Product of The Year Award 2024 - StereoNET
Hi-Fi Choice "Recommended"
"A World Class Power Amplifier in a Smaller Package"
The Chord Electronics' BerTTi is a fully balanced 75-watt stereo power amplifier benefitting from the company's latest ULTIMA dual-feed-forward topology.
Extending the range of ULTIMA-technology Chord Electronics amplifiers, BerTTi makes full use of advanced error-correction technology which monitors and immediately corrects signals before the output stage for astonishing accuracy and unrivalled fidelity from a compact-chassis device.
Award-Winning Performance
The BerTTi won a StereoNET Product of The Year Award 2024 in the Power Amplifier category.
"There’s a vast range of power amplifiers on sale these days, many of which look big, brutal and butch. That’s not what the BerTTi is about. Rather, it’s a midi-sized, high end ‘desktop’ design purpose-made to match Chord’s superb TT2 DAC/preamp and M Scaler. Despite its relatively diminutive dimensions, it puts out a claimed 2x 75W RMS into 8 ohms, via a bespoke-designed Class AB MOSFET output stage – not Class D, as many would expect. It uses the company’s trick technology to eke out the best sound possible from this small package. The result is a great performer that takes up no more space than a large paperback book."
"Far Bigger and Weightier Than Its Size Might Suggest"
"A world class power amplifier, only in a smaller package," raves David Vivian in England's Hi-Fi Choice, which awarded BerTTi a top rating of Five Stars plus the magazine's coveted "Recommended" status. "The plain fact is if BerTTi represents the future, I’ve heard it, and it works wonders."
"BerTTi sounds far bigger and weightier than its size might suggest," reports Chris Ballie, HiFi Pig, January 26, 2024. "Musically, it was never less than enjoyable, and you would have to make compromises elsewhere to beat it, not least financially. I was impressed at how fast, uncluttered, and dynamic the music sounded, without any unwanted brightness or forwardness."
"It doesn’t require an awful lot of listening to reveal that BerTTi, frivolous model name notwithstanding, is a thrillingly capable and endlessly listenable device that makes an extremely sturdy case for costing what it does," notes Simon Lucas in Issue 228 of hi-fi+ magazine.
Small Size, Significant Muscles
BerTTi features both balanced and unbalanced inputs, high-quality gold-plated loudspeaker outputs, plus a 10 A IEC power inlet. Further features include two modified power supplies for increased performance, plus an additional auxiliary power rail for the front end, which provides extra voltage to drive the custom-made MOSFETs.
British-built, BerTTi brings the next-generation ULTIMA topology to the ground-breaking Table Top (TT) range. When combined with the resolving power of the award-winning Hugo TT 2 DAC/preamp, the duo offers new levels of sonic performance from a small system. The addition of the Hugo M Scaler upscaler, with the ability to upscale audio to 705.6 kHz, 16x CD’s native resolution, makes the three-box system truly class-leading.
ULTIMA Amp Technology
Chord's proprietary ULTIMA amplifier technology implements an advanced dual-feed-forward error-correction topology, incorporating Chord's own advanced concepts in ultra-high-frequency power supplies. It is capable of providing fast and powerful performance, with an extraordinarily high peak output current (the speed at which dynamic peaks can be delivered), bringing astonishing dynamics, timing accuracy and, as a result, unrivaled musicality. This technology is a key component in the tabletop BerTTi amp.