Testing: Cogent Audio
LabsMSRP: $2,500
Audio purists are a finicky bunch. If you take a look at any of the high-end amplifiers and preamplifiers sold for home audio, you'll find creatively designed, solid built, high-quality products, but many lack the features commonly found on lower cost products. It's normal to find home amps and preamps priced about the same as a decent new car without even as much as a tone or balance control. After all, the perfect amplifier is a straight piece of wire with gain, right?
Some folks believe there's really no difference in the way one amplifier sounds versus another amplifier. I'm not one of them. I also think MP3s are degrading our ability to appreciate true high fidelity, but I'll leave that for another day.
Because of the common acceptability of "mid-fi" sources, there are a lot of amplifiers that sound virtually identical to the majority of listeners. Perhaps we're losing a bit of our ability to really listen to music. And I'll agree that if things like frequency response curves are matched and the amps never get driven into clipping, most will sound similar. Ten years ago, I even took a 100-sample test (a couple of times) and proved to myself that in those conditions I couldn't hear the difference between two radically different amplifiers.
But, in my world, I don't listen to amps with carefully pre-matched response curves, and I do occasionally drive 'em hard enough to clip. And when I use them like this, I can hear definite differences. Sometimes it's subtle, and other times it's a bit more obvious. But rest assured, differences in the way an amplifier sounds can exist in real world conditions.
It seems the engineers at DLS also subscribe to this principle, as evidenced by their high-end Ultimate TA2 stereo amplifier ($2,500). While the TA2 includes minimal features to make it usable in most systems, the focus is definitely on sound.
The Swedish company has been building high-quality audio components since 1979. While they're probably best known for their mobile audio amps and speakers, they also began to produce high-quality home audio systems. Their concept is simple - design products that sound good, and don't be afraid to experiment along the way. Rated at 100 watts per channel into 4 ohms and 200 watts per channel into 2 ohms, the Ultimate TA2 stereo amplifier is a good example of the experimentation that occurs when an engineer thinks outside the box and combines time-tested home audio techniques with mobile audio amplifier technology.
OverviewThe DLS Ultimate TA2 is different from your garden-variety car amp. It measures about 16" x 9.5" x 2.75", and uses a flawless, brushed aluminum heatsink anodized to a medium gray color. Even the end panels are perfectly finished in the same style. The impression of quality is unmistakable. Think high-end home audio fit and finish, and you'll have the right idea.
The top of the heatsink has a window to show off the CV4010 pentode vacuum tubes used in the preamp section. (I told you it was different!) We'll talk more about the tubes later, because other design elements are also worth noting. Like a high-end home component, the TA2 uses large, gold-plated panel-mount style RCA connectors and even boasts gold-plated ends for the detented independent left and right gain pots, crossover frequency control, and crossover on/off switch. The power and speaker connections are well made and the five-gauge connections also use gold plating.