It's finally here. A mod that transforms this powerhouse into a world-class amp. This amp is particularly good for driving electrostatics and magnetic planar speakers, however it lacks both dynamics in the mid/high-frequencies, is limited in high-frequency extension and lacks finesse. In it's stock form, the fan is excessively noisy and the only inputs are balanced XLR and phone jacks.
Our mods correct all of the above deficiencies. The amp has slam in spades once the mods are installed and the HF extension competes with the best amps on the market. It has that "sparkle" of magic that happens only in the very best amps. For those with some technical knowledge, the original amp has 8 stages of op-amps and three AC couplers. Once the mods are complete, it has three stages of op-amp and one AC coupler. One filter is eliminated in the outputs. The input impedance is 47K ohms and inputs are direct-coupled. The gain is around 26dB.
The amplifier mods include:
1) New quiet Papst Fan
2) New OFC copper RCA input connectors - Vampirewire
3) New perfect crystal silver input wiring from the RCA's
4) New Binding posts
5) New output cable harness to the binding posts
6) Rewire/redesign of the op-amp board
7) Replacement of all op-amps
8 )Change bulk decoupling caps to Black Gates
9) Add high-frequency decoupling caps
10) Replace coupling caps with Multicap RTX polystyrenes
11) Replace all output power inductors
12) Replace final capacitor filter/resonator
13) Eliminate ground-loops and add power harnesses
See the mods page of our website for details:
http://www.empiricalaudio.com
