Hifi Pig

After having a long lasting and unhealthy lusting for Decware amplifiers, news that the American company was to produce a flagship pair of KT88 mono amps caused a flutter of excitement at Hifi Pig headquarters.

The Zen Torii monoblocs are designed to be your final amplifier purchase and are made to order by the company, so expect a substantial waiting time, but they do come with a lifetime warranty.

• 60 watt class-A monoblocks.
• 2 Transformer Balanced XLR Inputs – selectable.
• 1 Single-ended RCA input.
• Input level control.
• Ultra cool bias adjustment – no tools required and can be done on-the-fly.
• Large Simpson Meters – let you maintain perfect tube matching without effort.
• Exotic parts – cost no object design.
• KT88 Ultra-linear output stage.

Price is around $5500

Bob Carver have launched the VTA20S and will ship in July at a cost of $2100. The new stereo amplifier is  rated at 20 WRMS in 2 channel stereo mode or 40 WRMS when used in single channel mono mode. The amplifier features auto biasing and low idle current greatly increasing EL84M output tube life.

Bob Carver hand-build their amplifiers in the US using point to point wiring and with no circuit board traces, no surface mount components and no depluggable connecters.

“The VTA20S represents Bob’s latest and greatest thinking on vacuum tube amplifier designs. ” says Bob Farinelli. A screen voltage regulator and DC restoration circuit minimizes crossover distortion and output tube power dissipation. “The 1.5 ohm output impedance coupled with current and voltage feedback loops also allows the amplifier to listen to the room via acoustic feedback from the speakers”. “The room to speaker to amplifier interaction delivers a huge acoustic space and allows us to believe the performance could have existed in another time and in another place. It sounds so beautiful!” Says Bob Carver.

Specifications:

• Input Impedance: 20K ohms in stereo, 125K ohms in mono
• Nominal Voltage Gain: 26dB (into 8 ohms)
• Input Tubes: 12AX7B
• Output Tubes: 1 complementary pair of EL84Ms per channel
• Rated Power (Stereo): 20 Watts
• Rated Power (Mono): 40 Watts
• Speaker Impedance: 4 to 16 ohms
• Noise: Better than 96dB A weighted ref. into 20 watts
• Frequency Response: 8 Hz to 40 kHz (-3dB)
• Full Power Bandwidth: 26Hz to 43 kHz without filters
• Distortion: Less than 0.5%
• Hum: -100dB
• Generator Source Impedance: 1.5 Ohms
• Weight: 17 pounds

Red Wine Audio, manufacturer of battery-powered purist hi-fi products, has announced their first battery-powered high output amplifier which has been designed to drive even the most demanding speakers with ease.

Red Wine have received past accolades from reviewers and customers alike for their battery powered and somewhat minimalist designs but the praise often comes with a caveat – the moderate output of their amplifiers has not been ideal in driving inefficient loudspeakers or driving conventional loudspeakers to high volumes in large rooms.

Output from the Liliana is rated at 115wpc RMS into 8-ohms (230wpc RMS into 4-ohms)

“My goal in designing Liliana was to take full advantage of our premium LiFePO4 battery technology,” says Vinnie Rossi, President of Red Wine Audio. Adding, “With 8 FETs implemented in the Class AB output stage, Liliana allows for some serious “dc-direct” current delivery.” More »