Fell Audio Amp Review | Trusted Reviews

Introduction

Even if we allow for the fact that most hi-fi brands do not really have much in the way of household recognition, Fell Audio is still going to be one that few people have heard of.

There are sound reasons for that though. It’s nothing less than a brand new company that has been created to build products for UK retailer Peter Tyson. Both the Amp and the other members of the family make use of the enormous amount of experience they have selling audio to design a product that is intended to be at the top of the tree.

As such, while you might not have heard of the company, there is a decent chance that Fell Audio is going to make products that appeal to a healthy spread of people. The timing of their arrival is not accidental either. After being a bit of a forgotten price segment for a few years, affordable audio is something that is seeing new product arrive and real effort being expended on it. The Fell Amp arrives in a category that suddenly has a bit going on in it.

Don’t think that this is a bit of by the numbers triangulation either. The Fell Amp is designed to be competitive in the affordable category and the specification has been created with this in mind, this doesn’t prevent it doing some things in a manner that are different to the bulk of the competition. Does this combination of careful competitor analysis and out of the box thinking make for a must have product?

Availability

The Fell Amp exists to be sold by Peter Tyson without them having to compete with other retailers on price. To this end, the Fell Amp is available exclusively from Peter Tyson for £599.

As well as two physical stores, Peter Tyson is one of the major online hifi retailers in the UK so don’t worry if Carlisle is a bit of a trip for you. At the moment, the Fell amp is not being sold in the USA or Australia but it does look like there are some efforts to locate a distributor who might be able to get these sales up and running.

There is a deal to be done though. At the time of writing (mid-January 2025), if you are shopping for both a Fell Amp and the matching Disc CD player (which I will be reviewing shortly too), you can have them as a bundle, saving you £100 over buying them separately.

Design

• Metal casework
• Designed to be unintimidating although the volume is annoying
• Retro without being retro

Extract the Fell Amp from its packaging; something that is itself a pleasurable experience thanks to Fell Audio working hard to use recyclable materials throughout, and you should be impressed at how it feels.

The bulk of the casework is metal and it has been bolted together with genuine care and attention to detail. The front panel is the only section that isn’t metal on the Fell Amp but this is in order to give it a high gloss finish and while this was no fun at all to take pictures of, it does look complement the metal sections well.

Something that Fell has worked hard to do is make their products feel logical and intuitive to use and the Amp is unlikely to be an alarming device to get your head around even if it is your first foray into separate hi-fi. Each input can be selected from a dedicated button on the front panel that clearly explains what it does. You might be irked that the phono input is labelled ‘Vinyl’ but it does mean that everyone will know what it is for.

I’m less keen on the volume control though. This uses a rotary encoder and it’s pleasingly linear in how it adds and sheds gain but it mutes each time the amp is switched back on.

This is theoretically a useful safety feature but something that has happened, more than once, is that I’ve started the amp, got a source playing, not had any sound, changed the input, remembered there is no volume at start-up, raised the volume before returning to the correct source and it being a bit on the loud side.  I never have less than two amps running at any time though and I imagine if it is the only amp you own, I daresay you’ll dial into it a bit faster.

I really like how the Fell Amp looks though. What I think is very clever is that, if you like me are increasingly old, there are plenty of little loving homages to products from years ago in the styling but, if you don’t care about any of this, the result looks smart and distinctive. If you do go for the amp and the matching Stream, the result looks very handsome indeed but the Fell will also sit happily with plenty of other devices too. The build and finish is very good for the price as well.

Specification

• 49 watt class D amp
• MM Phono and three line inputs
• Digital board… but no USB
• Headphone and speaker out.

A key area where the Fell Amp differs from many rivals is the amplifier. It is a Class D type device and it produces 49 watts into 8 Ohms which rises to 79 watts into 4. Fell has partnered it with a toroidal transformer power supply rather than the more usual switched mode, and there is a healthy quotient of smoothing caps in there too. It’s not enormously powerful but it should be enough for most similarly priced speakers.

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; the one selected by the ‘Vinyl’ button on the front panel. There are rivals that have more inputs than this but it should be enough for most needs – including connecting a Fell Disc, the upcoming Fell Stream streamer, a turntable and still having an input spare.

You also get a digital board. that offers up an optical and coaxial input with support from a Bluetooth module based on the v5.0 platform. Decoding is via an ESS 9018K2M DAC equipped with its own power supply arrangements for best performance. In a perfect world, there would be the option of USB or even HDMI ARC (both of which can be found on rivals at or below the price point) but it is a useful selection of extra inputs that ensures you can get a TV talking to your Fell Amp and have it talk to your phone.

These inputs are made available to a single set of speaker outputs on a reasonably sturdy set of speaker terminals and a 6.35mm headphone socket. This completes the idea of sufficiency that Fell Audio seems to have worked on with the entire design. Would a second set of outputs or a Bluetooth transmitter for wireless headphones be nice? Sure it would but what you have here is more than sufficient to get you up and running.

Performance

• Has a character all of its own
• Very consistent across analogue and digital inputs
• Bluetooth is average but phono stage is exceptional

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 days of a Class D amp having a defined sound has long gone. Instead, a tonally ‘dark’ amplifier in a tradition of a number of British brands. Listening to W.H Lung’s Every Inch of Earth Pulsates it is controlled and refined but has a potency and energy to the performance that encourages to you to pay attention and get involved in the performance. This tonal balance also helps to give the bass a little more emphasis than some rivals even if there isn’t actually more bass on offer.

The tonal realism and refinement on offer is extremely good too. I listened to the magnificent Dark Side of the Mule by Gov’t Mule via the Fell Amp and the collection of Pink Floyd covers, being performed by a band that still actually enjoys performing and the Fell does a fantastic job of bringing some life and vitality to the voices and instruments.

There are rivals at the price that can find a little more detail and space around the performance but the Fell does a brilliant job of making a live performance feel live. Some tests with the headphone socket, show its good enough to achieve the same sort of results via cans as well. 

This ability is extremely consistent across the analogue and digital inputs as well. I made use of a Bluesound Node Nano as a comparatively price streaming source and connected it via both analogue and coaxial outs. The presentation of the Fell was extremely consistent across both the connections.

The digital board is both usefully transparent and dialled into how the rest of the amp sounds to deliver a performance that is every bit as enjoyable as the analogue inputs. Slightly awkwardly for Fell, it does mean that something very cost effective like a WiiM Mini connected to the optical input would be all the streamer they might ever need.

Not every part of the digital board is quite so talented though. The Bluetooth connection is mechanically perfectly respectable; it connects easily and maintains a connection at a very respectable range and reconnects quickly and uncomplainingly but sonically it’s a little lacking.

When tested with my Oppo Find X5 Pro, I found that Spotify sounded perfectly OK but some of the extra bitrate and stream quality that should have been present with Qobuz wasn’t there. As a convenience feature, the Bluetooth connection is fine but there are amps at the price that can achieve more.

The phono stage on the other hand is excellent. I mainly used it with a Rega Planar 3 RS turntable and found result was excellent. All the basics are handled well. Noise levels are low and most owners should have plenty of gain. Without unsettling the pleasing balance of the Amp as a whole, the phono input is pleasingly energetic and able to capture the character of the turntable that is connected to it.

Listening to Kessoncoda’s Outerstate (perhaps my favourite album of last year) the Fell isn’t ‘good for the phono stage on a £600 amp, it’s just plain good. While there is likely to be a spare input for an external phono stage, the one you get is more than good enough for most owners.

Should you buy it?