The features on the Astin Trew AT2000 integrated amplifier are not of the old-school variety – there are still no tone controls – but are instead designed to make the amp rather more multiroom-friendly than most and to offer the iPod user something with which to engage.

For the MP3 crowd, there's a front-panel mini-jack input, as well as headphone sockets for full-size and 3.5mm jacks, something we've never seen before.

These are both connected to a dedicated headphone amplifier, which might come as a pleasant surprise to those used to the quality of an MP3 player's output.

Multiroom friendly

The back panel reveals a slew of socketry that's designed to make integration into a multiroom system easy, including inputs and outputs for cat 5 cables terminated in RJ45 plugs and an RS-232 port for control from a data bus.

Alternatively, there are inputs and outputs for remote control with a cabled system such as might be used where the amp is hidden out of sight. The manual suggests ways of combining AT2000s in multiroom set-ups and, where sound quality is the goal, encourages the use of balanced leads between amplifiers, which is unusual in such set-ups, but undoubtedly good advice.

That balanced input is one of five line inputs offered and sits alongside pre, line and subwoofer outputs. The last are a very rare feature in the stereo world, but a sensible one given the unpopularity of large speakers in the contemporary domestic environment!

Another input dubbed 'amp in' gives direct access to the power amp, bypassing volume, and therefore could be used to incorporate this amp into a home cinema system.

We mentioned that Astin Trew has a predilection for combining valves with transistors in its designs – the AT3500 CD player, for instance, has one in its output stage, and so, despite appearances, does this integrated.

It doesn't sit in the signal chain per se, but rather operates within the power supply for the power-amp section, supplying quiescent current to the MOSFET output devices. This is presumably why there's only a small difference between outputs into eight- and four-ohm loads.

Sound clarity

Although the valve plays only a small part in this circuit – the signal doesn't pass through it – there's something of a glass audio quality to the sound of this integrated.

It has the nimbleness and realism that we associate with good valve designs and, while it has more power than most vacuum-driven devices, it doesn't have the sense of power one associates with transistors.

This is something you either love or loathe, and fans of valve designs are very much in the latter camp. At Hi-Fi Choice we quite like a bit of grip in the bass, but accept that the musicality that's achieved without it is rather beguiling.

Natural precision

The AT2000 is a remarkably transparent amp in all important respects – it produces attractively open results and reflects the quality and nature of the incoming signal with a very natural and fluent precision.

There's no sense here of the sound being mechanical or etched; rather, instruments and voices are placed in the context in which they were recorded. So Peter Gabriel's voice has a lot of space around it and has a good sense of stereo solidity on the song Musical Box (from the Genesis album Nursery Cryme), while the double-bass-playing on frank Zappa's The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution is dirty and compressed. With that, however, you can appreciate the quality of playing and composition as well as you can with better recordings.