This page is dedicated to one of the best preamps ever
made.
You can visit the home page of the manufacturer
- ARG Audo Labs from Ukraina.
This is the new pre-amplifier - top view
No kidding - 1/4 inch thick, solid case, made of aluminum and titanium.
Tube regulated, choke filtered
power supply, no electrolytic caps inside - only paper in oil.
25 kg (60 lbs) weight. Stepped attenuator with 24 discrete levels. 200
VA custom transformer. with 6 secondaries.
No solid state inside - even rectification and regulation is tubed (as
should be). Point to point wiring using no wire,
only electronic part's "legs".
Only one piece in the known universe.
uncle Ted at the side of the house . Note the silver cylinders - those
are huuge caps. Made in Germany,
foil caps MKP (polypropylene) of 100 uF each. almost 1 pint ( a liter)
external volume.
You can see just the upper half of them sticking out !
Polished for better look.
Some closer look reveals tube rectifier, regulation, and single
ended,
directly heated russian triodes.
They are of course used in plate follower config, one stage only.
By no means it is a pair of simple small signal tubes. Capable of 7
Watts
in a SE power amp, come close to 300B.
Inputs and outputs are made without any internal cabling (only an
inch of silver wire),
so my Audio note AN-Vz are the only ones handling the signal.
Tube set: 6C4C (in latin 6S4S) -
the directly heated triodes in amplification
stage.
6H13C (6N13S in latin) - as a
current source for signal triodes.
6H9C (6N9S in latin) - power
supply regulation.
5u4C (5C4S in latin) - rectifier.
It is not only about good looks but: the four cylindrical
legs
are pure (!!!) titanium machined from solid block.
This is probably from the Khomsomolec leftovers.
Knobs are also solid blocks of polished titanium.
