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Frank Alles
Dignity Audio DA08SE
300B Mono
Tube Amplifiers
Triodes with Testosterone!
May 2006
While attending T.H.E. Show 2006 in Las Vegas, and minding my own
business as usual, I was approached by Mr. C.C. Poon of Monarchy Audio.
Brimming with enthusiasm, he told me about the new 300B SET amps from
Dignity Audio that Monarchy Audio is now importing into the US.
Realizing that Mr. Poon does not get excited over a product too easily,
I was intrigued. He explained that the Permalloy output transformers
that Dignity Audio employs are costly to manufacture and are normally
found in much more expensive designs. He also intimated that the
Permalloy transformers enabled the Dignity 300Bs to deliver almost full
rated power at the frequency extremes, a feat that many other 300B
amplifiers fail to accomplish.
The
simple, retro-industrial look of the Dignity amplifiers will make them
fairly inconspicuous in most systems. On the front panel of the slim
amplifier are the power on/off toggle and a rotary volume control. The
rear panel contains the speaker binding posts, gold-plated input RCA
jack, and a female IEC receptacle to facilitate use with the power cord
of your choice. One of the unique features of these $800 per monoblock
amps is an impedance selector that switches the speaker output between
4, 8, and 16 ohms. Also, they use Permalloy output transformers which
are also made by some other manufacturers for over $1,000/pair USD!
Is Hearing Believing?
While
C.C. Poon suggests running sources directly into the Dignity amplifiers
in order to take full advantage of the excellent, built-in 6SN7 tube
preamp stage, I elected to use my Parasound P/LD-2000 line stage preamp
for two reasons. The first was that it gave me the power to select
different sources, and the second was that I knew from experience that
the high-current drive capability of the P/LD-2000 would be more
beneficial than any slight loss of transparency due to its use. Later
in my evaluation, I used Monarchy Audio’s new M24 tube DAC directly
into the Dignity Audio amplifiers with very gratifying sonic results.
The speakers I used were the Silverline Audio Preludes. These slim-line
towers are very dynamic and very detailed. Plus they have a very
natural tonal balance and offer very good extension into the bass and
treble ranges. They are not only great sounding speakers, but are
useful tools to the ears of this reviewer. My only question would be
whether or not the Prelude’s 91dB sensitivity spec would allow for
adequate listening volume in my room. It did!
I began my first listening session with “Times Like These,” from Jack
Johnson’s On and On CD [Bubble Toes 440 075 012 2]. From the opening
guitar thwacks it was apparent that the high-frequency speed and focus
of the Dignity amps was excellent. Indeed Johnson’s vocal was perfectly
centered between the speakers at an exact point in space. And his
singing sounded natural, unstrained, and immediate. The guitar itself
had beautiful tone, letting the listener hear the attack, decay, and
harmonic structure of every note and chord.
I enjoyed listening to this first cut so much that I relaxed and let
the CD play to the end. The fast and spirited fretwork on “Taylor” was
ever so well captured. In fact, the Dignity amps did so well with on
and on, that I decided to torture the little upstarts with some of my
bass heavy hitters.
I
loaded Bela Fleck’s Flight of the Cosmic Hippo [Warner Bros. 9
26562-2] into my transport and let ‘er rip, not quite knowing what to
expect. As it happened, the old hippo sounded kind of slow and plodding
and when the song got to the really deep and loud bass passage, that
hippo wallowed and groaned like it was being disemboweled.
Okay, not so good, but I knew that the Preludes were nominally rated at
8-ohms and that’s where the amp’s impedance selector was set for on
this initial pass. I also knew that moving the switch to the 4-ohm
position would effectively double the damping factor. So of course,
that would be my next logical test. I set both amps to the 4-ohm
position and then restarted the Hippo’s precarious flight (hard to get
one of those off the ground).
On the second pass, in the 4-ohm mode, the hippo, thankfully, retained
its lunch. The bass was deep, tuneful, and surprisingly well
controlled. No longer did the hippo thrash about in quick sand. Now,
the hippo’s gait had rhythm. Very impressive.
I knew that if the Dignity amps could maintain their composure playing
“Cosmic Hippo” then they had little else to prove in the area of bass
reproduction. 
So
naturally, I broke out other bass-heavy material and continued my
merciless onslaught. I played Fionna Apple’s Extraordinary Machine
CD [Epic/Clean Slate EK 86683], which is just loaded with smacking low
bass and the tiny Dignity amps continued to belt it out like they meant
it. Every once in a while a song would contain an extremely low note
and the Dignity/Prelude duo would pressurize the room as if to say,
“Back at you!”
But as one might guess, with only 8 watts output the bass of the
Dignity amps had its limitations. They did not quite have the control
of the >4000 damping factor NuForce Reference 8 amps and they could
not play nearly as loud. Likewise, a pair of Manley Mahi monoblocks
provided greater power and oomph in the low bass. If the Dignity amps
are used with more efficient speakers this bass limitation would likely
be less apparent, and when kept to reasonable levels with the Preludes
it was quite satisfying. Monarchy’s C.C. Poon recommends using speakers
of at least 93dB/W, which makes perfect sense to me.
Perhaps more important than the Dignitys’ ability to produce “ultimate”
bass, was their ability to produce natural, tonally-authentic bass;
meaning that bass instruments sounded particularly real, and that bass
notes maintained their pitch definition and were easy to follow.
So
after torturing the amps with bass-buster recordings, I put on some
nice classic jazz. From Branford Marsalis’ Trio Jeepy [Columbia
CK 44199], I cued up Track 3, “The Nearness of You,” and listened. The
Dignity amps immediately showed their prowess by capturing the guttural
growl of Marsalis’ bass saxophone, center stage. Everything about the
sax sounded right, you could hear the wispy sound of the reed and even
the spittle in the mouthpiece of the brass machine. Adding palpable
punctuation on the left was the double bass, while on the right the
brushed cymbals sounded almost feathery, and had the ring of
authenticity. This was great sound reproduction, by any standard.
Just to check and see if I wasn’t hallucinating about how great the
Dignity amps reproduced Marsalis’ sax, I reinstalled my prized NuForce
Reference 8 amplifiers and played the track again. The NuForce
rendition was good. Image size was large, and certainly the sax was
clean and dynamic sounding. Yet, it seemed that the Dignity amps better
captured the whole body of the instrument in a way that the NuForce
amps couldn’t quite manage. It sounded just a little more natural and a
little more “present.”
This experience started me thinking, and just for the sake of getting
another take on it I pulled my VanAlstine-modified Dyna Stereo 70 from
the closet and hooked it up. Here we are talking about an EL-34-based,
push-pull amplifier with tube rectification. Interestingly, what I
found was that the Dignity amps sounded more transparent and natural on
the saxophone and other mid-band instruments. When I tried the
EL-84-based Manley Mahi amplifiers in their best-sounding, single-ended
triode mode with minimum feedback, the difference was smaller, but
still apparent, with the Dignity amps edging all comers for ultimate
midrange purity.
At the opposite end of the frequency spectrum, the Dignity amps were
definitely fast and natural, but they did not possess as much
high-frequency extension as either the NuForce or the Dyna 70. This
made for a slightly darker tonal balance. Yet, the treble of the
Dignity amps was very clean, fast, and harmonically right. Using them
in conjunction with the Silverline Preludes worked very well because to
my ears the Preludes seem to have a small emphasis somewhere in the
treble. This trait was the least noticeable when using the Dignity
amps. In fact I doubt that most people would be able to pick it out.
Accordingly, the Dignity amps mated very well with the Preludes, with
the condition that one would need to maintain sensible volume levels.
This is less difficult than it might seem because the Dignity amps
continue to sound extremely alluring even at lower volume levels.
The above comments on the treble performance of the Dignity amps are
based on using Belden 14-gauge copper power cords on the amplifiers. I
found that when I switched to the silver NuForce Stealth power cords
the treble extension and high-frequency “air” improved quite a bit. In
fact, with the Stealth cords the Dignity amps produced some of the most
extended and natural sounding treble that I have ever heard from an
audio system.
Caveats
I believe I’ve established that the
Dignity amplifiers are very competent and musical fulfilling amplifiers.
That said, there are a couple of issues that may or may not bother
potential buyers. The first thing I noticed upon initially powering the
amplifiers up was that they were mechanically noisy and I could also
hear a low-level 60Hz tone with my ear very close to the speakers. But
it was the mechanical humming and buzzing that annoyed me the most. Mr.
Poon noted that although the Permalloy transformers in the amps offered
extremely wide bandwidth, they were also very sensitive to impurities
on the AC line.
Mr. Poon sent me Monarchy’s new P100 AC Electrical Source to try, but
that proved to be a double-edged sword. The P100 is similar to the PS
Audio Power Plants in that it is an AC power regenerator. Both the line
voltage and line frequency can be varied, but the unit was only rated
at 100 watts which is the maximum draw of the two Dignity amps.
I must say that the sound quality of the amplifiers was fantastic
through the P100. By changing the line frequency from 60Hz to 50Hz I
was able to get the amps very quiet. Not only that, but the sound
became even sweeter through the midrange and highs and the bass seemed
to tighten up a bit. The big downside of this arrangement was that the
current draw of the amps kicked the P100’s internal cooling fan into
high gear, where it sounded about as loud as my Dirt Devil vacuum
cleaner. So my feeling is that this type of device will work well with
the Dignity amps, but you’ll need a power regenerator that can support
at least a few hundred watts output without becoming noisy. After
listening to all that fan noise, suddenly the mechanical hum of the
Dignity amps didn’t seem so bad!
My second caveat, is that the speaker binding posts on the Dignity amps
sound good, but are obviously inexpensive. After installing and
uninstalling my spade lugs about 5 times, a couple of the speaker posts
loosened up. This would not be a terrible thing if one could gain
access to the tightening nuts easily, but I found that I’d need to
remove many more chassis screws than I was comfortable in order to
reach the binding posts. I finally gave up and left them loose. In the
real world, this condition might necessitate a trip back to Monarchy to
have the posts re-tightened. And I personally find that inconvenience
unacceptable. I suppose that using banana plugs instead of spades would
not stress the posts as much and they would probably stay tighter
longer. But since the posts are difficult to access, it would be better
if Dignity Audio found a way to prevent this potential problem from
occurring at all.
Conclusion
The Dignity Audio 300B mono SET
amplifiers are excellent sounding units that provide a healthy amount
of articulation and finesse along with the kind of drop-dead-gorgeous
midrange reproduction that is the hallmark of 300B single-ended triode
amplifiers.
Their Permalloy output transformers did indeed allow these amplifiers
to achieve greater extension at both frequency extremes than one would
normally expect from a 300B amp. However, my review pair had a higher
level of mechanical hum than other amps I have had in my system.
I have expressed my concerns to Monarchy’s Mr. Poon, and he has passed
them on to the folks at Dignity Audio. As a result, a new version of
the amplifier will be available shortly. It will include several parts
upgrades, and will address the mechanical transformer hum. Therefore I
am planning a follow up to this review, which should appear in the late
summer or fall.
I absolutely enjoyed my listening sessions with the Dignity amplifiers.
Those looking for very good sounding 300B amplifiers in this price
range should put the Dignity Audio DA08SE amplifiers on their short
list of worthy contenders.
Frank Alles
Features:
- Permalloy
output transformer for highest energy coupling from the tube to the
speaker Z11 silicon steel laminates for both the AC transformer and the
filter choke
(This is the material other tube manufacturers use for their output
transformers).
- Sophisticated output impedance selector switch (in a 4-8-16-ohm matrix
for best speaker matching).
- All single-ended operation.
- Monoblock construction for infinite channel separation and devoted
power supply per channel.
- A combo line amp and power amp (volume control on the front panel).
- Slim chassis for compact 5-channel side-by-side stacking.
- Power supply optimized for 117V /60Hz operation.
(Contact distributor for 240 V/50Hz units -- voltage is not changeable).
Specifications:
Output Power: 8 watts
Input Sensitivity: 200 mV
Input Impedance: 100k-ohms
Tube Compliment: 6SN7 input; 300B output.
Weight: 15 lbs.
Price: $800 per monoblock
Monarchy Audio
380 Swift Ave., #21
S. San Francisco, CA 94080
Telephone: 650-873-3055
Fax: 650-588-0335
e-mail: monarchy@earthlink.net
Web: www.monarchyaudio.com
The DA08SE is hand built in Hong Kong by Dignity Audio, a company that
specializes in high quality output transformers. They are exclusively
distributed and serviced in the USA and Canada by Monarchy Audio.
