Review: SPL Auditor - Page 9

Quote:

Originally Posted by dukeskd 

Akatona, you take a look at the Violectric amps? Would love to hear your insight on them.

Mate, I would love to but unfortunately, I have never seen one in person, let alone had some time to spend with it. Curiously enough, that was going to be my next question to you guys! I only know what I read and from what I could see from the pictures, I liked the way everything was built with a sense of purpose. The shielded toroid transformer set in the middle with stabilization capacitors right next to it, input stage on the back and output stage on the front with DC coupling. Some people refrain from using coupling if it is absolutely not ncessary but if executed well, there are only positive sides to it. From what I remember, the Violectric (I think it was a V100) has a selectable gain switching system which is nothing more than negative feedback switch like on most amplifuers. At minimum setting, the feedback is 4dB which is a very low value and enough to keep the hiss down without affecting the linearity and dynamics too much. I'm afraid I can't say much more than that but it would be an interesting oponent to the SPL amplifier. Some would argue about this but over here a Musical Fidelity (I believe it is M1 headphone amplifier) costs virtually the same as the SPL and for the money, SPL is undoubtedly the better choice. I never found anything about the Musical Fidelity I liked and after examining the pictures of the inside of the amplifier, I knew why that was. 

Thanks for you posts Akatona. I don't know much about amplifiers and what goes into making them. It's enlightening and fun to learn a bit about the design choices available to manufacturers and why the Auditor has the hiss with sensitive low impedance headphones for example.

Knowing that they made the "right" choices when making the Auditor for the best quality sound even if it meant sacrificing compatibility with some headphones means it makes more sense to me why it is so distinctly different sounding from the V200 for example.

I wish it had unbalanced inputs, I don't like using adapters 

It's not strange they omitted single ended connectors completely since the amplifier was desinged to be inserted in between the mixing console and monitors or monitor management system and all of these come with balanced TRS connectors. Using an adapter won't hurt anyone as long as it is good quality. Something like a Klotz adapter will do the job fine and won't cause damage the to amplifier.

You can aslo use XLR - RCA cables (wich i used first to evaluate Auditor ) .

Apart from the obvious lack of psycho acoustic processor and higher stereo crosstalk on the Audito, does anyone know if there are any other differences between the Phonitor and Auditor? I was interested in the Phonitr's ability to manipulate the imaging in a completely analogue domain but I wonder if the additional circuitry is the reason for lower stereo crosstalk on the Phonitor.

The Phonitor has ground lift switch which might address the hiss with some headphones.

Thank you guys for all the useful information! I am a bit skeptical about the Phonitor's audio processor even though I like the fact it's a completely analogue circuitry. It might be useful to me but perhaps some form of plug-in would be more versatile. This is a bit of a dilemma.

Why not try SPL's demo itself? Sure it's not the same thing as the real amp, but it gives a clue.