I have been rather quiet lately because I have had my head down, grinding out new engineering and products. The good news is that the Fusion H1 amplifier has already been improved. There are some slight improvements in the input circuitry, including a more liberal usage of black gate decoupling caps and a higher input impedance. The results are stunning, with a dramatic increase in the emotional involvement factor. Bass impact is still tremendous, and detail and transparency are further improved.
One customer who is also a member of AC just received his amp, and I expect he will be posting on his impressions soon.
I am very happy to have produced a product that meets my criteria of incredible sound quality, with an emphasis on creating an emotionally involving experience. This is the ultimate reason why we go to such great lengths as audiophiles. The new amp sounds so good, I had a veritable out-of-body experience listeing to Dvorak's 9th on Chesky last night.
Additionally, I am very pleased to have a product that is energy efficient, good looking, and built locally in Portland OR. That is the essence of sustainability in a nutshell... Better quality than the status quo mass marketed products, while also providing better value.
The new chassis design is done, using solid bamboo hardwoods and stainless steel. I have included some photos from my workbench at the bottom. The stainless is cut out by lasers, and the engraving of stainless and bamboo is also done with lasers. This allows for very high tolerance production and a very professional look. The woodwork is done by a master craftsman, and is truly a work of art. This chassis has no venting or visible heat sinks, as this is not necessary using the incredibly efficient class D amplifiers. It barely gets warm to the touch. RFI emissions are eliminated by lining the inside of the bamboo with copper foil.
The new chassis design has bamboo feet, which sound very good. The physical structure of bamboo is very stiff and non-resonant. This makes it outstanding for building speakers, but also very good for reducing vibration transmission into a chassis. It is equivalent to hard maple, which is gaining popularity these days.
However, I take the footer design one step further by including a set of Panda Feet sorbothane footers that fit into a recess in the bamboo footer. This creates a marked further reduction of noise in the system, as the Panda Feet are a very smartly designed product. My amp comes with one of the best resonance control tweaks I have seen as a standard item. You can see them in the photos at the bottom of each foot.
I have also finalized the greenhouse gas offsets that come standard with the amp. Now before you go thinking this is a non sequitor, I would have you know that I am scientist who until very recently worked in the Climate Change field. One of the best ways to mitigate climate change is to use greenhouse gas offsets for all energy consumption. In this regard, my products come with the first year of greenhouse gas emissions due to average electricity usage, offset by the purchase of biodiesel. For each amp, I only need to purchase 3 gallons of biodiesel from the GoBiodiesel Cooperative in Portland, which I then donate back to the Co-op. This is a small amount, thanks to my efficient design. An analog solid state amp of equivalent power would need about 20-30 gallons to offset one year of emissions. At $1.75/gal, this would add up to a significant cost, but on my amp, I am very happy to absorb the cost of the three gallons.
