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Ρηβγιούερζ και ρηβγιούζ μ@λ@κί@ς το ανάγνωζμα πρόσχωμεν - Part Deux!
Karan Acoustics KA I180 Mk2
Mμιλάμε για μηχανάκι που κοστίζει καμμιά 15αριά αβουγουδού!
Just a glance at the front panel of the Karan KA I 180Mk2 will show that it’s been designed as a true ‘audiophile’ amplifier, because there are no tone controls, no loudness contour buttons, no speaker selectors, no record output selectors… there’s not even a headphone socket or a power on/off switch.
The amplifier is so ‘audiophile’ that these controls aren’t even labelled!
The second is that the Karan does not have a ‘Standby’ power mode, so it will always be ‘ON’ if you don’t switch it off, drawing 35 watts continuously from your mains power supply. This is apprently exactly as Milan Karan intended, because according to Radiance AudioVisual, Karan’s Australian distributor, ‘Karan designed the amplifiers to be ‘always on’ as this provides the best possible sonic performance. Milan believes that his amps need at least 48 hours of standby before they really sing.’
The volume control on the right of the front panel has a smooth action and what appears to be a LED inset into it. However, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the LED to glow, so figured it was either not a LED at all, or it was not connected, or it was a LED and it was connected, but it didn’t work. All this guesswork was entirely wrong. It turns out that what I though was a LED is actually a cubic zirconia, which is intended to reflect light from within the room to allow easy identification of the rotational position of the control from any distance.
In fact the tactile ‘feel’ and feedback you get when operating the volume control is fantastic.
Speaking of the remote, it is very strange! Firstly, perhaps taking its design cues from Denmark, it’s circular, rather than rectangular. Second, it has only two buttons: Volume Up and Volume Down. In other words, you can’t use it to select input source, nor is there a ‘Mute’ function
I was pleased to find that either Karan or its Australian distributor had fitted good-quality alkaline batteries
All the connectors on the rear of the Karana KA I 180 Mk2 are gold-plated
Karan doesn’t want you to remove the lid on its amplifiers, because there are dangerous voltages inside, yet the company realises that many people will be curious about a hand-made amplifier, so it has included in the Owners’ Manual a very large photograph showing the inside of the amplifier with the caption: ‘This is your amplifier inside please don’t open.’
It also has that unique—as in ‘how does he do it?’—Class-A sound without Class-A inefficiency. (ΜΠΡΑΒΟ, ΕΥΓΕ!!!)
ΔΗΛΑΔΗ:
the Karan needed to consume more than a kilowatt from the 240V mains supply for the amplifier to be able to deliver such high power output levels. (180 ολόκληρα βατ!
) If you look at the power consumption figures you can see that the Karan KA I 180 Mk2 is fairly power-hungry no matter how you’re using it, and as it has no standby mode you should probably switch it off whenever you’re not using it.
Mains power consumption was very high, with the Karan needing to consume more than 100-watts from the 240V mains to deliver just one watt to the loudspeakers, and more than one thousand watts (1kW!) to deliver its rated output at 8Ω (180-watts). ΔΗΛΑΔΗ Class-A sound without Class-A inefficiency.!!!
Οπότε λογικό επόμενο είναι:
Because of this, I’d suggest considering installing a dedicated power-point exclusively for use by the KA I 180 Mk2 in order to ensure you can extract the best performance from this powerful, extremely wide-band amplifier.
Look closely and you’ll see audiophile-approved names like Vishay and WBT in place of the standard fare. This not only adds to the cost of the product, but seriously ups the performance, as we’ll see.’
Also, the high-quality goldplated speaker terminals have no insulating shroud, so that if you use bare-wire connections, rather than pins or spades, you will need to make very certain that no stray bits of wire come into contact with each other, or with the chassis.
the amplifier is ‘not recommended for loads less than 3Ω’ so you should take heed of this very specific recommendation also.
The sound quality of the Karan also reveals that it’s been designed by someone who really cares about sound, because it manages to combine the raw power of solidstate with the rich warmth of valves, so you get the best of both worlds: impressive dynamics and superb musicality.
the KA I 180 Mk2 easily met its specification into 8Ω loads, returning test result figures of 223-watts (23.4dBw) per channel at 20Hz
when driven into 4Ω loads, the Karan fell a little shy of specification, returning figures of 222-watts (23.4dBw) per channel at 20Hz
Δε διπλασιάζει, νταξ μωρέ δεν τρέχει και τίποτα, αλλά αυτός ο, στερεοκαταστασιακός θυμίζω, ενισχυτής μειώνει την ισχύ στα 4 Ω!!!
Τελικά, έχοντας δγιαβάσει το ρηβγιού, πιστεύω ότι πρόκειται περί εξαιρετικού VFM ενισχυτή, που δικαιολογεί και το τελεφταίο (το 15ο ντε) αβουγουδού που ζητάει και παίζ΄ και πολύ παν απ΄ τα λ7 του!
Karan Acoustics KA I180 Mk2
Mμιλάμε για μηχανάκι που κοστίζει καμμιά 15αριά αβουγουδού!
Just a glance at the front panel of the Karan KA I 180Mk2 will show that it’s been designed as a true ‘audiophile’ amplifier, because there are no tone controls, no loudness contour buttons, no speaker selectors, no record output selectors… there’s not even a headphone socket or a power on/off switch.
The amplifier is so ‘audiophile’ that these controls aren’t even labelled!
The second is that the Karan does not have a ‘Standby’ power mode, so it will always be ‘ON’ if you don’t switch it off, drawing 35 watts continuously from your mains power supply. This is apprently exactly as Milan Karan intended, because according to Radiance AudioVisual, Karan’s Australian distributor, ‘Karan designed the amplifiers to be ‘always on’ as this provides the best possible sonic performance. Milan believes that his amps need at least 48 hours of standby before they really sing.’
The volume control on the right of the front panel has a smooth action and what appears to be a LED inset into it. However, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the LED to glow, so figured it was either not a LED at all, or it was not connected, or it was a LED and it was connected, but it didn’t work. All this guesswork was entirely wrong. It turns out that what I though was a LED is actually a cubic zirconia, which is intended to reflect light from within the room to allow easy identification of the rotational position of the control from any distance.
In fact the tactile ‘feel’ and feedback you get when operating the volume control is fantastic.
Speaking of the remote, it is very strange! Firstly, perhaps taking its design cues from Denmark, it’s circular, rather than rectangular. Second, it has only two buttons: Volume Up and Volume Down. In other words, you can’t use it to select input source, nor is there a ‘Mute’ function
I was pleased to find that either Karan or its Australian distributor had fitted good-quality alkaline batteries
All the connectors on the rear of the Karana KA I 180 Mk2 are gold-plated
Karan doesn’t want you to remove the lid on its amplifiers, because there are dangerous voltages inside, yet the company realises that many people will be curious about a hand-made amplifier, so it has included in the Owners’ Manual a very large photograph showing the inside of the amplifier with the caption: ‘This is your amplifier inside please don’t open.’
It also has that unique—as in ‘how does he do it?’—Class-A sound without Class-A inefficiency. (ΜΠΡΑΒΟ, ΕΥΓΕ!!!)
ΔΗΛΑΔΗ:
the Karan needed to consume more than a kilowatt from the 240V mains supply for the amplifier to be able to deliver such high power output levels. (180 ολόκληρα βατ!
) If you look at the power consumption figures you can see that the Karan KA I 180 Mk2 is fairly power-hungry no matter how you’re using it, and as it has no standby mode you should probably switch it off whenever you’re not using it.Mains power consumption was very high, with the Karan needing to consume more than 100-watts from the 240V mains to deliver just one watt to the loudspeakers, and more than one thousand watts (1kW!) to deliver its rated output at 8Ω (180-watts). ΔΗΛΑΔΗ Class-A sound without Class-A inefficiency.!!!
Οπότε λογικό επόμενο είναι:
Because of this, I’d suggest considering installing a dedicated power-point exclusively for use by the KA I 180 Mk2 in order to ensure you can extract the best performance from this powerful, extremely wide-band amplifier.
Look closely and you’ll see audiophile-approved names like Vishay and WBT in place of the standard fare. This not only adds to the cost of the product, but seriously ups the performance, as we’ll see.’
Also, the high-quality goldplated speaker terminals have no insulating shroud, so that if you use bare-wire connections, rather than pins or spades, you will need to make very certain that no stray bits of wire come into contact with each other, or with the chassis.
the amplifier is ‘not recommended for loads less than 3Ω’ so you should take heed of this very specific recommendation also.
The sound quality of the Karan also reveals that it’s been designed by someone who really cares about sound, because it manages to combine the raw power of solidstate with the rich warmth of valves, so you get the best of both worlds: impressive dynamics and superb musicality.
the KA I 180 Mk2 easily met its specification into 8Ω loads, returning test result figures of 223-watts (23.4dBw) per channel at 20Hz
when driven into 4Ω loads, the Karan fell a little shy of specification, returning figures of 222-watts (23.4dBw) per channel at 20Hz
Δε διπλασιάζει, νταξ μωρέ δεν τρέχει και τίποτα, αλλά αυτός ο, στερεοκαταστασιακός θυμίζω, ενισχυτής μειώνει την ισχύ στα 4 Ω!!!
Τελικά, έχοντας δγιαβάσει το ρηβγιού, πιστεύω ότι πρόκειται περί εξαιρετικού VFM ενισχυτή, που δικαιολογεί και το τελεφταίο (το 15ο ντε) αβουγουδού που ζητάει και παίζ΄ και πολύ παν απ΄ τα λ7 του!
