NAGRA HD PREAMP

Audio Technology Switzerland has announced that it will soon release the Nagra HD Preamp, which it claims is: ‘ our most ambitious preamplifier ever.’ The Swiss company’s announcement comes exactly twenty years after the release of the company’s first consumer product, the Nagra PL-P preamplifier. Prior to that time Nagra had been manufacturing products exclusively for the professional recording market… which it had been doing successfully for more than 40 years. The PL-P preamplifier was a Class-A triode-based line and phono preamplifier. ‘In many respects, the HD Preamp’s design started from a blank page,’ said Matthieu Latour, of Audio Technology, which manufactures Nagra in Switzerland. ‘ Every aspect and step in the design process involved research to find the most elegant solution to accurately and faithfully convey the music from the source to the amplifier. As a result, the HD Preamp, which like the PL-P is also a tube design, includes several patent-pending technologies that take the music listening experience to new heights. It is the perfect partner for the HD DAC and HD Amp.’

The valve-based HD Preamp a dual-mono design with a separate power supply (using Super Caps) built around Nagra’s ‘virtual battery’ technology that provides superior results compared to a conventional battery without the inconvenience of dealing with charging time and battery life. ‘ Just as the PL-P made use of batteries to isolate the unit from external interferences, the HD Preamp’s power supply uses a unique virtual battery technology,’ Latour told Australian Hi-Fi Magazine. ‘ One of the consequences of this superior supply is that the noise floor level of the preamplifier reaches uncharted territories: the lowest ever measured on a Nagra product.’

As a tribute to Nagra’s legendary recorders, the HD Preamp also features a ‘modulometer’, a custom-made meter that Nagra says is faster and more accurate than a traditional VU meter and an improvement on the modulometer fitted to the original PL-P. For further information, please contact Advance Audio on (02) 9561 0799 or visit the website at www.advanceaudio.com.au