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Beauty and the Beast? :-) .........
As explained by self-described “eternal music lover” Andreas Hoffmann, Octave’s owner and designer for over 30 years, all previous Octave amplifiers were high power push-pull affairs. Hoffmann spent 10 years working with SE designs to address problems lower in the range. “Our transformers allow the Jubilee 300B to go below 20Hz with linearity and full bandwidth,” he told me during a chat outside the room. “We dealt with phase shift issues and added a low-frequency 7Hz power generator with pure sine wave to heat the tubes with AC and allow use of three 300B tubes in parallel.”
The amp is completely electronically controlled, with thermo delays to protect tubes, and has a regulated electronic power supply to increase their life. You can adjust bias level to allow the use of different 300B tubes. It has separate speaker output terminals for 4 and 8 ohm speakers and both XLR and RCA inputs. Output is selectable between 15 and 30 W. In addition to three 300B tubes (supplied with EH or JJ), the amp uses one ECC 82 and one EF 800. It consumes 400W and weighs a little over 132 lbs.
In a system that also included an Octave HP-700 preamp ($12,500) with optional phono section (additional $1600 for the RIAA phono board plus between $475-2400 for each phono input module), Clearaudio Master Innovation turntable with Concerto cartridge, and Wireworld copper cabling, Hoffmann selected Karl Böhm’s 1964 recording of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The amps excelled at capturing the low end of Böhm’s anything but period instrument orchestra.
Beauty and the Beast? :-) .........