The music of course always caught my attention so deliberately forcing myself to try and listen to the components I have had difficulty doing with Audio Note - which is why I'm such a fan of their gear. Needless to say it had no problem with any of this music nor did it hint at a problem. My listening sessions have always impressed with me over the years but I did want to throw some Big Classical works at it like the Saint-Saens, Ravel's Bolero etc but I also wanted to double check the amp’s ability on well recorded bass heavy pop such as Madonna's Justify My Love, Vogue, Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing album and remixed work and new After glow albums as starters. 10 Watts is actually a lot for Single Ended tube amplifiers I understand. The amp has an on off knob, a selector control (Phono, CD, Aux, Tape in/out and Tuner), a balance control, record knob, and of course volume knob which can produce deafeningly loud content. The amp self biases for new tubes so no volt-meters are required nor is bias adjustment needed when new tubes are purchased. Audio Note recommends 200 hours for "bedding" in and 30-45 minutes after each turn on for the amp to be optimally sounding its best.
#Audio note turntables manual
The manual consists of 6 photocopied pages 1 is safety instruction 1 is a title page with a staple in the left corner. It is a plain black box with a nice piano black kind of front panel with 5 solid bronze(gold) knobs - labeling is in gold print and BELOW the knobs which makes it rather difficult to see the setting if the amp is on a lower shelf. The amp is not the most ergonomically brilliant unit I've seen. The line version of the amp has two less tubes as it has no phono stage. It' a beast at (140mm high) X (440mm wide) X (410mm deep). My Antique Sound Labs Headphone amp uses the same EL 84s which is nice $20.00Cdn for a matched pair. Luckily all of these tubes are relatively inexpensive and Audio Note states tube life to be around 8000hours. The OTO weighs in at a manageable 38lbs incorporates 10 tubes - 4 el84, 3ecc83, 2 ECC82, and 1 ECC88. The amplifier has a much more robust construction than the already good Sugden. The heat it generates is certainly a testament to it's class A rating and it requires 20cm above the unit for ventilation - I had to re-do my equipment racks so that the unit could be placed on the top shelf. The OTO is a Single Ended Tube amplifier which runs in pure class A - 10 watts per channel in 8 ohms or in 4 ohms with the 4 ohm tap. Though, the comments made may be true with less efficient and less sensitive designs. Needless to say I bought the amp so that is obviously not an issue I heard.
I wanted one last audition though because I made the mistake of looking at a few reviews (why I don’t follow my own advice more) which claimed the amp has difficulty with the frequency extremes which I have not heard in the past, but I wanted to be sure.
#Audio note turntables upgrade
The OTO has been in my upgrade path really for over a year and it’s the Audio Note amp I have logged the most time on so I knew it fairly well. The Sugden had a slightly veiled presentation and what has been described as a valve like presentation in the audio press (which means a little rich and syrupy - not all tubes sound like tube amps in this manner of course - the Sugden was going for the Stereotype I suspect which made my Sony 300 disc player very listenable - The OTO doesn't!!) The Sugden is a very good smooth transistor amplifier of about 70 watts class A/B design and nicely forgiving of lesser front end components. I picked up the Audio Note OTO Phono SE from Soundhounds and traded off my trusty Sugden A48b integrated amp.
#Audio note turntables full
NOTE: This is not a full review just initial impressions. My dream system as many of you know is not attainable on my finances, but I am moving toward getting in the ballpark of the AN E Sec-Silver Meishu TT3 I love - and Saturday I moved a little closer. And says goodbye to a great component in the process.
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