The lab is home to the two full-time Absolutists, Alessandro and Elia.


Elia is currently designing a smaller preamplifier.

Here is Marco Manunta whose own M2Tech venture is accelerating. From that brand we will soon see a hi(er)Face type 384kHz USB interface as well as a quad-paralleled full D/A converter with comprehensive inputs. Future M2Tech products already on the board include a proprietary class D amp with DSD driver and exclusively digital inputs.


Here is the technical team flanking their boss over lunch at Checco & Mary on Padova's Via Roma. International distributors have asked for a legacy source component to complete an Absoluta installation. 'Digital man' Manunta knows that hard drives or solid-state memory are the future that's here already but in Absoluta's market segment, there's still demand for a traditional front end (which naturally will get every digital input in the book).

Back at the factory again, mechanical engineer Andrea Canaletti demonstrated that even their packaging is a clear cut above. To protect their gear in transit, it is securely bolted to a thick Plywood base to not shift, then covered in a custom Chamois covers. This is surrounded by thick impact foam and finally topped by more foam.

Now we have more images of the showroom models in gloss Cherry.

As mentioned, remote polarity inversion—which is easily achieved on front-to-back dual-differential circuits—is indicated by a red instead of blue LED on the input selector. The chosen input is confirmed on the back panel with a yellow LED.

Because the amplifiers are fully balanced as well, they sport RCA inputs for either polarity. In normal mode, the unused input is shorted with a plug to minimize noise. For strapped mono mode, this input connects to the other amp. Elia explained that he "measured this amplifier circuit to 1MHz with no stability issues. Naturally we had to restrict that bandwidth or you'd be listening to FM radio. All our electronics have 300kHz bandwidth, not that easy with tubes in the signal path."