A Terrific Tube Preamplifier From Korea, And A - Ultra High Fidelity ...

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Listening Feedback Room Allnic L-1500 Preamplifier nese products went from cheap postwar junk to cutting-edge craftsmanship? Unless your hair is pretty grey, you probably don’t. Japanese products, especially from smaller companies, gradually became known for uncompromising excellence. Then came the competition from industries in Taiwan, then Hong Kong, which had their own traditions. And now South Korea. The Koreans began with cheap cars that would (mercifully) rust out before their engines could leave you stranded, but then became serious competitors for even the Japanese, and now they have the Germans in their sights. Could it be long before high-end audio found a place in Korea? It now appears that some of the uncompromising traditions of discipline and excellence that permeate Japan have spread beyond the Land of the Rising Sun. Though Allnic is not exactly giving this preamplifier away, it is nonetheless its “budget” model, a lower-cost version of its L-3000 flagship. It’s a tube preamp, using a pair of D3a pentodes (commonly used in radio-frequency circuits rather than audio gear), plus a 7233 and a 6485 used for voltage regulation. That wouldn’t appear to be a very high tube count, but no more gain is needed because the outputs come not from an active buffer but from a pair of transformers. Nowadays, audio transformers are Listening Room Remember when postwar Japa- 44 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine mostly found in tube power amps, and that’s because it’s difficult (but not impossible) to match high impedance output tubes to a low-impedance loudspeaker. Even so, the transformer is often the weak spot in a tube power amp, even an expensive one, because the high level of craftsmanship required to make a good transformer is increasingly rare. And that’s where Allnic’s experience comes in. Company founder Kang Su Park knows how to build transformers, as he has demonstrated before, and he winds his own by hand. You may recall that we reviewed his AUT-2000 phono step-up transformer in UHF No. 87, and found it to be the best we had heard in… well, decades. A transformer buffer can provide a much more constant impedance curve, at (theoretically) low distortion. There is an added advantage too. As noted, using transformers means less gain is needed from the active circuits. Gain is never free; it is accompanied by noise and distortion. Less gain means less crud too. The L-1500’s front panel has buttons for selecting the five inputs (labelled Line 1, Line 2, etc.), as does the remote control. Look at the rear panel, however, and you’ll see that only three of them can be used with unbalanced sources, at least unless you find an adapter…always a compromise. Another way to put it is that only two of the inputs can be used with balanced sources. The front panel has buttons for power (which can shut it down completely) but also for putting the circuit to sleep, with the tubes kept warm but not in actual operation. Also on the front panel is a small round meter labelled “current.” It has no graduations, and is merely intended to warn you when the circuit is outside its operating parameters, for instance if a tube has gone out. There are two sets of outputs, also confusingly labelled Line 1 and Line 2, one set balanced and the other unbalanced. The “record out” jacks (there is no tape loop) are strictly balanced. If you’ll be using them for recording with a computer, you’ll probably need an adapter, because even semi-pro audio interfaces have unbalanced line inputs. There is a rear panel switch for absolute phase, and we were both surprised and pleased to see it. Why does this matter? Because, on a good recording, you want the leading edge of a wave to come forward toward you, not back. But not all recordings are phase-accurate, and a phase switch can therefore correct for errors. We think it should be on the remote control, not the rear panel. As it is, you’ll find it useful only if your power amplifier inverts phase, as some do. It could do more, though, and we think Allnic has missed an opportunity. You can probably guess that Kang Su Park has not put a carbon potentiometer into his beautiful unit to serve as a volume control. The control is actually
a quality switch with an array of fixed precision resistors. That is superior on a number of levels. Not only does it contribute less noise and distortion, but it eliminates volume differences between the channel as you adjust the volume up or down. Since the L-1500 is a tube preamplifier, we put it up against our own tube preamp, the Copland CTA-305 that is in our Alpha room. The Copland costs half the price of the Allnic, but we’ve always considered it a terrific bargain, able to keep up with much more expensive preamplifiers. Could it keep up with this one? We did the comparison with five selected recordings, all of them high-resolution, played from our Linn Unidisk 1.1 player. We kept both preamplifiers warmed up throughout, and we even avoided switching off our Moon W-5LE power amplifier, so there would be no unwelcome variables in our listening session. This is done by disconnecting the speakers while interconnects are being switched around. Of course we used the same interconnects on both preamplifiers. As you will have noticed, a lot of the articles in this free version of UHF are complete. This isn’t one of them, however. Pop over to www.uhfmag.com/ IndividualIssue.html, and get either the print version or the electronic issue. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. 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Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 45 Listening Feedback Room
Page 1 and 2: No. 89 CAN $6.49 / US $7.69 RETURN
Page 3 and 4: Issue No. 89 Cover story: Two of th
Page 5 and 6: I HATE DOG EARS! (SORRY FIDO) We’
Page 7 and 8: I’m looking forward to the Simaud
Page 9 and 10: started talking to me and I was sta
Page 11 and 12: I’m using a Cardas Lightning cabl
Page 13 and 14: Leslie, it’s painful to realize t
Page 15 and 16: music from a computer via Ethernet
Page 17 and 18: school or community centre, perhaps
Page 19 and 20: ut the tone of the warning seems wr
Page 21 and 22: I remember when Israel Blume of Coi
Page 23 and 24: I may have mentioned that there is
Page 25 and 26: Thiel was back at CES, exhibiting a
Page 27 and 28: Touring the Salon there many turnta
Page 29 and 30: Below left: the Vivid B-1, designed
Page 31 and 32: tunately so, because computer softw
Page 33 and 34: The new ASW Genius 110 One of the i
Page 35 and 36: tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver
Page 37 and 38: scene, such as a video game page. T
Page 39 and 40: THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: Issues
Page 41 and 42: Adding it to a CD player There are
Page 43: output of our Macbook Pro to the 30
Page 47 and 48: Leema Elements Phono Preamp Yes, wh
Page 49 and 50: Your System Belongs on the Wall Tar
Page 51 and 52: The t wo woofers and the midrange d
Page 53 and 54: Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore
Page 55 and 56: INTERCONNECTS ATLAS NAVIGATOR Oxyge
Page 57 and 58: UHF14 POWER BAR Most power bars kno
Page 59 and 60: ed pepper to its music. Felix Hell
Page 61 and 62: Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante (XRCD)
Page 63 and 64: Gentlemen, I, Rachmaninoff, have ju
Page 65 and 66: painful scenes at home, and after a
Page 67 and 68: It is worth noting that although th
Page 69 and 70: announcement of impending marriage
Page 71 and 72: lending moment to arrive sooner tha
Page 73 and 74: that would have called for a retake
Page 75 and 76: any woman who is not married to som
Page 77 and 78: All You Can Watch for $8 It was Net
Page 79 and 80: The Magic Without 3D What’s domin
Page 81 and 82: Industry News Dan d’Agostino is b
Page 83 and 84: Why do UHF readers start reading th

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