Before auditioning the ST-140, I had been using a recently upgraded (to a Series II) Threshold Stasis S/500 power amplifier, having just returned our Electron Kinetics Eagle 7A (my favorite solid-state amp to date) for modernization. We'll have followups on both of these in a future issue, but suffice it to say that the Threshold now leads the solid-state field, with (among other things) the smoothest, sweetest, most open high end I have yet heard from any non-tube amplifier. When I disconnected the Threshold to try out the B&K, I expected the difference to be laughable, but much to my surprise it wasn't! Amazingly, here was a $395 70Wpc amplifier that could hold its own against the best I have heard! This amp is detailed, beautifully sweet and airy at the top, capable of reproducing remarkable depth and spread, and all that with a truly authoritative low end that can compete with the best. Of course, it doesn't deliver the beef that a 200-watter can. Those last vestiges of control and impact at the extreme bottom are missing, it can't make most speakers shake the walls the way a truly high-powered amplifier can, and it tends to exacerbate acoustic feedback through the LP player more than does a very high--powered amp when the system is played at very high levels. But if 70 watts looks puny on paper, it sure doesn't sound puny from this amplifier! That dynamic headroom factor, perhaps? Its high end sounds more naturally balanced through good dynamic systems than through electrostatics, but it is one of the growing number of amplifiers that are quite tolerable on either kind of system. In short, if this had cost $550 it would have gotten a very favorab1e review. At $395, the B&K ST-140 is the amplifier of choice for the perfectionist on a tightish budget. It's a veritable triumph of design, and perhaps the most cost-effective amplifier I know of.—J. Gordon Holt