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Black boxing and valve rolling: I started to wonder whether the minor depth limitations with grand orchestral tied to bass. After all, low notes in a huge concert acoustics are quite different from recording studio bass. A bit of add-on LF support seemed called for. That's exactly why the Black Box exists. The owner’s manual puts it like this: "With challenging quality speakers, the stabilizing action of the Black Box will bring clear sonic advances. The image settles, flow deepens, individual sound bodies gain dimensionality and stage depth increases."


This pretty much requires no additional comments. It captures the benefits exactly. Technically, the Black Box adds power supply capacitance to increase current delivery and stabilization when faced with large voltage swings.  Apparently my Geithain speakers were thirstier than expected. Even so and massed symphonies excepted, I could readily do without the Black Box. "With" primarily benefits the low end which gets a tad leaner but tauter and more defined. I left the BB leashed up and worked my way enthusiastically through a quite varied programme, finding nothing to musically complain about. Things simply sounded really really good and caused excitement over the music rather than machine. I don’t know of a higher compliment for any amp that's so tuned for neutrality.

To do the expected writerly bit, the V40SE reminded be a bit of the old gentry amongst the professors I encountered during my Germanic studies – those who’d always show up in proper suits, maintained correct gracious decorum and insisted on being addressed as Herr Professor: "You’ll have to make that time." During exams, they’d suddenly ask you for Goethe’s birthday since this was expected knowledge for any Germanicist. Their lectures were titled "Letter exchanges between Goethe and Schiller" or "The wanderer motif in the novels of Wilhelm Raabe".


I was fascinated by the enthusiasm these old gents had for the potentially musty and studious subject matter. They analyzed it to the bone while passionately interpreting the various layers of meaning. Their presentations were far more involving and exciting than those of the more casual younger profs. While they were on Du basis with us students, held seminars on "Computer-assisted interpretations of detective novels" and passed exams on the mere mention of Karl Marx, they rarely stimulated any excitement.

But I digress. The Black Box is surely a viable option for more difficult speakers but far from mandatory once the wallet has recovered. I’d do without it just fine. Still, it’s good to know that a change in speakers or musical tastes won’t necessarily require a new amp. Another tuning option is tube rolling. Due to its enlarged bias current window, the SE can run not only with EL34, 6CA7, 6L6, KT66, KT77 or 5881 but also the higher-current 6550, KT88, KT90 or KT100. The electronically controlled bias current adjustments are child’s play so I tried out the dispatched set of KT88.


These fatter bottles looked mightier than the slimmer EL34 and I somehow expected that they’d also sound that way. This naturally begs the question what ‘mightier’ is supposed to imply. If it suggests more powerful but less refined, it doesn’t fit here. The sound actually goes softer but not as a function of less force. Au contraire. This softness isn’t limpness but relaxation bolstered on reserves. It becomes most obvious not during loud passages but in the small details. I noticed this change very much with voices. Lucinda William’s World Without Tears pressed the point between KT88 and EL34.

Where the latter still focused on the quality of individual instruments and good dimensionality, the KT88 bypassed such concerns and went straight for the voice while the rest was simply there, present but in the background. On music that didn’t include foreground voices, I preferred the tauter reading of the EL34. Perhaps the V40SE becomes a tad more of a ‘valve charmer’ with the KT88 though without buying greatly into related liabilities. It’s rather more subtle than invoking any trivial polarities.


Conclusion: How best to summarize a machine like Octave’s V40SE? As valve machine for people who never dared to consider valves before because this amp is robust and comprehensively protected? Because it doesn’t sound like tubes but very neutral, very fast and resolved and simply happens to accomplish all that with tubes?


Assets are
  • A very simple reliable user interface
  • First-class workmanship
  • That the external power supply upgrade of Black Box or alternate power tube types are ‘possibles’ but not a ‘must’
  • That tube rolling is utterly uncomplicated but potentially very exciting
… and particularly sonics:
  • Tonally the V40SE is neutral bordering on self denial. Forget tubular color charts. This neutrality distinguishes between recordings rather than editorializes them to all sound the same.
  • Bass lacks some pressure to seem a tad polite. Regardless, transients are well defined and double bass has volume and body.
  • This amp is very fast and dynamic but lacks all possible related tendencies to hardness or aggression.
  • The optional Black Box tightens up the bass and improves recorded ambience in large acoustics. 
  • This amp is perfectly prepped for valve rollers. KT88s for example increase warmth and elasticity and voices become more seductive.
Facts:
  • Category: Tube integrated
  • Price: €3.700 stock, Black Box adds €770, KT88 instead of EL34 tube set adds €340
  • Dimensions and weight: 410 × 150 × 415mm (W×H×D), 18 kg
  • Trim: Black or silver
  • Connections: 5 x RCA inputs, 1 x variable buffered pre-out, 1 x rec out, single-wire posts
  • Power consumption: 400 watts max, 130 watts normal operation, 20 watts Ecomode
  • Other: Bypass function, Ecomode, adjustable bias for each power tube, umbilical socket for optional power supply capacitor bank
  • Warranty: 3 years
  • Website

redaktion @ fairaudio.de
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