Frequently asked questions

Instead of publishing a load of useless one line Q&A's that never seem to answer anything we set up a user group (owners club forum) instead. You can visit it by clicking here, and you can join it for free!

Today's HiFi is about money more than music. It's also about confusing you.

Bandwidth With Responsibility

You may have heard that our products are wide bandwidth? Many other manufacturers are now stating their products are wide bandwidth. This is OK if it's done responsibly.

Anybody can increase the bandwidth of an amplifier. All you have to do is take out all its frequency compensation, and it seems that's exactly what some manufacturers are doing. Such recklessness results in an icy bright sound.

Please note that when I say amplifier I mean the output stage of a CD player or DAC, a phono preamp, line stage, headphone amp and power amplifier (including integrateds and receivers).

We extend bandwidth responsibly. The maximum bandwidth of our products is one in which the product is stable.

You may have heard of phase margin? Phase margin is the number of degrees (as degrees in a circle) there are left before the amplifier changes into an oscillator, at 180 degrees.

At 45 - 60 degrees phase margin (135 - 120 degrees out of phase) there is sufficient phase margin for an amplifier to be stable provided load capacitance has been taken into consideration. However, there will be an amount of a thing called ringing where the top of a square wave will look as if it's grown whiskers. The nearer an amplifier's phase margin can get to 90 degrees (and consequently 90 degrees out of phase) the better it will sound simply because the ringing has been reduced to a minimum - then it will reproduce the highs with the right amplitude - it won't sound icy bright.

However, if loaded by a highly capacitive load such as some boutique interconnects, the amplifier's phase margin can be destabilised. A power amp can likewise be destabilised by "knitted" or other highly capacitive loudspeaker cables. Usually a good designer will include some output resistance or in the case of a power amplifier, some output inductance to protect the phase margin, but if not, the amplifier phase margin is robbed and excessive ringing or even oscillation can ensue.

When oscillation is present all sorts of interference will be heard (unless such instability destroys the amplifier first). The interference can be hum or radio pick-up, or both, which may also change in its intensity by touching the equipment or interconnects. The instability can actually be caused by some boutique cables so it's worth swapping to a more conventional interconnect if troubleshooting.

Responsibility In The Market?

Nobody teaches engineers analogue-audio anymore - they haven't done for the last 20-30 years - it's all been digital. Yet today, you see hundreds of items which are analogue: amps, preamps, headphone amps and phono preamps - the choice is unreal!

Where have all these manufacturing geniuses sprung from? The truth is there are precious few! Instead there are lots of unscrupulous business men. The products they peddle are pattern parts (clones) made in the far east or underdeveloped countries - yes, even the big names can source this way! All these are essentially the same but for the eye catching styling people fall for. But with armies of fan boys infiltrating magazines and on forums and in user groups - the media is full of them - the news is geared to their promotion.

Dealers push these products hard because the margins they offer them are out of this world. You should realise they get 70% - how else can they offer 70% discounts when times are hard?

If you're not in the know about this, you may have bought such products, and by now you're probably ready to throw in the towel. The truth is, you're not going to get any greater musical enjoyment out of replacing the same with the same. You're simply fuelling the deceit.

However, hidden under the pile of junk you will find a few small companies - us being one of them, who still have the genius as well as the spirit to make equipment that's far better for your ears! We too have great reviews but they are much harder to win because we don't have the advertising budgets that the profiteers can easily afford. We don't have the paid fan boys in high places. We don't have the search engine manipulation. No, we spend our time as good little engineers, pushing the boundaries and giving you more musical enjoyment for your budget.

Join the thousands who are on the receiving end of our good work - those who are having a great time listening to music with our products, rather than the millions who've been duped into having a bad time.

 

The small print: as we don't make source equipment or headphones or speakers we cannot help you there. If these items are expensive junk our products may not be able to make your sound any better.