and ear (what one focuses on in reproduced sound) ... keep up the good work HF R gang and happy listening all

I own a Sugden a21se signature and even death metal sounds fantastic 😊

Best riff in 2024 so far! After my old A1 i've always wanted a larger 'class A' so really interesting. As always, love the music choices and references to 2 stroke bikes!

The sound signature and the way it is voiced is brilliant...I have a LFD Mistral integrated amplifier and it is very good to... Although class A/B very good..

I Have the Sugden MPA-4 mono blocks for my main system, and an IA-4 in the basement. I am a huge Sugden fan, will be for life. Have you guys at Hi-Fi Riff, ever heard these amps?

I wasn't with you on this until you showed the blue version. Wow...now that's classy! Isn't it strange how design and colour can influence our hi-fi purchases? Now, there's a topic for you in the future.

The A21 SE is end-game for me. It drives my moderately-efficient B&W Matrix 805s with ease. Delivery is effortless and so very musical.

Mike, my original 1972 Sugden A21 surprisingly drove my 1982 Linn Saras very well. Yes the bass was just a little soft but the combination was so musical!

Great video guys. I got my Sugden A21se about two years ago and use it with the Volti Audio Razz LE (claimed sensitivity of 97db). System has pretty great synergy, sometimes I wish I had ordered the base model that some people claim has a near tube-like quality. Always enjoy your vids... keep it up!

I always wanted to hear a class A sugden

A HiFi guy goes for a test drive in a Rolls Royce, along with the manager and puts some chill-out tunes on the player. The guy starts fiddling around with things and opens the glove box. He finds some short spilkey things with little cups on top. He asks the manager about them and the manager replies that he should use them to rest his balls on while he's driving, The HiFi guy says, OH YEAH, that's much better.

I have my SUGDEN A21SE SIGNATURE Graphite . Everything said in this video about this British 🇬🇧gem 💎 of an amplifier is true. You simply want to have it even if you already have a magnificent amplifier 10 times more expensive.

Lovely review style.

4 years ago I purchased factory-new Sugden A21 Signature and by all means I do not consider any replacement. Ca. 6 months ago I paired my set: Atoll CD 100 Signature, Tellurium Black II with Kerr Acoustic K320 mk3 speakers. Spending whole day listening to them I realised how good are my DIY floor 3 way speakers, built with Scanspeak & Seas speakers, costing 50% less. I could not find major difference in sound between my own and KA set.. They sounded well in all aspects but did not beat my own..

why not balanced?

Love what you guys do and watch most episodes. I was wondering if you would go for something just a little different, like a retro riff on dead Japanese brand 'Sansui'. I took a punt on a circa 1970 Au 222 model from eBay and after a little restoration using salvaged, contemporary good parts, I can honestly say it's one of, if not the best amp I've ever heard!!! Just an idea...

A21se is brilliant with the Devore O/93

As good as Document is, to describe it as superior to Out Of Time, Automatic For The People and especially Green is nothing short of astonishing.

Jes works well on this. He should be a regular.

Solid-state Class A as hi-fi's equivalent of the two-stroke engine? An interesting comparison. Perhaps Cleckheaton should have been twinned with Zschopau* some time in the late '60s. *The 'Z' in MZ. Like Cleckheaton, a small valley town some way distant from the epicentre of the industry. Sugden later moved to Heckmondwike, MZ to oblivion.

Brilliant synth bass with Billie Eilish "Bad Guy". Controlled, but room filling and fun.

Shrunk in the wash = Ruined = reduced to a state of decay, collapse, or disintegration, having been irreparably damaged or harmed. Jesus, poor Sugden A21se...

Hi great channel guys ! What would be the expected retail price for the speakers? I love them

REM were a great band.OK,I might sound old,but you don't get bands of that quality in the modern age,especially on radio 1 as would have once been the case. I like the red colour of that amp. I'm sure it has some of the Sugden rich and fluid quality about it sonically too.

Evening gents👍👍

Harley Lovegrove is a big Sugden fan, but feels the build quality is a little wanting. I was surprised, because they look solid in images and on video. ( and I realise that's a kind of stupid thing to say). What is the opinion of the Riff. I know they are heavy, but that doesn't always equal well put together.

You don't get a lot of headroom before saturating the inputs, thats the only real (little) niggle. Those extra hot DACs and streamer outputs can be a bit of a nuisance

“Green” is still good IMHO.. Downhill after that..

Do this amp class A runs hot or warm compare to musical fedility ? Tq

Would this work well with Graham Audio LS 5/9 in a medium sized room 4x4 meters ?

High power like musical fidelity have the grunt but at the same time they lose the fitness of the low power amplifiers, parallel output transistors of the high power amps can't be matched to be exactly absolutely and they take a toll on the sound. That's why class A single ended amplifiers sound so good in expense of low end tightness lightness and grunt (sometimes). In The end it's a matter of choice, low end tightness and grunt ,or finesse. 👍

IA4 is the best integtated amp up to 10k.

I remember the original Sugden A21 very well. We had them on dem in our shop. Funny thing was I never sold one on dem but we did sell a few on mail order. So, did the mail order customers listen to it else ware or purchase it because someone recommended it to them? Personally, I found it very lacking in power, poor dynamic range and quite a dull presentation. Customers also commented much the same after the dem. Class A is really a bit of con. Afterall it's a class AB with more bias to remove crossover distortion. So, if you remove crossover distortion it performs just like a class A without consuming many amps of current to just heat the room. Making it very expensive to build with huge transformers, massive heatsinks etc. All of which add NOTHING to the sound. So, if you compare the waveforms of a class A to a class AB you will see ZERO difference. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with the sound of class A because it both measures and sound the same, simply because it is the same! Class AB can sound better simply because it will tend to have more power, dynamic range. Most amplifiers with more power, tend to sound better, given the same quality spec of course! People convince themselves, well, it cost double a class AB, weighs a ton, gets very hot, gotta be better? (hot electronics is NEVER a good idea) Maybe just a little snake oil. Before anyone asks, what does he know?? Worked for Quad in the lab, senior test engineer Cambridge Audio, Founder member of Monitor Audio, Retailer Audio T Cambridge. etc. Senior engineer UCI cinemas working on Amplifiers, speakers, Dolby, Digital. RU-vid channel.

Now don't take this the wrong way, but when I saw the three of you on the sofa the first thing that came to mind was two creepy schoolteachers grooming a student... Actually, there isn't really a right way to take that. So I'll just apologise.

what in the Rega line up would be competitive?

Hello folks

Hi chaps 11 days is too long!

So, is "Document" a great recording as you state at 14.10 or a grey, dirty mess as you state at 15.32?

The facia is still red hot!🤣

Looks downright agricultural. Take it as a compliment.

KH 500 and lived to tell the tale . Richard Allen tweeters were one of the prefered upgrades to Videoton Minimax. Such an obvious age gap on show here..two old farts ''half a point''.... young whipper snapper....'' point 5''

Do you think it would drive my Maggie LRS+?

No balanced inputs, no go.

David Price needs a haircut !!

No one has time for all this chummy indulgence crap. Get on with it.