Fell Audio Amp and Disc Review (2025)

Fell Audio Amp and Disc Review

The Fell units are a welcome new arrival at the price point. They're technically interesting and beautifully realised pair of affordable Hi-Fi units that bring a combination of well judged functionality and genuinely enjoyable performance to the table. There are quirks and no shortage of rivals but these are components that demand an audition.

The Fell Audio Amp and Disc are an affordable duo of UK made separates that represent the opening offering from a company that has been created to give UK retailer Peter Tyson an exclusive range of products. Going to the effort of building a complete range of components from scratch is no small undertaking (the more traditional approach is sidle off to a tradeshow and find something unique to import so Peter Tyson can hardly be accused of half measures here) and what’s more, as we shall cover, the Fells owe very little to anything else on the market.

That market is suddenly starting to look a good deal more interesting though. What was for a number of years, a quiet backwater that saw products come and go at a glacial rate is now being contested by enough companies to ensure that you have an actual meaningful choice of amplifiers at this sort of price now. The decision to make a CD player isn’t quite as random as it might first appear either. CD is a format whose best years are realistically behind it but when those ‘best years’ included almost total domination of recorded music sales, there is a long way to fall.

The omens are good for these two boxes to be rather good but turning omens into reality is not without its challenges. Can the Fells go from a standing start to credible market contenders? Is their spec exactly what you need? Will I stop asking questions and get on with the review? The answer to the last one is ‘yes- eventually’ and we should get on with answering the other bits.

The Fell Amp is by far the most interesting of the two devices (this is no intended slight on the Fell Disc but building a functional CD player in 2024 is a challenge in itself and making an interesting one is realistically the preserve of rather larger budgets than this). It combines a specification that accurately reflects what seems to be wanted in an integrated amp with some design decisions that are different to a number of key rivals.

Chief among these is that the Fell Amp is a Class D device and what’s more, it’s not a ‘class D on the quiet’ thing where you need to find size 0.3 text in the manual to confirm it. It’s there on the website. The module is from STMicroelectronics and it produces 49 watts into 8 ohms which rises to 79 watts into 4. These aren’t the sort of numbers you can weld with but they are completely in keeping with the competition.

Importantly, the Fell is not simply a module in a box. Testing with a variety of power supplies revealed that the Fell team much preferred the performance of a toroid over a switch mode type and this is combined with a set of smoothing caps for an amplifier section that is specific to this amp rather than something off the peg.

This amplifier section is made available to a useful selection of inputs. The ‘trad’ side is three line inputs on an RCA connection and a moving magnet phono stage. This is supported by a digital board that offers up an optical and coaxial input with support from a Bluetooth module based on a v5.0 platform. Decoding is handled via an ESS 9018K2M DAC and this has its own power supply arrangements with a view to extracting the best performance possible. The argument over what other connections the Fell Amp ‘should’ have could go on for a while depending on your particular hobby horse but this should be sufficient for most needs.

The Fell Disc is entirely straightforward. It plays CD, CD-R and CD-RW discs via a slot loading mech and uses another ESS 9018K2M to decode the information on the disc. This is made available to a set of RCA outputs and the digital stream is available via optical and coaxial outs. Another toroid is fitted for power delivery and, while it’s pretty simple inside (like all affordable CD players in fairness), it’s well laid out and there are some decent enough components in there. At a point where the number of CD players available to choose from is rather lower than it once was, the Fell CD does the all important thing of looking like a solid choice for people who might be looking for a replacement for an existing CD player rather than a matching set of amp and CD.

Both the Amp and CD make use of the same casework and I was interested to see how much this divided opinion when the news story was published. I personally feel that Fell Audio has played a bit of a blinder with these units. They manage to subconsciously remind you of a few differing devices from history but they do it without themselves being overtly retro. Nothing on them is ‘old’, they simply have cues that remind you of devices that have gone before. What I think is no less important is that you could take one of the two units and park it with something else without the result being jarring. This effect is only enhanced by the availability of a silver version as well.

So they’re perfect then? Well… no. The two units avoid an obvious pitfall in that their sensor based buttons work very nicely; actually making some rather more expensive devices look a bit half arsed by comparison. I’m less keen on the fact that the amp starts at a zero volume setting each time it is powered on though. I get it has safety potential - nobody enjoys starting a system at last night’s volume level when you’re physically dealing with the self inflicted effects of last night too - but it’s easy to forget that this is the case, change input, thenwind the volume on, then remember what is going on, return to the correct input and deafen yourself anyway.

Against the way that the Fells are built and feel though, I don’t think these are deal breakers. The standard of build and finish is excellent for the asking price and attention to detail is very impressive. The plastic free packaging works well and never feels like a compromise and the effect actually helps the two units to feel more distinctive and, with that, special. The supplied remote handset is not a thing of beauty but it works well and every other aspect of day to day use has felt entirely in keeping with the competition from companies who have been doing this rather longer than Fell has.

They manage to subconsciously remind you of a few differing devices from history but they do it without themselves being overtly retro

The Fells arrived as a duo and for the most part have been tested together too. A Bluesound Node Nano has been employed to give me access to my streaming library and this has been connected over RCA and via coax to test the amplifier’s decoding. A Rega Planar 3 RS turntable was used to test the phono stage. An Oppo Find X5 Pro Android phone has been connected via Bluetooth as well. Speakers used have been the Q Acoustics 5020 with a short stint using the Neat Petite Classic. Test material has been FLAC, AIFF, Tidal, Qobuz, CD and vinyl.

This is becoming something of a self fulfilling prophecy but, sit down and listen to the Fell Amp; it doesn’t matter which source, just so long as you’re listening and there’s nothing that identifies it as Class D or indeed Class AB for that matter. The Fell Amp has traits that are a world away from anything that might once have been seen as Class D but, no less intriguingly, it has traits that are significantly different to many similarly priced rivals too.

This is, for want of a slightly better term, a tonally ‘dark’ amplifier Listening to Christine and the Queens Chaleur Humane, it exhibits a top end that is wonderfully controlled and refined. Without sounding dull or lacking in detail, the Fell is exceptionally hard to provoke into sounding bright or forward. It’s a presentation that is at times uncannily similar to some Naim hardware from around a decade ago and that’s quite the complement coming from me. What’s quite clever about this is that it flatters the perceived bass response of the Amp as well. The Fell Amp doesn’t realistically have more bass available than a Mission 778X but it can sometimes have you feel that it does.

This is further boosted by the Amp having a very commendable sense of rhythm and drive to it. The Fell is able to hammer through The Beginning of the End by The Courteeners with a genuine sense of energy to it. It matches the Rotel A8 for the simple ability to get the head nodding and you actively engaged with what you are hearing. Where the Rotel finds a little more detail in material, the Fell is a larger and more enveloping sound that can stay more forgiving with poorer recordings for longer. There is also no shortage of headroom. Even running the Neat Petite Classic which is both rather pricier and relatively demanding, didn’t see the Fell Amp struggle and more comparatively priced speakers aren’t likely to be an issue.

These qualities are extremely consistent across the various inputs too. The Fell Amp’s digital inputs retain this same character and does suggest that the catch all solution of ‘bolting a Wiim on it’ would be entirely effective here too. The optical input would be more than up to a spot of TV use and I’ve found the Bluetooth connection to be entirely listenable too. You can argue than an extra optical connection might have been handy; I’d have happily sacrificed one of the line inputs for one in use cases I can think of, but the inputs you do get work extremely well.

The phono stage is also more than listenable. I would say that the Mission 778X retains its position as the best of the amps at the price; its JFET based design is leveraged in being available across a lot of devices which gives it formidable economies of scale that the Fell cannot match. Even so, playing Sweat’s Who Do They Think They Are? via the Rega is an engaging and satisfying musical experience. Would an iFi ZEN Phono Mk3 boost things further? Of course but the Fell is more than up to the job of handling a similarly priced turntable.

The weakness of the Fell Amp, such as it is, is the headphone amp. It’s up to the job of occasional use but, even with the easy to drive and exceptionally enjoyable Focal Hadenys, it feels a bit leaden and lacking some of the agility of the speaker outputs. Both Rega and Mission do a better job in this specific area but there are trade offs to be made elsewhere.

In some ways though, it’s the Fell Disc that has been more of a surprise in the time it’s been here. The digital board is very clearly closely related to the Fell Amp but its performance as a standalone device is genuinely engaging. So many integrated amps have digital inputs now that affordable transports will make more sense for many people who still want optical disc but, listening to the Fell CD does serve as reminder that you can get superb performance from the format in a one box unit and, if you do have an analogue only integrated amplifier, the level of performance on offer here is very good.

Something else that is worth noting is that, while I take on board (and don’t entirely disagree with) some of the comments from the news story about inhaler type mechs, the one in use here is a rather good one. It’s quiet; even with your head jammed up against the casework it’s basically inaudible and it loads the TOC quickly and reliably, even with discs that spent some of the early years of this century surfing the footwell of my car. The result feels like a quality - and entirely bespoke - device.

The Fell Amp has traits that a world away from anything that might once have been seen as Class D but, no less intriguingly, it has traits that are significantly different to many similarly priced rivals too

Fell Audio Amp and Disc Review