To accompany its latest CD player, the Stream, Leema has built a more affordable version of its Tucana integrated amplifier.

Called 'Pulse', it produces 80 watts, rather than the 150 offered by the Tucana, but the build comparison is to the same standard (albeit, without the fancy logo perforations on the top or the heat sinking down the flanks).

There are also blue lights that indicate coarse and fine volume; those under the knob representing small increments and those around it, large ones.

A plethora of features

Features are also pretty comprehensive with a phono stage that accepts moving coil and MM cartridges separately, a tape loop and preamp out. Next to these are more contemporary facilities, like a minijack for your MP3 player and another for headphones.

Those who need to integrate both stereo and home cinema set ups, will be pleased to see the AV direct sockets that allow the power amp section of the Pulse to be driven with an external multichannel processor.

This means that the stereo speakers can be integrated into a surround system without compromising two channel performance.

The Stream is an unusually clean-looking CD player, thanks to the compact size of the display and the fact that there is only one knob and one power button.

Leema calls this knob L-Drive, with the distinct possibility that 'L' stands for learner, because that's what you are until you can work out how to use it!

A challenging CD player

We thought that the Cairn players were a little challenging to operate, but the Stream takes things further. Opening the drawer requires a three second push, while getting it to play only requires one.

The tendency for the novice, however, is to press it again, once the drawer closes and this instigates 'pause'. The two-digit display doesn't help either, because it has to resort to abbreviations to tell you what it's doing - it's no BMW!

Inside the box, Stream follows the theme established by the Antila, with multiple DACs. This time there are eight, rather than ten pairs, but this is still more than the majority of players.

These are top notch 24-bit/192kHz delta-sigma devices, whose output is fully balanced thanks to the differential arrangement that having two or more pairs per channel allows.