- Future proof design, 2 discrete replaceable modules
- Chassic machined from one solid block of aluminum
- Painstaking selection & matching by hand of all the components
- Bespoke hand-made production by one technician
- Millitary-spec grade components
- CNC machined & laser etched panels
- Over 300 Master Tape concert recordings as our Reference
The SOLITAIRE is a 150WRMS Integrated Amplifier.
It best embodies the sculptural design and "lack-of-sound" philosophy of Metaxas & Sins.
After over 35 years of work in the field of High End Audio, from the design and manufacturing of entire playback systems to the recording of over 300 acoustic concerts to gain further musical insights, the last thing that artist-designer Kostas Metaxas wanted to produce was "another box with transistors on a heatsink".
Kostas was dreaming of the most spectacular architecture, design and sculpture he had experienced and wanted to bring that emotional intensity, daring and seductive beauty to an audio amplifier.
As a recording engineer, Metaxas also wanted to "voice it" for extremely realistic recording playback, to be able to reproduce all the nuance and emotion of a musical performance.
His new SOLITAIRE is the result. Machined from a solid block of aircraft aluminum, it's totally bespoke and the modular electronics make it future-proof. Even the circuit boards can be CNC machined from 1mm solid silver coated clear polystyrene.
From the sensual, organic and striking casework [inspired by the stunning work in Sports cars of the 1950's/60's of Ercole Spada, as well as the architecture of Hadid, Gehry and Calatrava] to absolutely every part of the amplifier including the circuit, topology, layout and casework has been developed by Kostas Metaxas. It is the logical evolution of his groundbreaking design concepts pioneered in the early 1980's.
Then, in true "Bugatti fashion", each and every amplifier is assembled by the master or his sins — either Andreas or Alessandros Metaxas.
The individually 5-axis CNC "sculptural" enclosure presents a very heavy, solid, inert, non-resonant structure to RFI shield and ultimately protect the delicate electronic signals, driving the noise floor to ultra-ultra-low levels, revealing a wealth of detail that has never been heard before.
INPUT STAGE [2 discrete replaceable modules - future proof]:
The fully complementary, dual differential, cascaded input stage is linearized to ensure least distortion over the large volt-age swings to the amplifier input from the preceding preamplifier. A very gradual (6dB/octave) Bessel filter is incorporated at the input to eliminate the needless reproduction of Radio Frequencies. The second voltage gain stage uses considerable local feedback to ensure that large voltage swings from the input stage are accommodated with the least possible distortion. An overall negative feedback of only 11dB is required to stabilize the complete D.C. operating point and reduce distortion at full power to below 0.01% T.H.D. which is primarily composed of second harmonics. A D.C. servo is built around an integrated circuit to monitor the output voltage and ensure absolute D.C. stability at all times. These modules can be easily removed and updated at a later stage if necessary.
OUTPUT STAGE:
Our triple Darlington output stage uses the fastest power transistors that were previously available, but no longer available since the factory in Japan was recently destroyed by a Tsunami. Fortunately, we purchased large stocks of these devices 30 years ago.
Our printed circuit design borrows techniques from RF and UHF ground plane technology to maximize the speed of current delivery, especially at high frequencies from the ultra-high-speed (fT's 300 MHz) power transistors.
POWER SUPPLY INPUT & OUTPUT STAGE:
The input voltage gain stage of the SOLITAIRE is isolated via the high-current output stage via a two stage capacity multiplier circuit which uses the beta of the transistors to multiply the filtering effect of the capacitor used. The simplicity of this circuit allows the elimination of any output bypassing capacitors which would otherwise reduce the apparent speed and degrade the sound quality of this amplifier.
PROTECTION CIRCUITS:
To eliminate the sonic colorations imposed by sophisticated current limiting protection circuits the SOLITAIR uses only the short M205 fuse types to protect the high current stages. Apart from the fuses is a four pole relay in series with the loudspeaker connections. If over 0.6VDC is sensed at the amplifier output, the relay is activated until the condition is rectified.
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