Classé: welcome back to Bowers
Bowers & Wilkins Australia has done very well in this year’s Sound+Image Awards — four gongs in all, including two for its wireless Formation series of products. This shows how the quality of product seems to have been unaffected by two changes of ownership in four years (see panel), the latest of which brings it back together under the Sound United umbrella with its former electronics brand partner, Classé Audio.
This has enabled the Australian arm of Bowers & Wilkins to bring Classé back to Australia, making available the company’s third-gen Delta range of amplifiers first announced at CES in 2019, and launched at the following Munich High End show. There are three models: a preamplifier plus a choice of stereo or monoblock power amplifiers, all designed by Classé in Montreal and built at Sound United’s Shirakawa Audio Works north of Tokyo (the same facility where higher-end Denon and Marantz products are also constructed).
The heart of each power amplifier is a large toroidal transformer, wound by hand in what Classé says is a six-hour process involving more than 540 metres of copper windings. Some 22 premium four-pole capacitors from Germany’s Mundorf provide filtering and 215,000μF of energy storage “for unrestrained dynamics and clarity even under demanding conditions” says the company. A new lateral MOSFET output stage operates in Class A (from whence the Classé name was derived) up to 35W for the mono power amp and 12.5W per channel for the stereo.
The preamplifier is based on the previous Classé CP-800, its back panel (below) welcoming two analogue linelevel inputs and two further balanced XLR analogue inputs, a phono input supporting high-output moving-magnet and both high- and low-output moving-coil cartridges, while digital inputs are plenteous, with three each of optical and coaxial, plus USB-B to play from a computer at file rates up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and native DSD256 (quad-DSD). A network connection enables AirPlay and DLNA playback as well as IP control for using the Classé app for Android and iOS devices. Analogue sources have a bypass mode available to circumvent digital processing for a pure analogue listening mode.
The Classé Delta Pre has an RRP of $16,900, the Delta Mono $17,900 and Delta Stereo $19,900. More information from: www.bowerswilkins.com/en-au