Power Amplifier Buying Guide

Audio by Van Alstine power amplifiers make amazing improvements in your audio system.

They are designed to preserve the musical character of the performance, to be absolutely free of rough edges, and to operate reliably, quietly and unobtrusively.

You get real power and solid dynamics because our amps are designed to operate impeccably into real world complex loudspeaker loads.

A reviewer for one respected underground magazine told us that our amplifier was the best solid-state amplifier he had ever heard driving Quad electrostatics.

AVA amps are super fast—they have infinite slew factors (confirmed by the late Leonard Feldman in an Audio magazine review – reprint online at www.avahifi.com). The clarity and detail you hear with an

AVA amplifier is so pleasing because we provide the bandwidth reserves to pass all the music unaltered. They are kind to your tweeters and to your ears. The definition and transparency are clearer than ever, providing effortlessly liquid and extended highs.

AVA amplifiers are DC-stable so lows cannot overshoot and boom. They have no turn-on or turn-off pulses under normal conditions. They are kind to your woofers because they reproduce musical bass, never dumping DC or excess rumble into the system. AVA amps (except the Ultimate 70) have full complimentary power MOSFET output stages so rugged and carefully designed that no dynamics-stifling current limiting or protection circuits are needed.

All AVA amplifier designs are painstakingly researched, evaluated, and verified with our sophisticated computer design equipment.

Our internal, custom circuit analysis software allows us to examine every aspect of potential designs at a resolution impossible to achieve with even sophisticated test equipment. Using our proprietary circuit-design capability, our engineers were even able to pinpoint (and easily correct) a significant problem in the B&W 801 Series II crossover that B&W themselves, and everybody else, had missed. Think about it. If we can make that big of an improvement by simply eliminating mistakes in others’ products, then consider how good our equipment must sound when the mistakes are never introduced in the first place.

All Audio by Van Alstine amplifiers are built with the very best quality parts for the musical engineering applications.

All resistors are precision metal-film and metal-oxide types. All audio circuit capacitors are matched film types or are film-bypassed. All semiconductors and tubes are used far within their maximum ratings so they are never over-voltaged or overpowered, even at clipping. Our power supplies sustain continuous full power operation without strain and are very well isolated and decoupled for quiet and stable long-term performance. We use huge heavy-duty heat sinks to keep our designs cool and long lasting. We build our amps to be extraordinarily reliable, to be sonically satisfying, and to survive accidents. Almost always, if a mistake is made in the operation of your system, all you will have to do is replace an inexpensive fuse. Even more important than excellent service and warranty is a design that is likely to never need service.

We design for very low open-loop distortion without excess feedback to preserve the character of the music.

Although this may not impress spec. sheet buyers, we would rather impress you, the music lover! We do not use high frequency feedback to impress closed minded (and eared) bench technicians who are slaves to obsolete standards. Doing so only turns open-loop harmonic and IM distortion into closed loop phase distortion which, although missed completely in the EIA measurement process, is the reason you don’t like the sound of most oriental receivers and amplifiers. We choose to not advertise our measurements even though they are very good indeed (an OmegaStar amplifier, for example, is as quiet as a good phono preamp) because we do not participate in this numbers race madness.

Our engineering designs put music and durability first to save you money. The music is the art, not the blinking lights.

You will love the way our products are built, the way they sound and the way we allocate resources. We build tidy, neat, and very solid amplifiers with the inside engineering perfected first, rather than silly styling exercises. Of course our black-anodized faceplates are attractive but we don’t make them a half an inch thick to try to double the prices. Our equipment will impress you and your friends because it compels you to listen to the music, not just to look at the blinking lights and shiny buttons. The value is in the contents, not just in the wrappings.

Our amplifiers need no extended warm-up or break-in time.

We design for absolute stability and the proper use and biasing of all the active and passive parts all the time. We don’t care if your power line voltage dips because of summer brownout conditions, an Audio by Van Alstine amplifier will still sound great. Our circuit parameters don’t change just because your line voltage does. Actual good engineering takes into consideration the wide range of real world operating conditions the amplifier will encounter. We design so the amp will perform perfectly under adverse conditions. Thus our amplifiers sound great from turn-on to turn-off and at all times in between. We don’t design unstable, finicky beasts that only work properly if conditions are perfect.

We have designed and perfected two unique amplifier product lines.

There is an Audio by Van Alstine power amplifier you can afford to own. Read on for the details about each purpose-designed OmegaStar and Fet Valve amplifier. There is an Audio by Van Alstine power amplifier that is just right for you—one you will enjoy for a long, long time.

International 120/240 V 50/60 Hz power transformers are available for all new AVA amps.

This is an extra cost option at the time your amplifier is built. Never use with USA 240 V because that is not real 240 V at all, but two 120 V lines with a third ground and is unsafe for this application. Call us for details regarding the appropriate transformer and operating voltage for your country or location.