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For his $295/ea. Le Amp monoblocks, Barnes turned to Curt Wishman of IRD Audio [left] who seems intent on emulating the speaker-focussed nOrh-direct approach in the amp/preamp arena. |
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And in my candy-ass weak defense, that's of course not all I did. Hell, I assembled a smokin' system around nOrh's $995/pr SM6.9 speakers with, alternately, my $1,595 Cairn Fog V2.0 with volume control to avoid relying on my $2,395 Bel Canto PRe1 preamp; and my wife's $189 Best Buys Special Sony CD-changer, now with the BCD pre. (The upcoming JoLida JD-100 and Music Hall CD-25, priced far more in line with the amps, didn't arrive in time to be included.) But - to report on what oodles more money would purchase vis-à-vis the overachieving nOrh/IRD hunks, I had to go quite upscale. I had to draft into service the equally powerful Bel Canto eVo 200.4 in unbridged 2-channel-only mode and retreat into my reference-system cave with ruler and scale to square the circle. Verdict? You can't square that bloody circle, bubba. You can, however, get better. But it's gonna cost you. And - the gains will be a lot smaller than you'd wish. But first: For the full measure of spec'ology, see either the nOrh or IRD sites. The basic vitals are as follows: dimensions of 6.5" W x 7.0" H x 12.8" D; weight of 23 lbs; 26dB of gain; a rail voltage of 40V; 400 watts of power supply with 35A bridge rectifier and 20,000uF reservoir capacitors, i.e. what its maker claims is "five times the size of a normal 100-watt consumer grade amplifier's power supply"; instantaneous peak power of 160/240W Class A/B power into 8/4 ohms; flat frequency response of 7Hz to >100KHz; an 8mm thick machined aluminum front panel; solid aluminum machined feet with Butyl inners; stainless steel and black nickel finished hardware; a 2mm thick steel chassis; an easily removable top cover; detachable power cord; and the wake-me-I'm-dreaming price: $295 each. |
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Le Amp looks identical but sports a "Le Amp" silk screen instead of Curt's "MB-100". See what I mean about the IRD Audio logo? |
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Le Amp joins a small cadre of amps that include 47Labs and Jeff Rowland Design Group by using ICs for output devices. Wishman's chosen weapon isn't the 60-watt National chip legendary perfectionist Jeff Rowland used in parallel-bridged mode in the Concentra I, but the equivalent TDA7294 by French ST SGS-Thomson MicroElectronics that I understand may be used in the Concentra's current iteration. If I'm wrong, my sources tell me that the National and ST chips are as competitive as Burr-Brown and Crystal in the digital arena. |
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By clicking on the document to the left, you can download a 16-page PDF documenting the performance and installation requirements of this chip. From what I can glean, it's a monolithic integrated device that uses a Bipolar transconductance input stage, a MOSFET gain and level shifting stage and a MOSFET final output stage; avoids Boucherot cells -- whatever the heck those are -- and turn on/off switching noise (that I do understand and appreciate) and is self-protected against shorts or thermal damage with an auto-mute overdrive protection function. The output stage uses a large-signal, high-power DMOS unity-gain buffer and local feedback via a differential amplifier block. The TDA7294 is spec'd for up to 180W peak power but the maker warns that power dissipation is hardly manageable at this actual power range. To avoid prematurely triggering thermal shutdown and maximize the chip's innate output potential, Curt Wishman uses massively overbuilt heatsinks that supposedly improve performance beyond ST's stated specs for the TDA7294. |
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The trick is apparently to keep this chip puppy cool so it won't growl and bite. Even after 24 hours of nonstop punishment, Le Amp doesn't exceed barely lukewarm - a testament to Wishman's highly effective self-cooling chassis architecture. A tastefully small blue power LED with just the right intensity adorns the front panel with its rounded corners that extend lengthwise to the rear. There you're greeted by chunky binding posts, a substantial RCA jack, the power IEC inlet and a 5A/250V fuse holder that indicates the amp's current limit. |
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Flip these puppies' bellies up for brief roll-over obedience training on who's boss in your family. Those legs sticking surrenderingly up into the air are not cheap glue-back rubber bumpers. They're sizable all-metal donuts that prove how Michael Barnes' concept of quality is rather more all-encompassing than you might expect. If testing a firm's standing beyond the posh greeting room means checking the state of their toilets, then Le Amp is an all-around class act. So how does it sound? |
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