I don't get to travel as much as I'd like to in the traditional sense, but every piece of audio equipment I review takes me on a journey of sorts. Whether it's embarking on a symbolic trip overseas to the component's origin or into the rarefied air of gear whose price exceeds my bankroll, the paths are always interesting and often enlightening. And sometimes they are flat out surprising. At the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's “The Fellowship Of The Ring,” hobbit hero Frodo Baggins finds life in his old homeland, The Shire, no longer possible. His quest to save Middle Earth from the dark lord, Sauron, has exposed him to things beyond his imagination and broken his innocence. Too many things have happened, and he no longer can dwell in the idyllic yet naïve world of his kin. Finally, Frodo boards a boat with his uncle Bilbo and friends to depart for the mythical Undying Lands. For Frodo, there was no going back to The Shire.

It's a metaphor that struck home with me as I spent the last couple months listening to Aaron Audio's No.1.a integrated amplifier. During the last two years I've had opportunity to audition several superb integrateds – amplifiers whose sound I could easily live with and be proud to display, too. I still feel that way, but the Aaron put me in a spot where “going back” to anything I'd heard before would be difficult. Everyone has their own personal sound nirvana, and the No.1.a was it for me. At $5,500, it's the most expensive integrated amp I've reviewed, yet I came away with no hesitations in recommending it, wanting it and wishing only that my audio finances were more robust – to keep it!

Background

Aaron Audio may not be a household name in the U.S., like Marantz, Yamaha, Denon and the like, but it's no new kid on the block, either. The roots of the company took hold some 25 years ago when Marita and Thomas Hoehne founded the high end consumer electronics sales company (High End Unterhaltungselektronik Vertriebs GmbH). As Aaron's website relates, its mission was “the production of hi-fi devices to meet the highest demands of serious music-lovers like the Hoehne family themselves – and thus the perfect reproduction of music. It was at that early stage, that it was decided to call these devices, which meet such high demands, SOVEREIGN. Yet it would be years before the first SOVEREIGN amplifier came out under the current technical reference – AARON products.” Within that line, the Aaron No. 1 integrated amplifier was introduced in 1989 and enjoyed a 13-year run before being retired in 2002. Today, the Elze, Germany-based concern offers the No.1.a, the successor to the original No. 1. Fortunately, you don't have to travel to Deutschland to audition the No.1.a, as Brian Ackerman of Aaudio Imports has brought the company's lineup to the States in his Parker, Colorado, showroom. Ackerman was my hook-up.