CLASSÉ DELTA pre/power amplifiers
Classé, the erstwhile amplification stablemate of Bowers & Wilkins, is back in da house.
Classé, the erstwhile amplification stablemate of Bowers & Wilkins, is back in da house.
Classé is back, and we are very happy to celebrate its return. We’ve long used a Classé stereo AV amplifier amongst our reference products, a model from the period when Classé was the stablemate to and go-to amplifier brand for Bowers & Wilkins. By then production had already moved from Classé’s home in Montreal, Canada, over to China, but worse was to come when B&W was in turn purchased by EVA Automation in 2016. Classé was put into hibernation, and the brand seemed destined to disappear amid much mourning and wringing of hands.
But in 2020 Bowers & Wilkins changed hands again, joining the increasingly extensive Sound United stable, and Classé was revived, with its former President reinstalled and tasked with finalising the previously terminated development of a new Delta Series. Better still, Sound United decided that the Delta Series deserved production in Japan, in that country’s famous Shirakawa Audio Works indeed, where Sound United was already manufacturing the highest-end Denon and Marantz products.
Equipment
So here they are, or at least two of the three models so far available from the revived brand, which are a preamplifier and a choice of stereo or mono power amps; we have reviewed the stereo version, the Classé Delta Stereo power amplifier. This operates in Class-A up to a power output of 12.5W, while the Delta Pre also operates completely in Class-A, which is appropriate to Classé’s origins — the company name is pronounced Class-A not merely because of the French Canadian accent but because the company’s very first product — the DR-2, a 25W amplifier designed and built by the company’s sole founder, David Reich — was, in fact, a Class-A amplifier. Above 12.5W the power amplifier transitions to being a linear Class-AB amplifier up to its rated output of 250W per channel into 8 ohms, 500-watts into 4 ohms and 350W into 2 ohms.
Classé Delta Stereo
The louvre-looking window that dominates the front panel of the Delta Stereo power amplifier is actually a series of fins in front of the air intake for Classé’s trademarked “ICTunnel”, an “Intelligent Cooling” system which removes heat from the amplifier by pulling cool air through the intake on the front, thereby minimising the heatsinking required. The ‘tunnel’ uses a fan, with the ‘intelligent’ part referencing the fact that the fan turns on only when required, and runs only as fast as required to remove excess heat. It exhausts via the rear panel. So as well as not obstructing the intake on the front panel, which would be unlikely, make sure the exhaust vent on the rear panel is not obstructed in any way.
The needle-bouncing power output meters indicate power output in watts, though accurately so only if your loudspeakers present a pure 8-ohm resistance to the output terminals. Classé suggests that you use the meters to determine if the amplifier is running in Class-A mode or Class-AB mode, with the Owners’ Manual advising that: “A good rule of thumb is that when the pointer is below/left of vertical, the amplifier is operating in Class-A.” The two meters are back-lit, with three levels of lighting (or off) available, and the meters are connected via an optical coupler, its signal converted to digital so it can be delivered to the needles logarithmically to deliver VU-like movement.
The rear of the Classé Delta Stereo is dominated by that fan, either side of which are pairs of multi-way colour-coded speaker terminals very sensibly offset to ease any type of speaker wire and/or connection that you like. The terminals also have a feature called ‘torque guard’, which works like a torque wrench. Once the terminals are sufficiently tight, further tightening will simply result in a ratchet-like clicking sound. In all our long years we’ve only ever once broken a speaker terminal this way, but it’s a neat system.
Above the fan and speaker terminals are the line inputs — a choice of unbalanced RCA terminals or balanced XLR types. Arrayed down the left-edge of the rear panel are an Ethernet jack, a USB connector (simply for firmware upgrades), an RS232 jack, CAN-BUS terminals, jacks for infra-red extenders and triggers, and an automatic standby switch that be set to permanently or to switch off after no audio signal for 20 minutes, but usefully switches back on if a signal is detected.
A highly comprehensive regime protects the power amplifier from faults — usually an external fault, but not always. The Delta Stereo will shut down automatically if you accidentally short-circuit its output terminals with, say, a stray strand of speaker cable. It will shut down if excessive current is drawn from, say, a low-impedance loudspeaker, or in the event of there being too much direct current at the speaker terminals — to protect your speakers as much as the amplifier itself. It will shut down if the amp becomes too hot, if the cooling fan itself fails, or is disconnected, or is unable to spin. And it keeps an ‘Event Log’ of any faults, so that you (or the technician tasked with investigating the fault) has a complete record of what has happened. There’s handy.
Classé Delta Pre
The Classé Delta Pre is well-equipped in many ways, including its input selection. For analogue sources you get two pairs of balanced line-level inputs on XLR sockets, and two pairs of RCA unbalanced inputs at line-level and one at phono level, switchable for moving-coil or moving-magnet, between low and high gain and with an extended range of loading options. You can also repurpose the XLR2 balanced input to serve as a balanced phono input.
Digital audio inputs include USB-B for a computer connection, handling PCM up to 32-bit/384kHz and DSD up to 256×; the other digital inputs are necessarily limited to 24/192, including network streaming via Ethernet, AES/EBU, and a generous three each of coaxial and optical connections. Networking also activates playback via Apple AirPlay. Unusually there’s no Bluetooth implementation here.
Although only a two-channel preamplifier, the Classé Delta Pre has crossover and time delay controls you would expect to find only in a fully-featured AV component: very few two-channel pre-amplifiers provide these. The delay circuit can adjust the timing between left and right speakers, whether or not you are using a subwoofer, though you can configure two of those, setting crossover frequency, crossover slope and, if you’re
“The Classé Delta Pre has crossover and time delay controls that you would usually expect to find only in a fully-featured AV component...”
using two, whether you’re using them in stereo or as two mono subs. It also allows you to delay the signal to time-align the subwoofer/s to be in sync with your speakers.
You can choose to high-pass the signal to your main speakers, or send full-range to them, so both main speakers and subwoofer/s are operating at the same time. All this enables great flexibility when setting up your system.
There are USB ports front and back, the front one designed to play from Apple devices, as well as providing power for them and able to load firmware updates downloaded onto a USB stick from Classé’s website.
In an age where it’s rare for high-end components to offer any type of tone control at all, the Delta Pre offers three different types: straightforward bass and treble ‘tone’ controls plus a ‘Tilt’ control — ‘tilt’ one way for more bass and less treble, or the other way for less bass and more treble. Classé has improved on the classic tilt implementation by allowing you to specify a range of frequencies that will not be affected when you ‘tilt’, though Classé has been fairly conservative regarding the boost and cut available, providing only 6dB rather than the more usual 10–12dB. But this all seems very sensible — if you need more than 6dB boost there’s something seriously wrong with one or more of the other components in your system.
The other ‘tone’ control is a twochannel five-band parametric equaliser (PEQ) that allows you to construct up to five different filters for each channel. One or more of these might compensate for unwanted room effects.
There’s one caveat with these adjustments: Classé uses digital signal processing (DSP) to provide them. This ‘downgrades’ many specifications, for example increasing noise levels from 133dB to 105dB. To ensure maximum sound quality from analogue inputs, use the ‘Bypass’ mode, which switches off and bypasses all digital signal processing circuitry and leaves the signal entirely in the analogue domain. It’s good you can do this; in many modern amps, it’s increasingly digitise or nothing.
There are five outputs in all, each with balanced and single-ended options. There are outputs for the main left and right channel and a subwoofer; the other two can be configured to mirror the main stereo channels for bi-amping, or one can be used to send a high-passed signal to a second sub.
HDMI inputs? Not on the standard Classé Pre, but you can add a 4K-capable HDMI module that will give you four HDMI inputs and one HDMI output to the unit.
Finally there’s Classé’s CAN-Bus (Controller Area Network) which allows multiple Classé components to be connected together for simultaneous operation and system-wide status information and control.
An infra-red remote control is supplied; you can also remotely control the Delta Pre with Classé’s free App on iOS or Android.
Listening
We began listening with some Alice Cooper classics, one of the first being Be My Lover, from the 1971 ‘Killer’ album. This is a perfect example of the complexity of the band (and it was a band) and the undeniable musical talents of the various members. Dennis Dunaway’s bass lines are interesting; Neal Smith’s drumming is amazing; even the selfreferencing lyric is a step above most bands of their ilk. Listening via this Classé combo made that all transparently clear.
The bass intro to Dead Babies is sheer genius, and again the Classé combo made this clear. Listen to the subtlety of the hi-hat sizzle! Then just listen to the title track (which is also the closer) and you’ll hear why Frank Zappa was such an Alice Cooper fan. This is just great music, great sound, great recording technique. Admittedly the Classé combo makes the double-tracking more obvious than you’ll hear from lesser amplifiers, but this only seems to add to the effect.
Thinking of Zappa, we used the Classé Pre and Delta Stereo combo to spin up some of his classics as well, starting with ‘Hot Rats’. The opening instrumental, Peaches En Regalia, is wonderfully scored, so much so that you almost miss that it also has a great melody. What you can’t miss is the incredible sense of fun, and it’s this sense of fun that’s not only captured exactly but also amplified by the Classé duo. The follower, Willie the Pimp, not only features a blazing and bafflingly complex (and long!) guitar solo by Zappa but also the incredible electric violin sound of Sugarcane Harris (whose sound you can compare to that of Jean-Luc Ponty’s electric on the closer track) and the incomparable rhythm section of John Guerin (drums) and Max Bennett (bass). Both musicians were from jazz backgrounds and both went on to play with Joni Mitchell on ‘Court and Spark’, ‘Hissing of Summer Lawns’ and ‘Hejira’. (Indeed Guerin and Mitchell were once an item, and the song Hejira is her version of their break-up.)
If ‘Hot Rats’ were released today (anonymously), it would likely shoot rapidly up the avante-guard jazz charts to number one. It would also become a favourite with audiophiles on the basis that it’s so wonderfully recorded it makes a great system-tester. Listen particularly to Ian Underwood’s sax sound on Gumbo Variations, where he does his best Archie Shepp imitation.
This Underwood contribution references why Zappa called the album (his first solo effort, by the way) ‘Hot Rats’. “On his recording of The Shadow of Your Smile [Shepp] plays a solo that sounded to me like an army of pre-heated rats screaming out of his saxophone,” said Zappa.
This is all music from the 1960s and 70s, of course, but at least one musician who was producing hits back then is still producing them today, so we took our auditioning into the 21st century by re-listening to Bob Dylan’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ from just last year. Despite the fact he seems to be taking the piss on most of the tracks
(My Own Version of You being a prime example) it’s still an extraordinarily listenable album. Dylan famously told The New York Times “The lyrics are the real thing, tangible, they’re not metaphors...” but we all know what Dylan thinks of interviews. Nonetheless, whatever you think of the lyrics, the music is great, the production values are very high, and the Classé Delta combo delivered the depthy richness of the soundfield in a way that was completely gratifying, and Dylan’s voice perhaps better than we’ve ever heard it before.
But if you want to hear production values, you can’t go past auditioning these Classés with Amaarae’s debut long-player ‘The Angel You Don’t Know’ (do, however, be prepared for some head-snapping — and speaker-bending — sound effects). Although her music is often called ‘afro-pop’, the fact that every single one of the fourteen tracks on TAYDK is completely different makes this an ineffective stylistic definition. But if it’s a genre-bender of an album, it’s also a toe-tapping finger-snapping sonic revelation of an album under the presentation of the Classé duo, from her multi-tracked, echoed vocals to the depth-charged bass and take-noprisoners percussion.
Conclusion
The Classé Pre and Classé Delta Stereo honour their brand name in every one of its meanings. Sure, the circuitry is technically Class-A, but the sound itself definitely rates an ‘A’ in its class, so the amplifiers are ‘Class A’ in that sense as well. And to twist the pronunciation a little further, these amplifiers are most definitely ‘classy’ as well, as you can see for yourself from the photos in this review — and as you will be able to hear for yourself, when you audition them.