Усилители мощности моно — Electrocompaniet AW 300 M

The AW 300 M is a mono power amplifier from Electrocompaniet, announced in Tau, Norway, on 23 October 2023 and made at the company's Norwegian factory. The company developed it from scratch purely as a mono model, and it comes in a more compact form than the AW 800 M above it. The asking price at launch was GBP 27,000 or USD 29,000 per pair.

Key specs that matter

Rated output is 300 W into 8 ohm, doubling into 4 ohm, with a figure of 1,000 W quoted into 2 ohm. Output devices work in pure Class A up to 10 W before moving into Class AB. Voltage gain from the balanced input is 29 dB, or 28 times, and input impedance is 330 kOhm. With the input filter active the response spans 0.5 Hz to 220 kHz, and with the filter disabled it reaches 1.1 MHz, where the slew rate is 140 V per microsecond. THD+N is 0.0006 % and IMD stays under 0.001 %. Signal-to-noise is 95 dB referenced to 1 W into 8 ohm and 120 dB referenced to full output, and input-referred noise is below 2 microvolts. The damping factor into 8 ohm exceeds 1,000 and output DC is held below 5 mV. Each unit is 212 mm wide, 488 mm deep and 292 mm high, and weighs 30 kg.

Engineering and use context

Electrocompaniet built the AW 300 M around its direct-coupled topology with high open-loop bandwidth, adding a short feedback loop around the output section and fast amplifier stages. JFETs and bipolar transistors are combined with low-noise metal film resistors and film capacitors, and the output stage has upgraded shielding. Power comes from an 800 VA toroidal transformer with magnetic and electrostatic screening, backed by 110,000 uF of filter capacitance. A steel chassis with internal bracing carries heatsinks down both flanks and stands on three Soundcare SuperSpikes. Protection covers DC, overload and temperature. A signal-sensing auto standby turns the amplifier off after 30 minutes without input, and the front power button changes from red to blue, with a switch under the fascia that turns the lighting off. Standby draw is below 0.5 W.

Pairing

The amplifier accepts XLR only, so it needs a balanced preamplifier such as the EC 5, and a LINK XLR output relays the input to another amplifier for daisy-chaining. Two sets of speaker terminals allow bi-wiring, and the stable behaviour into low loads leaves room for speakers with low impedance dips.

Alternatives

The AW 800 M is the larger Electrocompaniet monoblock, rated at 800 W into 8 ohm and able to switch between mono, stereo and bi-amping modes.