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Virtual Home Visit (16): !! Jean Hiraga Le Classe A !!
My audio veteran friend (and golden ear) jules' many hifi exploits have been well documented in this blog (last report here), but this latest one is perhaps the most unusual, even by his impossible standards. I'll just resend the links he sent me and quote what he said over Whatsapp:
Monostereo
twogoodears
just-hifi
"...the seller bought it from Stefano..."
"...I was using CJ Premier 7 built-in phono stage tape out to Paracas solid state preamp and pairing it with the Le Classe A. Speakers were Technics SB-E100. Just for fun only..."
"...The 5/1A with CJ / Paracas / WE 124 is better overall..."
Editor's Postscript: (1) jules has had extensive experience with class A solid state. Around 20 years ago I heard (to great effect) at his old place (when he was still a bachelor) a pair of Pass Aleph monoblocks (I think it was Aleph 2, which prompted me much later to acquire the Aleph 3. He also has the ML-2's; (2) The industrial design of La Classe A is in the same vein as Hiraga's later tube Lectron brand. Our common friend Captain L, who introduced me to jules, was devoted to the Lectron JH-50 (EL34), and it did sound very good. He later also bought the JH-60 (EL34 but hybrid) and JH-30 (EL84). Unfortunately, these proved to be trouble-prone; (3) Come to think of it, the Class A Pathos Twin Towers bears cosmetic resemblance to La Classe A; (4) I'd love to get to hear the Technics loudspeaker, such a home friendly pair of horns (stereonomono, audio-heritage.jp)! They seem to need a pair of stands, which will improve the sound immensely.
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As mr. twogoodears said in his blog the classe A 30W had 1.5F (one point five Farads not a typo) filter capacitance. Think about it! Having read some of Hiraga's articles about amp design in the old Audiophile magazine (where the most radical French audio school was born) I think his inspiration to design and build those amps (the Class A 20W, Le Monstre 8W and this one) came from the Japanese old school of solid state class A designs. He had access to those amps being half Japanese and frequently traveling to Japan. (Hiraga in fact disseminated Japanese alternative audio culture in Europe - horns, triodes, class A and so on - starting a whole new wave of audio that is still active today. E.g. he had a huge influence on Germany's Auditorium 23.) He was notoriously a big fan of Akihiko Kaneta's class A DC-coupled designs - and here he was influenced by Onken and the circle of Japanese DIY'ers who had been using Onken loudspeakers since the early Seventies. But I remember in one of those old articles he also mentioned a Stax prototype (or finished product?) he auditioned in Japan, a class A solid state power amp with little maximum output and a huge power supply. He seemed impressed. Maybe he was influenced by that amp in his designs. It would be interesting to have some report on loudspeakers compatibility. Those amps were surely designed for horns. In fact I remember some measurements of the 20W amp showing it was clearly designed for high/highish impedance loads and of course not for low efficiency. Will the 30W be different in this respect? Finally, I think the Pathos TT (thus renamed after 9/11) is a very different design, in that I think it employs the "INPOL" ouptut circuit, used by Pathos in their high-end amps, in which the output stage has an inductance load.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your useful contribution!
DeleteIndeed the Japanese had long been into various direct-couple and SET designs using classic triodes. Hiraga was certainly instrumental in promoting these in the West.
In HK I had the good fortune of coming across many super high-end Stax in second-hand shops. They made a small number of them but they were legendary. CDP as well as Class A amps. Sound is very good but I have never owned one.
Other Japanese manufacturers also made some Class A stuff. The most widely known is probably the 1976 Pioneer M-22, a good amp with many aficionados. It's good looks also bear some resemblance to Hiraga's amp.
Regarding Pathos, I just meant the looks was similar, not the circuit. Duly edited in the article.
Keep contributing!
Yes indeed the M22 has "Audiophile" looks in both senses. It comes up on ebay quite often. Maybe I will buy one someday. Regarding Hiraga's designs, I find the Nemesis particularly fascinating. Although I've seen Le Monstre mentioned as the best sounding of them all. The Nemesis is a very radical concept: a single-ended transformer coupled Mosfet that Hiraga introduced as a homage to the legendary Western Electric 25B - as later mentioned by Nelson Pass in his "Arch Nemesis" article, which is in turn his homage to Hiraga. I am fascinated by tradition and historical lineage in audio. Technology has its own culture, sometimes!
DeleteThe M22 is a great sounding amp. The internal input cables are the plug in type so overtime the contacts could be corroded or stained and affecting high frequency. I suggest soldering directly from the RCA connector to the input pins on the circuit board. Once that's done, the sound opens up tremendously. Unfortunately mine had repair issue so I sold it many years ago but I still miss it. It was a great match with the JBL 4333A studio monitors. Playing The Clash track of "Police and Thief" and you will understand the dynamic slam of the drum, the best expression of punk and reggae!
ReplyDeleteIndeed a lot of M22 users in HK use it with JBL and pound out rock! :-) I'd love to hear Led Zep and Bob Marley on such a setup.
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