Circuit Features

We strongly feel that greater than 50 years life expectancy is possible from our amplifiers.  Many other brand's "original classics" are still operating, some even after 60 or more years (undoubtedly with some maintenance).  Because of our design we see every reason this should be possible with ours as well, with reasonable care and maintenance.  We personally hand build our units individually and by doing so we constantly implement improvements, maintain a consistent high level of quality at every stage of the process, and  eliminate any possibility of lemons being built.  Hypothetically, our amplifiers could endure one's lifetime and may be the last one you own!  We would rather be remembered as over builders than under builders.

The circuit board is a high quality, electrically rated, fiberglass material and is not prone to brittleness and heat deterioration, from which phenolic and bakelite materials suffer. Most of our circuit boards are "POINT TO POINT HAND WIRED" using high quality nickel plated brass eyelets for mounting all components and wiring.  We use only very high quality PCB's in some of our products and these have been made to very high standards - we are picky about this.

Flame proof resistors, most of which are metal film and ceramic, are used exclusively. Most electrolytic capacitors used have a 105 degree Celsius operating temperature rating to ensure long life. All components are operated quite modestly - most at less than 50% of their maximum ratings.

There are separate power transformers in many of our power amplifiers – one or two for the plate supply and one or two for tube heater supplies - depending on requirements. All power transformers are UL and/or CSA approved. The audio output transformers, most of which we have custom wound to our specs, are Ultra-Linear with screen taps at 43%, and a rated frequency response from below 18Hz to well beyond 25kHz +/- 1dB.

All of the tube sockets are ceramic rather than bakelite. This ensures long life and minimizes carbon tracking between pins.

Individual cathode biasing is provided for each output tube in our cathode biased amplifiers. No bias adjustments are ever required throughout the life of the tubes.

The amplifier inputs use RCA jacks and the output uses 5 way binding posts for the most convenient connections. Some amplifiers are provided with screw terminals to allow for easy output impedance adjustments.  We will also provide any plugs and jacks a customer requests.