Thuono, Omega Audio Concepts and Lawrence Audio Dragon Analogue and CD System

Lawrence Audio Dragon towers from Taiwan are driven in this room by a single Omega Audio Concepts Assolo integrated amplifier, fed by two complete sources. Vinyl comes from a marble Thuono TH300 turntable carrying an Analog Relax EX700 moving-coil cartridge, stepped up by a Phasemation T-600 transformer into a CS Port C3EQM2 valve phono stage. Discs play on the Omega DNA CD Player, with the separate Omega DNA DAC handling conversion.

The system at a glance

Eight components form one chain, with a single amplifier and one pair of tall floorstanders that call for a sizeable room. The weight sits on analogue, with four boxes between groove and line input, while the Omega disc player and converter cover Red Book playback. Thuono lists the TH300 at EUR 22,000 including its own tonearm. It suits a listener who plays both records and CDs and wants one compact amplifier.

Why these components work together

The Dragon is a three-way bass reflex design rated at 90 dB at 2.83 V with a 4 ohm impedance, and Lawrence Audio suggests 50 to 150 W. The Assolo answers with 100 W into 8 ohm and 160 W into 4 ohm, built in one CNC-machined aluminium case of 30 kg with separate toroidal transformers for the power stage of each channel. Its volume control places a single resistor in the signal path in 0.5 dB steps, and no capacitors sit in series with the signal. The EX700 delivers 0.45 mV from a 4.5 ohm coil, which falls inside the 1.5 to 40 ohm range the T-600 accepts. Its fixed 26 dB step-up lifts that to around 9 mV for an MM input of the C3EQM2, whose C3g valve runs from a nickel-metal hydride battery isolated from the mains. On the digital side the DNA CD Player reads discs with a CD-PRO 2 mechanism and sends S/PDIF to the DNA DAC, where a Wolfson WM8805 receiver with a TCXO clock and a 2.0 Vrms output without series capacitors drive the line input.

How it sounds

Two 10 inch aluminium sandwich woofers and an amplifier that gains output as the load drops to 4 ohm keep low bass lines firm on large-scale material. The Jantzen diamond tweeter between two 5 inch ceramic mid-woofers, with an Accuton ceramic unit firing to the rear, spreads acoustic jazz and chamber music wide across the room, and the battery-driven phono stage leaves quiet passages free of hum.

Considering a similar setup

The Dragon is a 4 ohm load standing 163 cm tall and weighing 93 kg, so any replacement amplifier needs real current into a low impedance, and the space has to be generous. The transformer step can be dropped by using the built-in MC input of the C3EQM2, and the Omega disc player is the part to trim first if records come first.