Overview
The core of the E-series is the PA 1000 E: an integrated amplifier bursting with power and superb sound. The unit was developed from the legendary Power Plant, whose outstanding sound we succeeded in improving further. The pre-amplifier is a crucial element in determining the sonic characteristics of the amplifier as a whole, and for this reason our development aim was absolute neutrality, superb musical fidelity and outstanding dynamic characteristics. The use of the latest op-amps (operational amplifiers) mounted on discrete, voltage-stabilized circuit boards (OAD = Op Amp Decoupling) ensures absolutely consistent signal processing regardless of load, i.e. uncolored sound! Naturally there is a two-stage volume control based on a High-End ALPS precision potentiometer to ensure a high overload margin and good signal to noise ratios. A Flat switch is present, which entirely removes the sophisticated tone controls and Loudness function from the signal path.
The PA 1000 E is equipped with high-quality balanced and unbalanced inputs. The balanced input section (XLR) is mounted on its own circuit board, is of fully symmetrical construction, and is coupled directly to the pre-amplifier via differential amplifiers of superb quality. The RCA and XLR inputs are flexible in operation, and can be assigned to different source devices. The input selector switches incorporate gold-contact relays of outstanding quality in order to guarantee freedom from harmonic distortion and background noise.
Technology
Basically, our new amplifiers of the E-series are so-called PWM power amplifiers (PWM=Pulse Width Modulation), with an analog modulator. They are a complete T+A in-house development and are not integrated, ready-made IC amplifiers “off the shelf”, but discretely constructed power amplifiers equipped with the latest, ultra-fast MOSFET transistors and high-current, intelligent driver components.
The power amplifiers feature analog negative feedback, which compensates for voltage fluctuations in the power supply and thus eliminates supply-voltage-induced signal distortion, which is otherwise unavoidable with pure “forward concepts”. The negative feedback is designed to be relatively weak and frequency-dependent (stronger in the bass range, where large currents flow, and decreasing in the mid-high range). This results in a very controlled, resolved sound image that never tends towards sharpness, with a perfectly contoured and well-defined bass range. The liveliness and musicality of this concept is unique.
Switching power amplifiers, when properly designed, can not only sound outstandingly good, but they can also produce enormous power with significantly lower losses with little waste heat.
It is particularly important to have a load-stable and high-current power supply that can reliably supply the output stages even with very high power requirements and pulse peaks and does not collapse. The newly developed power supply is therefore stabilized several times, the output stages are equipped with high filter capacities and the hard toroidal transformer is floating and decoupled. That’s why even power-hungry Speaker are driven effortlessly, plus the PA 1000 E delivers up to 50 amps of peak current.