Electronics

Features

  • All circuits Directly Heated Triode (DHT)
  • Fully Balanced 
  • Transformer coupled 
  • No capacitors in the signal path 
  • No local or global Negative Feedback (NFB)
  • All point to point using high grade wire (Dueland) 

On the DHT Front... 

Our electronics use precision regulation where other folks in the ultra high end use fairly complex passive filtering (not regulation), and that's a legitimate approach too. We use active regulation with extremely high noise rejection, 130dB. Yes, our regulators use feedback, but the audio path does not.

Fully Balanced Done Right... 

We may be unique in using entirely passive phase-splitting, which gets rid of the "push-pull sound" many single-ended enthusiasts complain about. Vacuum tube phase splitters definitely have a sound, and our circuit is free of that coloration.
The balanced approach we take gets rid of tube coloration and noise by about 30 to 35 dB, or a 30:1 to 50:1 ratio, and does so without any local or global feedback. The cancellation is inherent to the circuit itself. Perhaps more unusual, the balance is re-created at every stage, so a small residual imbalance is never passed on to the following stage. We might be unique in taking this approach.

The preamp is a minimalist low-distortion low-level amplifier, and like the power amps, is fully balanced throughout, and uses passive phase-splitting at the input and recombining at the output. This assures any minor imbalance in the amplifying triodes, whether DC or AC, is never passed to the output, under any condition, including failure modes. The preamp can *never* pass DC to the power amps, no matter what. The only thing it amplifies is the audio signal, never DC, nor RFI interference from cables or ambient signals.
That is why it sounds so clean and direct. There's no feedback cleaning up afterward, instead the amplifier itself is inherently low distortion. The only thing you hear is the sound of the tubes themselves.