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Still on the main campus and close to Schlup's quarters was Nagra Audio's second audition room, something my factory tour didn't cover the first time around.


Dating back to the days when industry pundits proclaimed with absolute certainty that no high-end audio firm could possibly survive without a presence in home theater, this room was designed as a private cinema with six terraced actual Swissair 1st class seats which were refurbished to tilt like they do in an airplane.


The resident speakers were naturally Nagra's own, albeit not in production but one-upped for this application. A look at their backsides demonstrated what Schlup casually called "a crossover for grownups".


Few will know that Nagra in those days had their own multi-channel processor which was aborted in the 11th hour.


'twas a multi-channel format company which killed the project. Having worked religiously with the Dolby/dTS CD/ROM of certification requirement specs, Schlup was still visibly flustered to recall that Nagra had dispatched a sample for formal certification only to have it rejected. As was subsequently learnt, Nagra was sent an out-of-date CD/ROM when the project began. Afterwards nobody bothered to submit revised actual specifications to their soon-to-be licensee for a successful conclusion. As the Swiss learned, the revisions required to conform to the new specs would have meant a complete product redesign. Schlup pulled the plug instead.


At the time of my visit, he was engaged in a small tussle with Apple. Keen to assess whether tapping an iPod's digital signal held any sonic potential for a future Nagra product, Schlup was ill-prepared for the 50-page contract he got in response. He wasn't ready to apply for Apple certification. He wanted to first test whether Apple's authentication chip could perform to his standards. Would he stomach the considerable red tape to make that assessment? The future might tell.


This and the home-theater interlude illustrate an ongoing disconnect between big corporate entertainment industries and smaller high-end audio firms. The latter can never catch up with the furious pace at which formats and software protocols change. This is especially true of PC audio and so-called music servers. Audio companies with products committed to maintaining perpetual electronic handshakes with computers must vigilantly respond to emerging incompatibilities with code patches, firmware updates or circuit redesigns. Nagra expects its products to remain in the market for decades. That makes the PC interface proposition a daunting prospect. Nonetheless an eventual Nagra music server concept is being entertained.


We'll now enter the audio production area. A sign advises anyone entering to protect their shoes in the anti static slippers available right behind the door. Employees working here must also wear anti static wrist bands.


Here is Nagra's in-house transformer winding center. Old lion Siegfried was supposed to retire shortly after I met him a year ago. Now he really had only had a few more weeks before his replacement could fly solo.


Had Siegfried taught him everything in the intervening year? "Probably not. But he can always call me if he needs help. I'll be happy to come to the factory to explain something in person."


Here is the 31-wire power toroid for the 300 amps. It is wound by hand, takes approximately five man hours to complete and there's only one gent at Nagra now who knows how to do it. Subcontractors, Schlup found, simply aren't up to the task.


The tool used for hand winding a transformer looks very much like a weaving loom's shuttle.


Here is Siegfried's protégé/apprentice Adel with a 300 mains transformer.


This is how the mains transformer installs.
 

Now we're at a screen shot of the very complex 300 transfo de sortie.


Its specifics are Nagra's intellectual property of course so I intentionally blurred out certain details of the schematic while still showing enough to communicate its complexity.


When asked why he didn't specify a more expected double C-core unit—my single-ended Yamamoto A-09s is the only other commercial 300B amp I know of to run a toroid OPT—Schlup explained that unlike Nagra, most audio designers lack the experience and skill to design proper toroidal transformers. "They prefer EI or C cores by habit. There's nothing inherently superior in those. We have worked with this type of toroid since 1975. We know how to do it properly." [Below is the prototype from a year ago. It shows the double-decker output transformer stack above deck.]