Chord Electronics Alto Review

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The Alto delivers a clean, precise and highly resolved low end. It has a good body, but above all the bass density is what stands out. Alto has a tight sub-bass, superb dynamics and wonderful grip in the bottom end of the frequency spectrum. Bass has great impact and thunder, especially kickdrums come delivered with intensity and authority.

Alto’s bass has superb texture and hyper detailed resolution. Each string pluck has great body and accuracy in its image. Mid and upper bass have good body and an organic, yet neutral sound to them. Richness could probably step up a bit to sound a little lusher, as the Alto has a cleaner and dryer sound overall.

The bass line on Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal for example has good body, dynamics and sounds very precise with a drier character to them. The Alto here convinces with super precision but might lack a little flesh to give this piece some extra richness.

In America’s A Horse with No Name the bass guitar has superb body and comes across with an organic sound. It is of the highest precision and generally sounds beautifully natural.

If we quickly switch gears into an electronic piece of music like Kollektiv Turmstraße’s Deine Distanz the Alto sounds excellent in dynamics, drive and body. It has a very precise low-end and top-level resolution. In this track, richness doesn’t play a key role to me and the Alto convinces on all ends.

The midrange of the Alto is relatively uncolored and neutral. Mids have superb body, texture and a natural sound to them. There are great emotions and some faint warmth in each instrument and especially vocals, which gives the Alto a wonderful performance.

Instruments sound life-like with excellent precision and air. Alto produces a midrange that is big in size but not thick and heavy in terms of weight. It delivers a grand presence but with great levels of air in the instruments and singers.

It is especially the emotional presence that makes Alto’s delivery a wonderful experience. Both male and female singers have great richness and emotions to let them connect easily to you. Vocals like Dave Gahan’s (Depeche Mode), Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) or Nina Simone, Madonna and Björk all sound really special to my ears.

Acoustic instruments have beautiful richness and texture to them. The keywords here are precision, resolution and emotions. The entire midrange is oozing of details and slight warmth.

A Horse with No Name is again a wonderful example here. The guitars and vocals just sound lush and highly enjoyable. Another good track would be Girls & Boys (Live at Union Chapel). All instruments, keys, strings, guitars etc sound natural and organic. Damon Albarn’s is reproduced with emotions and precision. On top of that, the instrumental separation and layering on this track are superb!

On a technical level the Alto is an overachiever in my opinion. It delivers heaps of resolution and especially creates a carefully constructed sound stage with enough air between the instruments to move freely. Imaging and instrumental separation are just off the charts for me.

The Alto delivers a three-dimensional soundscape with immaculate precision and positioning. It sets spatial cues with care and delivers them to be pinpointed with ease.

For example, on Röyksopp’s Röyksopp Forever the track builds up with time and adds instrument after instrument. The Alto never leaves the impression of a compressed sound with hazy separation at all. Au contraire. It brings out the finest of nuances and places each instrument and tone with hyper precision.

The treble of Alto is well extended and stretches well into the top registers. It does so with a neutral to rich sound, where highs have very good levels of saturation. Alto’s treble has good precision and agility, it features nice energy but never comes on the edge of harshness and sibilance.

Higher pitched instruments and sounds all have good clarity and glow. Some might perceive them as a touch bright in intensity, but to me they never become uncomfortable or piercing. Cymbal crashes, hi-hat hits and higher string or key instruments all have top naturalism and a full and organic sound.

In Kishi Bashi’s Manchester, the violins are portrayed with impressive resolution and precision. They sound crisp, detailed and soft. The Alto never leaves the impression of a dry or overly bright tuning to my ears.

On The Yabba by Battles the hi-hat hits are delivered with accuracy, energy and sharpness. They sound agile, fast and pristine without becoming hot or too hard-edged.

Comparisons

I cannot give many comparisons to the Alto unfortunately, as my arsenal of amps is strictly limited by my living space and arrangements. I cannot horde too many amplifiers (or speakers for that matter) in my place, as I am sharing it with others and space is an issue in a big city flat.

Anyway, I will compare the Chord Electronics Alto amplifier to another amp by PS Audio, even if it is a power amplifier in contrast to the Alto’s integrated design. I am hoping this comparison will give you more insight on how the Alto sounds to me.

I used my KEF R3 Meta, volume matched, for this comparison.

PS Audio S300

The S300 is a Class D power amplifier with a Class A input stage. It delivers 300 Watts power into four Ohms, so six times the output of Alto. The S300 lacks volume control and headphone output. It is strictly for passive speakers. Being a power amplifier, it needs either a DAC/Amp or pre-amplifier in front of it.

In terms of sound performance, these two deliver different results. The S300 has a fuller and warmer signature, especially in the upper bass and lower midrange. Here the Alto has a more neutral approach.

Bass on the Alto is tighter and has more grip compared to the bigger and fuller S300. Alto sounds cleaner and more polished than the S300 to me. The Chord also delivers slightly higher resolution and finer rendered texture in the low-end than the PS Audio power amplifier.

In the midrange the PS Audio S300 is warmer and fuller, compared to the hyper precise Alto. The Chord Alto has again higher resolution and a more refined picture. Whereas the S300 has a smoother and more organic sound in comparison. Emotions are a little higher on the Alto to me. On pure flesh, the S300 wins to me.

Both amplifiers deliver wall to wall soundstages and excellent imaging and resolution. But I feel that the Alto did marginally edge out the S300 when it comes to layering and instrumental positioning in depth. It paints a slightly more precise picture on the Z-axis and provides more air between the individual layers.

In the treble the Alto is slightly brighter tuned than the S300. It delivers more air into the rest of the spectrum. The S300 sounds a tad tamer but fuller to me than the Alto. The Chord has more energy and sparkle, but the S300 is more accessible for sensitive ears.

The S300’s biggest advantage over the Alto is probably the flexibility when it comes to speaker matchmaking. My Radiant Acoustics Clarity 6.2 was absolutely no problem for the S300 for example.

Conclusion

I am a big fan of Chord Electronics’ gear. The Hugo TT2 is still my most cherished audio product after four plus years with it and replacing it is completely out of the question for me. With the Alto Chord created an almost equally impressive amplifier. 

The Alto produces an almost uncolored signature with key strengths in stereo imaging and sound stage construction. The levels of details and resolution are outstanding. Though some might miss extra flesh on the bones, the Alto provides a sonic performance that’s hard to pass on for me.

The biggest drawback is probably its limited power for loudspeakers. Though most stand-mounts should be fine with the Alto providing the juice it can become a complexity for picky speakers that require a higher Wattage. However, the pairing with the KEF R3 Meta or DALI Rubikore 2 is absolutely fantastic to my ears! 

Together with the Hugo TT2 the Alto builds an exceptional team for both headphone and speaker sessions in my apartment. The power it delivers through its headphone outputs is insane and should be more than plenty for any headphone in today’s market.

Summary

Pros:

Clean sound
Immense resolution
Wall to wall sound stage
Versatility
Build quality
Extremely powerful headphone amplifier
Design

Cons:

Usability might be counter-intuitive for some
Price