STATUS - SOLD
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Description :
The Conrad Johnson Premier 7 was designed to close the gap between reproduced sound and live music, to bring us near to the ultimate goal of exactly reproducing a live musical event. Uncompromised objectives demand equally uncompromised solutions. Unfettered by considerations of cost, the Premier 7 embodies our accumulated knowledge of the art and technology of electronic amplification of recorded music. The audio circuit is an all vacuum tube design, using 12 single triodes in a zero feedback configuration for superior transient properties. A low-noice nuvistor input tube accommodates relatively low ouput movie coil cartridges, and a phono impedance selector facilitates catridge matching. To absolutely isolate the individual gain stages (three per channel) each stage has its own discrete solid state regulated power supply designed for near zero impedance to all audio frequencies. Tranformers, filament supply circuits, and the pre-regulated plate supplies are housed in remote chassis to elimate hum field from the audio circuits. To acheive absolute channel separation, the Premier 7 is actually two completely independent monaural preamplifiers in four separate chassic with massive gold anadized front panels combining the channels into a control unit and a power supply unit. Inside each control unit chassis, the critical audio circuitry and associated power supply regulators are fitted to a subchassic on isolation mounts to minimize microphonics. When hooking up and playing, the Premier 7 is one of the tube amplifiers sounding like the best solid-state. It is in fact about as close as any tube preamp has come to being perfectly neutral in sound in nearly all respects. The high-level section has a gorgeous top end of effortlessly sweet, open, and airy, yet immensely detailed. Resolution of detail is excellent across the board, as are all aspects of soundstage presentation. Its phase-coherence can present a very specific, tightly bunched image, and also produce convincing images way out beyond the locational limits of the speakers when suitably phased signal is delivered to it. There is no forwardness and no tubelike "glare". The midrange is an essentially perfect replica of whatever you feed into the preamp. Only at the low end does the Premier 7 stray from Ultimate Truth, with a slight thinning-out of bottom which sounds like a gradual frequency-response rolloff setting in at 50Hz. It's a fairly subtle thing, but even a slight error in this direction will be less well received by most audiophiles than would an equal amount of low-bass exaggeration.
Specifications :
Gain...................................................Phono stage 40dB
...................................................High Level 29dB
Output................................................Maximum 20V
Phase.................................................Phono stage phase correct (non inverting)
.................................................Line stage inverts phase of all inputs (including phono)
Phono Overload...................................In excess of 150mv at 1KHz
Response............................................Bandpass 2Hz to more than 100KHz
............................................RIAA equalization to +25dB(20Hz-20Khz)
Hum and noise(20Hz-20KHz)................Phono inputs: 80dB below 10mv input
................Line level: 99dB below 2.5V output
Distortion at 1.0V output.......................THD less than 0.25%
........................IM less than 0.25%
Ouput impedance.................................less than 200 ohms
Weight................................................30 kg
Dimensions(w x d x h)..........................48.5 x 42 x 19 cm (Main Unit)
..........................48.5 x 41 x 10 cm (Power Supply)
Miscellaneous :
Made in...............................................USA
Condition.............................................8 / 10 (Decent condition)
Product Information :
http://www.conradjohnson.com/It_just_sounds_right/a-pr7.html
Reviews :
http://www.stereophile.com/tubepreamps/1188cj7/ |
