Ultra High-End is on the march!

Custom-made loudspeakers carry the music in this five-component chain, and every piece of electronics driving them belongs to CH Precision's 10 Series. An M10 Stereo power amplifier takes the signal from an L10 preamplifier, a C10 converter covers files and discs, and a P10 phono stage serves a TechDAS Air Force One Premium turntable. The idea of the build is a single-family Swiss electronics stack with a Japanese air-bearing record player in front.

Why these components work together

Because the loudspeakers are bespoke, the amplifier has to cope with whatever load the custom design presents. The M10 Stereo has twice the power supply capacity of the earlier M1.1, delivers 2 x 550 W into 4 ohm and extends to 500 kHz, so a low or reactive impedance curve is unlikely to run it short of current. The L10 keeps the fully discrete, balanced and complementary design and DC topology of the L1, with very short signal paths, adjustable multi-stage filtered power supplies, a high slew rate and the R-2R volume control, plus DC detection and suppression circuitry. The C10 builds its conversion from sixteen PCM1704 R-2R converters wired as a DSQ Phase Array, fed by the in-house PEtER oversampling filter. The P10 is a twin-chassis, dual-mono phono stage, the latest addition to the 10 Series, which separates its supply from the delicate gain stages. The Air Force One Premium uses an air-bearing design that TechDAS says reaches a speed accuracy beyond ordinary belt drives and on a level with direct drive.

How it sounds

The ample current of the M10 lets the custom speakers start and stop bass notes without overhang, and dynamic swings in orchestral or big-band recordings arrive without compression. The low-noise preamplifier and the stable turntable speed keep quiet passages clean, so decays and room ambience stay audible on both vinyl and digital sources.