Puresound A30 Line Intergrated Class 'A' Valve amp

Puresound's superb new 30 watt integrated valve amplifier will be available shortly on permanent demo.
Thought of trying out valves, but felt they just don't have that sound/power?
The Puresound A30 redresses the balance.......................







Puresound A30 Line Integrated Amplifier

The Puresound A30 amplifier was developed to meet the demand for an affordable Class A amplifier that would be compatible with all types of loudspeakers. The A30 is a line level integrated design that allows for the selection of up to 3 different source components and control of the volume by a high quality ALPS Blue Velvet potentiometer. Class A operation was chosen because it gives lower distortion and a more relaxing, natural sound.

The amplifier uses the very robust Electro Harmonix 6550 output valves in an Ultra Linear Push Pull configuration. This arrangement gives a combination of power and clarity that is difficult to beat. The amplifier uses an Auto Bias system, which means that replacement output valves should be fitted as matched pairs. There will be no need to reset or monitor bias conditions.
Very high quality components are used throughout including selected carbon film resistors and SCR polypropylene capacitors. The power supply makes use of twin valve rectifiers and choke smoothing.
The output can be configured for use with 4 or 8 ohm loudspeakers.
The output stage can also be switched to triode-coupled configuration. This further linearises the operation of the valves at the expense of some output power. It may be preferable with higher sensitivity loudspeakers.
The Puresound A30 may also be used as a very high quality stereo power amplifier if the volume control is turned up fully.
When partnered with appropriate ancillary equipment the A30 is capable of very satisfying performance.

Why this amplifier? Why now?

With the recent interest in lower powered Single Ended triode amplifiers has come the realization that to get the best from these, the speakers used have to be both sensitive and quite large to give truly satisfying results. There are also not that many good, high sensitivity (>97 dB/W) designs available at any price never mind at price levels the majority of music lovers can afford.

However, there are some very good loudspeakers currently being made with sensitivities between 88 and 94 dB/W. These are sufficiently revealing to make the virtues of simple, high quality amplification readily apparent, although in most cases the output of a typical single ended amplifier is insufficient to give the scale and drama many types of music demand.

A good amplifier with 25 -30 watts of output power is more than enough to drive this type of loudspeaker to sensible levels even in quite a large room. For simplicity a valve amplifier is preferable. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of relatively affordable valve amplifiers made in China. Many of these are compromised by the quality of their transformers, components, layout and because they operate in Class AB or B to give a higher power specification. They often also use a lot of negative feedback in an attempt to compensate for these shortcomings with a consequential impact on clarity and low frequency control.

For some 10 years there has been a lack of affordable Class A valve amplifiers.

The Puresound A30 operates fully in Class A up to its rated output so it does not change character at any signal level. There is none of the distortion caused by output devices switching on and off and therefore no requirement for excessive feedback to correct for it. The 6550 valves supplied are the extremely robust Russian Electro-Harmonix variety and are quite content with dissipating the power required to maintain Class A operation up to 30 Watts.

The valve rectifiers used keep the high voltage power supply clear of the noise that can be introduced by silicon rectifiers. A substantial choke is also incorporated to keep the power supply impedance low.

The output transformers also give extremely wide bandwidth allowing very solid low frequency performance as well as exceptional reproduction of timbre.

These design features combined with the use of high quality passive components, octal based input and driver triodes and an elegant but simple internal layout results in an amplifier which sets a new benchmark for performance, build quality and value.

 

OK I'm going to be pedantic here, so please feel free to shoot me down in flames. Can we lose the surplus 'r' and replace 'intergrated' with 'integrated'?

 

"Intergrated" iis thee Awdiophyile verrsion.

 

Just be awarded Best New commer award 2006 in Hifi+

 

Sounds good on paper but what's the real World price?,..and why so few input options? One reason I've not looked into changing to valves is that the entry level amps just simply do not have enough inputs,...6 or 7 for me.

 

LE,
The price is £1095, why only 3 inputs? valid question. It was felt that the vast majority of users were only going to be concerned with genuine music reproduction and thus provision for TT/CD and tuner were made. No complaints so though !!
It also sounds very good in the flesh too

 

A fairly logical answer other than 'real music' listeners do require more than just a TT & CD input.

 

Hence why there there is another one for the tuner as well

 

..how about 2 tape loops , plus at least 2 more aux. inputs and at least one set of pre-outs too, although 2 sets of pre-outs would be better,...for me

 

FWIW.....I heard one of these at the the recent Home Entertainment show in Manchester. CD player was from the same manufacturer, can't remember the speakers. It made, IMHO, one of the best sounds at the show. Can't say I'm wild about the looks, but I could live with the sound and be very happy.