Technical Audio Devices Laboratories (TAD) introduced the TAD-C600 Reference Series Preamplifier, developed and designed entirely in-house by Director of Engineering Andrew Jones and an international team of audio engineers, artists and craftsmen.
The C600's quality results from a fundamental reassessment of all aspects of electrical and mechanical design. It offers reference quality from the meticulous left/right symmetrical design, dual mono construction and fully balanced circuitry, reaching a new peak in performance. It claims to deliver the closest approach to the original artistic intent, offering unprecedented reproduction capability.
The TAD-C600 preamplifier completes the Reference Series, which includes the Reference One speaker system, the TAD-CR1 Compact Reference, the D600 disc player and the M600 Monaural Power Amplifier. The C600 is the perfect complement to the collection, providing ultra-precise sound quality.
Features
- Fully Balanced Circuitry and Dual Mono Construction
To achieve accuracy from input to output, TAD has taken extreme measures to achieve thorough uniformity of circuitry for the left and right channels. The fully balanced and symmetrical circuit design allows signal transmission to be extremely accurate, with dynamic properties of the circuits to completely identical for both positive and negative signals. Furthermore, the balanced circuit provides resistance to the effects of external noise and ground potential fluctuations.To maintain left-right channel uniformity, vital for optimum stereo imaging and sound-field immersion, dual mono construction is employed. Identical in every way from input to output, from the circuit boards layout for the left and right channels down to wire lengths and dressing, each channel is isolated from the other by a central dividing shield to further enhance imaging.
- Vibration Absorption Technology
TAD used a precision-processed machined aluminum sub-chassis and three-point support insulators that block external vibration and noise, ensuring mechanical stability. At 33mm thick and weighing 15kg, the sub-chassis is fabricated using pure aluminum ingots which further achieves a high-level of vibration control as well as providing a stable mechanical ground. All the additional chassis parts are machined to the same high accuracy as the sub-chassis, serving to reduce the impact of vibration and external noise and contributing to the reproduction of music with ultra-high purity and faithfulness to the input signal. The spike-shaped three-point support feet ensure mechanical stability on any support surface. - Low-Noise Technology
Further reducing noise for the utmost signal clarity, a dual enclosure design separates the pre-amp and its power supply. This minimizes the effects of noise caused by vibration or magnetic flux leakage from the power supply transformer. A power amplifier-grade 400VA rated toroidal transformer provides a degree of precision that allows accurate precise transmission even during large signal levels and fast signal fluctuations.To prevent additional interference, the control functions and display utilize direct-current based operation. The controls, LED display and illumination operate via a circuit method based on direct current, minimizing their impact on sound quality. The control circuit wiring and power supply are housed inside a center shield that centrally divides the enclosure.
- High Quality Precision Parts
The highest quality and precision dedicated parts are used for the TAD-C600's construction including its custom electronic volume control featuring super-precise ball bearings. TAD's new ladder-resistance switching electronic volume control circuit achieves an absolute channel level difference of 0.1dB or less even at attenuations of more than 100dB with harmonic distortion at only 0.0005% (@1Vrms input). The impedance at the input and output terminals are independent of the volume setting, minimizing interaction with the signal circuitry and maximizing fidelity of the sound. - Extreme Link
The TAD-C600 incorporates our Extreme Link function, enabling users to synchronize multiple TAD-C600s together in a master/slave configuration to allow for further configurations of up to six channels.
See more details in the product brochure (pdf)
Price and Availability
The TAD-C600 will be available February 2012 for $42,000.
