Meier Audio Corda Cantate 2

The CANTATE.2 uses the concept of active balanced headphone ground to minimize to total sum of the potentials of the headphone wires. This concept strongly minimizes the energies stored and released in the electrical fields inside the dielectricum (the insulation) of the wire when an audio-signal is applied. The influence of the wire on the sound is thus reduced. Moreover, with active balanced headphone ground pollution of the internal signal ground by strong driving currents is eliminated and the power-supply-rejection-ratio at the output stages is strongly improved. Thus the best conditions are given for a clean and undistorted sound. Active balanced headphone ground offers most of the advantages of a true balanced headphone setup without the need of balanced re-cabling of your headphones. The CANTATE.2 is build around LM6171 opamps biased into class-A. For the output stages BUF634 buffer amplifiers are used. These integrated circuits are very fast and thus allows the output signals to follow the input signals very closely. The amp is DC-coupled and any capacitors found in the signal path are of the highest quality polypropylen and polystyrol. Of course this amp also has our proprietary crossfeed filter incorporated which helps to strongly reduce listening fatigue. An extra feature is a high quality built-in USB-DAC. Audio files on your computer can be digitally transmitted to the CANTATE.2 and are converted into analog signals inside the amp. The DA-converter used (PCM2702) clearly surpasses the converters found in conventional soundcards. Never did your PC sound that good! Sure, not everybody will like the looks of the CANTATE.2, but the full-metal enclosure is far from the conventional box design that characterizes most other amps. This device is a true eye-catcher!