Усилители мощности моно — Audio Note Conquest

The Conquest is a 300B valve monoblock from Audio Note UK, supplied as two separate chassis for a stereo system. It is the parallel single-ended development of the brand's Quest - instead of one 300B triode per channel, each Conquest runs a pair of them side by side. Audio Note sells it in six forms - Conquest, Conquest Low Gain, Conquest Silver, Conquest Silver Low Gain, Conquest Silver Signature and Conquest Silver Signature Low Gain - and says the design was voiced by listening rather than tuned to a measurement target.

Key specs that matter

Rated output is 18 W RMS per chassis into 4 ohm or 8 ohm. Input impedance is 100 kohm, and full output is reached with 250 mV at the input on the standard model or 3.15 V on the Low Gain versions. Channel balance is specified within plus or minus 0.3 dB. Each amplifier is 195 mm high, 205 mm wide and 506 mm deep, weighs 20 kg and draws up to 200 W from the wall. The mains section can be configured for 100-120 V or 220-240 V at 50/60 Hz.

Engineering and use context

The Conquest fulfils all of Audio Note's Level 3 criteria. It operates in pure Class A, it uses zero negative feedback, the output stage is single-ended, the supply is rectified by a valve and the output devices are directly heated triodes. Every chassis carries its own power supply built around one 5U4GB rectifier, and two 300B valves form the output stage. The Low Gain versions add a 6SN7 or a metal 6J5 per chassis at the input, to handle the signal before the output pair. The standard build uses copper foil paper-in-oil capacitors and Beyschlag resistors. Moving to the Silver version brings uprated C-core output transformers, and the Silver Signature adds a further step in output transformer quality together with tantalum resistors and Cerafine capacitors in selected positions.

Pairing

A modest single-ended triode output of this kind calls for efficient loudspeakers with an easy load. Because a quarter of a volt drives the standard version to full power, it can follow a preamplifier with little gain, whereas the Low Gain model needs a line stage able to swing more than 3 V. The high input impedance presents a light load that valve and transistor preamplifiers alike can drive, and the brand's own M-series line stages with sub-10 ohm output impedance are a direct match.

Alternatives

For a lower-powered option, Audio Note offers the Quest, a single-ended 300B mono amplifier with one output triode per channel and 8 W RMS.