You wouldn't guess from looking at AMR's products that the company was started by a bunch of guys who were smitten by the sound of single-ended triode amplifiers, specifically those running 300B output valves.

There are two valves on the AM-77 amplifier, but they're a far cry from those that inform the company's sonic ethos. This is, therefore, a real-world company that understands you're never going to be able to start a serious business building amplifiers which have single-figure power outputs and radiate more heat than some electric fires.

AMR stands for Abbingdon Music Research, a name chosen because Abingdon (with one 'b') is where the British Motor Corporation took the humble Mini and turned it into a rally car that took on and beat the world; an inspirational name indeed.

The company isn't actually based in Abingdon; rather, its HQ is sited in London, while its manufacturing facility is located in China. Among its founders is occasional internet reviewer and hi-fi nut extraordinaire Thorsten Loesch, a man renowned for his knowledge of valve amplifiers and the guy who persuaded Stevens & Billington to build the Music First passive preamplifier with a transformer volume control (TVC).

To date, AMR has produced a CD player and an amplifier, and the company is in the process of finalising a loudspeaker to match - its aluminium casework meaning it'll match more literally than usual.

The AM-77 is a hybrid design using a valve gain stage (NOS 5687) to control a bi-polar output stage that runs in Class A and is specified as delivering 180 watts. This is the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) power rating, which is said to equate to the commonly quoted RMS spec used by most companies, but AMR also supplies an IHF peak rating of 270 watts to indicate the model's capabilities with a dynamic signal such as music.

The 180-watt figure applies whether the load is eight or four ohms, which will reveal to aficionados how similar this is to a valve amplifier; it operates just like a valve circuit, according to Loesch, but doesn't need an output transformer. AMR calls the whole circuit 'Class X', because it's neither pure Class A, nor AB throughout.

For an aspirational integrated amplifier, the AM-77 is unusually highly featured - for instance, it has both regular binding post and Speakon speaker cable terminals, plus both USB and mini-jack sockets on the side of the front panel.

Around the back are some mysterious switches marked 'mode' for which the manual must be consulted. These are included so you can bi-amp or bridge with more than one AM-77, or use it as solely as a power amp.

The final mystery switch is marked 'hi-fi/pro' and affects the way the XLR inputs are set up. With all hi-fi equipment and most pro equipment, the 'hi-fi' position is fine, but when you have a true floating transformer balanced output, you need to switch to the 'pro' position, because this requires a different connection.

Build quality appears to be exemplary, far higher than we've seen with Chinese-built kit so far - probably because most of the components are sourced elsewhere.

The mains transformer, for instance, is an enormous double C-core type that's hand-wound using grain-oriented silicon steel; this accounts for maybe 40 per cent of the mass. The existence of choke-regulation transformers explains another 10 per cent, and the rest is more or less accounted for by the 6mm-thick aluminium case and copper inner case.