Elex MK4

The Elex MK4 is the first Rega amplifier in the full-width case, and that is not styling — it is room for a bigger transformer and a heavier power supply. Seventy-two watts per channel into 8 ohms, 90 into 6, from the class A/B circuit Rega has refined for decades, with discrete circuitry, polypropylene capacitors and Sanken output transistors throughout. It carries the Rega DAC with two digital inputs, four line inputs, the moving-magnet phono stage, a headphone output on the front and both record-out and pre-out on the back. At eleven kilos it will drive loudspeakers the Brio would strain against. This is the rung where a Rega amplifier stops being an entry product and becomes the one you keep.