Audio Research has spent fifty-five years synonymous with the finest in high-performance audio, and this year marks a genuine homecoming. Alongside the largest product launch in the company's history, Audio Research is reintroducing the kind of accessible, high-value electronics that first built its reputation, and the D-80 and LS-2 sit at the very heart of that return.
For those drawn to Audio Research but working with a smaller room rather than a smaller ambition, these two components matter enormously. The D-80 is a classically beautiful stereo power amplifier, built on the acclaimed Reference 80S platform and replacing the much-loved VT80SE, delivering 80 watts per channel from two pairs of KT150 output tubes in fully balanced differential Pentode mode, with auto bias for consistent performance.
Alongside it, the LS-2 is an exceptional tube preamplifier that strips the signal path back to essentials, a cathode follower design with no solid-state devices, running in pure Class-A without feedback.
At a genuinely accessible price for genuine high-end audio, together they offer a real, uncompromised way into the Audio Research family, handcrafted in Minnesota with exactly the same passion as the flagship line, and perfectly suited to a more modest space without ever sounding like one.