COPLAND IS BACK

After a brief hiatus on the Australian marketplace, Copland high-end audio components are once more available. The new Australian distributor is the well-known Melbourne-based company Audio Magic.

Founded by Olé Möller in 1985, Copland is a small Danish company that designs and manufactures all its components in Denmark. Because of this, the product range is small, currently comprised of nine models, but will soon be increased with the addition of a new pre-amplifier and a new power amplifier.

All models in Copland’s range are amplifiers, including a DAC/preamp/headphone amplifier (DAC 215) through line stages, to integrated amplifiers and power amplifiers. What all models have in common is valves, used either solus or in hybrid arrangements.

As a small specialist valve amplifier manufacturer, Copland was one of the first to build amplifiers using the newest audio power valve, the KT150, which has now largely supplanted the almost century-old KT88. Although a KT150 can deliver 30 per cent more power than a KT88, so a pair in pushpull can deliver nearly 200-watts of power, Copland also uses them in lower-powered triode configurations where their use ensures what Möller calls, “an incredible quantity of headroom and dynamics without overloading.”

One such design is the Copland CTA 506 power amplifier, whose push-pull output stages consist of a pair of matched KT150s in fixed ultra-linear configuration, providing the power of tetrodes and the low distortion of triodes. Copland rates the CTA 506 with an output of 90-watts per channel continuous into 8Ω from 20Hz to 20kHz with less than 1.0% THD. Designer Möller takes full advantage of the wide bandwidth of valves to deliver a frequency response of 5Hz to 100kHz (–3dB). The signal-to-noise ratio is specified as being in excess of 100dB (IHF-A). Möller also believes in putting his valves on show.

“The huge power valves in this amplifier are very pleasing to look at,” he says “we have therefore decided to make them clearly visible by situating the valves behind lateral perforations on the front panel, thus creating a stunning design to match the sonic virtues of this amplifier.”

“We will stock all models in Copland’s range,” said Aleksandar Maksimovic of Audio Magic. “We’re waiting shipment of the newest models, but at the moment have available the DAC 215, CSA 100, CTA 408, CSA 75 and CSA 150.”

The CTA 408 (pictured) is an integrated amplifier that, like the CTA 516, uses KT150s to deliver a rated power output of 75-watts per channel, both channels driven into 8Ω. It has a J-FET RIAA phono stage built in that uses more than one hundred discrete components rather than ICs. It’s isolated in a shielded case and fed by a separate power supply. The CTA 408 also has a dedicated Class-A headphone amplifier on board. “The output transformers in the CTA 408 are a Copland in-house design, fine-tuned for optimal power bandwidth,” says Maksimovic. “The massive size of the transformers prevents core saturation, and they are able to transfer full power well below 20Hz to the loudspeakers with a minimum of phase shift.”

Möller says the superb linearity of the CTA 408’s design, combined with an extended high-frequency performance that is only 3dB down at 100kHz, reduces the requirement for internal lag compensation after the amplifier’s negative feedback loop is closed. “The CTA 408 simultaneously offers a midrange sound that is open and clear, highs with unconstrained mobility and acceleration, and a deep, tight and free-flowing bass reproduction, all in a single-chassis design for those who prefer the ease and convenience of a single chassis, but want the performance of separates,” he says.

For more information, contact Audio Magic on (03) 9489 5122 or visit www.audiomagic.com.au