My Olive NAP 250 is off to Class A today for service and so I substituted my A&R A60 from my second system into the lounge one, hooked up the CD and Streamer and wow, I was so surprised how good it sounds when fed from good sources and through my Neat Iota Alpha speakers. Soundstage is still wide and bass is deep, yes there is a less detailed sound and some muddling of the bass and mids but overall it still amazes me how good it sounds. Compared to my 52/Supercap/250 it holds its own at a fraction of the cost. Looking forward to getting the 250 back and see how it all sounds then.
Love the A60. Faults are usually just by omission rather than it doing anything particularly unpleasant. It’s like an old comfy pair of shoes. What version do you have? I have a slight preference for the sound of earlier units but all are lovely in their way.
I think it is a later version Richard, it has RCA sockets for the Disc input and it has CD labeled input but using DIN sockets for this as well as the Tuner and Tape ones.
I had an A60 for my 18th birthday present in 1978. It had a teak finish on the wooden sleeve. I absolutely loved it and it was a vast improvement on my previous JVC JAS22. A year later I got an LP12 and I had many happy hours with this combination driving some KEF Coda II’s. I finally got a 42-5/110 in 1985 and although it was a vast improvement I must admit to missing the A60’s lovely warm and sweet presentation for quite a while.
That’s interesting, as you have said you replaced your A60 with Naim, that’s exactly what i did, replaced my original teak cased one with a 32.5 / 110 sometime in the early 90’s, got this one about 2-3 years ago and just love it
I also got my A60 in 1978….it was the ‘E(xport)’ version sporting 4mm speaker sockets rather than the horrible DIN speaker sockets that the earlier ones used. I seem to remember it cost 105 UKP from Billy Vees then.
It sounded great…until I borrowed a Naim 32/160, and for the first time ever, I found out how much a difference an amplifier could make that had nothing to do with power or SPL levels.
The Naim combo had so much more detail, clarity, pitch correctness, dynamics and musical intent. I would agree that the difference was ‘vast’. It was only a matter of time before the A60 was replaced by a 42/110.
I bought an A&R A60 in 1978 to upgrade from a Pioneer integrated, and it was a major improvement. I used it for 25 years or so and then passed it on to my brother. Unfortunately after a number of years the transformer fried and he couldn’t find a spare part.
I also sold A 60s when I was a part time audio salesman in my time at university. At the time MSRP was $700CDN, really good vfm. In Montreal its only direct competitor was the Sugden A48, but IMO the A60 sounded better… and looked much nicer.
I think mine had the 4mm sockets too. But I could be wrong. In fact yes - it did. I remember now that there were alternative sockets and one could choose to use one set that was more direct or the alternative set that would be muted when headphones were used.
Add me to the list of A60 aficionados. Spoiler alert - not a happy story…
I had a second system with an A60, the matching T60, and a pair of Mission 770s. When I moved into a flat with barely enough room for my main system (NAC 72, NAP 160 and Ruark Paladins) I offered them to my sister and brother in law on a permanent loan. A few years later, I visited them following their move into a new house. I noticed the system wasn’t there. When I enquired as to its whereabouts, I was informed “Oh, we didn’t have room so we took it all to the dump”.
Bought an A&R A60 in 1981 to drive a pair of Heybrook HB2s. Of all the amps I’ve had, prior to getting into Naim, I think my favourite was that A60. It had much more punch than the output figures would suggest and its presentation was very musical. All with an inbuilt phono-stage and headphone socket. Great value for money. The occasional need to replace blown output fuses was a price well worth paying.
Mine, costing, £179, replaced my NAD3020 in 1983. It was a significant jump in performance and I remember very well how thrilling it was to hear the improvement and to feel that I was in the world of real hifi. I bought the moving coil board for it when I got an LP12. Eventually I sold it and bought a 42/110 … which I wish I had kept!
I’ve never heard the original Neat Iota Alpha but I’m fascinated by both its design and ability to sound like a much larger speaker, as well as its reputation for being able to disappear in a room.
The Mark 2 version is supposed to be released in June of 2026. According to Stephen at Neat Acoustics, the Iota Alpha 2 will have the following updates over the original Iota Alpha:
“They look almost the same, but we have changed the bass-mid unit to a paper cone (from polypropylene) and there’s a new crossover. The tweeter is the same as we tried three different units but we all preferred the exisiting Monacor.
There’s also a “service panel” at the back to access the tweeter should it ever need replacing. There have been many scuffed hands from trying to get to the tweeter on the MKI.”
