I-880

Why it is renowned

The British magazine hi-fi+ reviewed the I-880 in November 2024 as the first of Aavik's 880 line, the model that set the style and construction for the rest of the series.¹ It is known for staying in Class A up to 200 watts a channel while running far cooler than conventional Class A designs.¹² The German magazine Fidelity names it as Aavik's flagship.³

The story

Michael Børresen, Aavik's head of engineering, brought in Flemming Erik Rasmussen, the designer behind Gryphon, to shape the case.¹² The chassis is mostly 5 mm copper, chosen because output transistors mounted on copper give a lower output impedance; the volume dial is titanium, and the base is a sandwich of copper, compact laminate and titanium.¹² It weighs 36 kg.¹

A circuit keeps the bias 0.63 V above the current the output stage needs at every point in the cycle, so the amplifier stays in Class A without drawing unneeded power.² Four resonant-mode power supplies of 500 watts each sit beside the eight pairs of output transistors, each pair with its own capacitor bank.²¹ Volume is set by a light-dependent resistor, and an analog crossover with low-pass and high-pass outputs can feed a subwoofer.¹