Onkyo Icon A-50

There are craftspeople and companies in high-end audio doing admirable work.

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Those at the cost-no-object end of the business are pushing performance limits and doing new and better things with new and better materials.

The ones I especially admire, though, are in the high-value end of the business, making extraordinary equipment at approachable prices. Their good ears and clever engineering chops are accessible to the Average Joe Audiophile, people like me, with ambitions of sonic nirvana but earthbound means.

The 1970s-style inflation cycle we've just lived through and now an uncertain tariff landscape to navigate make it harder to define “high value.” Everything costs considerably more than it did pre-COVID, including hi-fi equipment. The boundary between high-value and high-priced has shifted upward.

I don't define high value entirely on price. The sweet spot for me is superb sound quality and an ample set of features likely to be used by most buyers most of the time, built to last and backed by a reasonable warranty. I expect a high-value integrated amplifier to include a streamer/DAC under the hood. Adding a phono preamp indicates a good sense of the current audiophile consumer landscape. The DAC should include the usual digital inputs, and there should be at least a couple of analog inputs aside from a turntable so that legacy gear like a radio tuner, SACD player, or tape deck—or a preferred external phono preamp—can be connected. Since few of us listen to music in an exquisitely tuned anechoic chamber, well-designed tone controls are useful. Good fit and finish and eye-appealing design cues are expected.

Is this asking too much? In the case of the Onkyo Icon A-50 streaming integrated amplifier, the answer is no.

From the reborn Onkyo, a high-value proposition