Here’s one thing I can already tell you about the Accuphase stack that’s in for review—they look even better in person and better yet in Barn.
Of course I’ve been eyeing Accuphase gear at shows and at dealers for decades—the company was founded in Tokyo, Japan 1973—but I’ve never had any of their golden glowing beauties in Barn. That is until now and boy-oh-boy does the Accuphase design language speak, no make that sing, to me.
“precision stereo control center C-2300”, otherwise known as a preamplifier, is a lovely slab of Accuphase gold.
Here are the C-2300’s design highlights courtesy of Accuphase Laboratory, Inc.:
- Balanced AAVA volume control
- 4-band tone control
- Quiet and smooth volume sensor construction
- Ample inputs: 5 Line and 2 Balanced
- Independent power supplies and unit amplifiers for left and right
- Phase setting memory for each input
- Highly reliable logic-controlled signal switching relays
- High-quality headphone amplifier
- Additional option boards support digital signals and analog records
That 4-band tone control hides behind a drop down panel behind the model name on the front panel and opens with perfectly timed silky slowness after you press “open”. While we’re here, I’ll share that I don’t mind good tone controls but if you do they can be removed from the equation here by turning them “off”. The phono buttons come into play when you opt for the optional AD-60 “Analog Disc Input Board” (an MM/MC phono stage). The same goes for the optional DAC-60 board that’s built around a pair of ESS ES9016K2M.
There are plenty of inputs both balanced and single-ended as well outputs in both flavors and slots for those optional analog and digital boards.
The matching remote is equally lovely and offers additional functionality to control other Accuphase gear.
The Accuphase A-300 Mono Amplifiers offer 125 Watts of output power into 8 Ohms, 250 W into 4, 500 into 2, and a whopping 1,000 Watts into a 1 Ohm load. As far as “Class A” goes, it is my understanding that the A-300 operates in Class A @ 125 Watts into 8 Ohms but those higher output numbers into lower impedance loads moves things into Class AB. I’ll talk about this more in the review.
The A-300 amps have their own peek-a-boo access panel where you’ll find display options (Off, All, dB, Watts), meter range, Hold Time (changes the meter peak display time), input selection (balanced or single-ended), and gain settings.
Here are the A-300 ‘s highlights from the company:
- Class A driven output stage with 20-parallel push-pull power MOS-FETs
- Large linear output 125 W / 8 ohms, 250 W / 4 ohms, 500 W / 2 ohms, 1,000 W / 1 ohm
- Instrumentation amplifier principle
- Current feedback amplification circuits
- Balanced Remote Sensing
- Double MCS+ circuit
- High damping factor of 1,000
- Speaker output protection
- Highly reliable MOS-FET switches with no mechanical connections
- Signal input section with a fully discrete configuration for low noise
- Highly responsive large-scale bar graph power meter
- Connecting two pairs of A-300 supports bi-amping and bridged mode connection
- 4-step gain control
- High capacity 100,000 μF filtering capacitors
- Large speaker terminals connected directly to protection circuitry
- High-carbon cast iron insulator feet with superior damping characteristics
- Power amplification section on circuit boards using glass cloth fluorocarbon resin
- Aluminum hairline finish top plate
The business end offers single-ended and balanced inputs and two sets of binding posts per side. Those massive handles along with their gold-i-fied versions up front come in handy when lifting the A-300’s 101 lbs. (each). Not that I’d know—I’m still in recovery mode from my tiny tale of woe so a friend came by to do all of the heavy lifting. Nice. This also explains the reason for these in action photos (and that stock image) as opposed to yer typical posed pics.
There’s more to this picture to talk about which will come tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Accuphase C-2300 Preamplifier: $14,975
Accuphase A-300 Mono Amplifiers: $24,975/each
Company Website: Accuphase
US Distributor Website: Axiss Audio
