ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 33

ThisTT single-ended tube ampli-fier is from the same companythat makes the speaker in thepreviousTT review. An earlier

version was in UHF No. 68, where wegreeted it warmly…except for one thing.We didn’t think 9 watts per channel wasexactly a lot of power even by single-ended amp standards, and according toour instruments it didn’t come close tomeeting that rating. Since then this Toronto companyhas done considerable work on it. Theoutside is still based on a Chinesedesign, the Opera 3500, but the insidenow has a lot of point-to-point wiring,as you can see in the picture below. Thetwo remaining printed circuit boardshold parts related to the power supply.Superior parts (Allen-Bradley, Mallory,Rubicon) parts are substituted for theusual anonymous brands. The motorizedvolume potentiometer can be remote-controlled. We were also told that the amplifierwould now meet its already modestpower claim. We put off the technicaltests until the listening session wasover. The configuration is unchanged. Apair of ubiquitous 12AX7 twin triodesare used for the preamplifier. The two

330B output tubes (one for each channel,of course) are driven by 6SN7 tubes.Though nearly all modern tube ampli-fiers use solid state rectifiers in the powersupply, Connoisseur has stuck with a5AR4 rectifier tube. We connected the new SE-2 to theLiving Voice Avatar OBX-R speakers inour Alpha system. We’ve noted beforethat we don’t alter any of our systemsunless and until our backs are against thewall, but the fact is that, after more thana dozen years, we had in fact changedreference speakers. The old 3a MS5’s welistened to this amplifier with last timewere considerably less efficient than theLiving Voice (88 dB rather than92 dB). That alone would givethe SE-2 an advantage. Can’t behelped. And whether for that reasonor not, it seemed clear from thevery first recording that theSE-2 was not about to do any-thing that would telegraph itsmoves. It sounded as thoughit had far more power than itdoes by even the most opti-mistic reading. Good sign? That first recording wasa Romantic Piece by Dvorak(Analekta FL 2 3191), which

we like because James Ehnes’ Stradi-varius sound so much like…what it is.A two-instrument CD like this doesn’thave the sheer volume to wring out anamp, but we knew that if the amplifierwere to get too close to its limits, wewould notice it. And in fact we didn’t notice it. Weknow that single-ended amplifiers notonly can’t play all that loud, but thatthey suffer from plenty of harmonicdistortion when they try. The fine violinsound was…oh, not quite the way it iswith our YBA amplifier, but excellentall the same. Gerard praised the SE-2for the way it sounded on the very soft,emotional passages of this Dvorak piece.Another good sign. We would push the dynamic limitsof the SE-2 a little later. First wepulled out another recording whichhas more finesse than sheer volume.It’s soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian’s CDof the songs of Pauline Viardot-Garcia(Analekta AN 2 9903). We selectedPlainte d’amour, which Viardot wrote tomusic by Chopin. It too was lovely, Bayrakdarian’svoice sounding natural and yet with anotherworldly sound that is in the natureof this artist. Serouj Kradjian’s piano wasnatural, with excellent resonance evenon notes from the left hand side of thekeyboard. No sign of overload here. Nobrightness or loss of detail either. Thestereo image was superb. But the time had come to make theSE-2 sweat a little. Ommy nibhessenia mconulputat am quat augait, velessequam augiamet, con utem vel iril ullafeum vulla cortionulla consequis dolo-

34 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

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Say you like your music soft and airy,full of delicate and fine details and thatyou have very efficient speakers that mighttwitch at the slightest cough in the room,then you’ve found an amplifier for yourneeds. If, however, you musical tastes havea wider range, and your speakers tend todoze off unless a brass band shows up, thenI expect you might best be served by an al-ternative power amp. You just won’t be ableto notice the subtleties that this amp offers,from the smoothness of the musical lines,the softness of the musician’s touch and theroundness and warmth of a well trainedvoice.

—Albert Simon

Was this amplifier improved from thelast version we listened to four issues back?Definitely. The earlier amplifier had anumber of the virtues I expect from a single-ended amplifier, starting with the mainone: an amazing transparency at very lowvolume levels. This one has it too. Leaving

behind the compromise of push-pull outputtubes (or transistors for that matter) reallydoes pay off. But the earlier one didn’t sound so goodat louder levels, when the music really gotgoing. This one is far, far better at it. Theimprovements that needed to be madeclearly have been. Even so, it will sound best with speak-speakspeakers of very high efficiency. Fortunately,such speakers, with sensitivities of 93 dB ormore, are much more common than theywere. With such speakers, you won’t oftentake the Connoisseur to its power limits.I think you may well love what it does atlower levels.

—Gerard Rejskind

A pleasant activity that has nothingroutine about it…this session with a highlysatisfying tube integrated, which gave somemost pleasant musical moments. It projects an illusion of space that ishospitable, not only laterally and front-to-back, but also in height, and that illusion

lets through an abundance of subtleties.The piano, both detailed and powerful, isunconstrained. Its sound is as accurate as itis pleasant, the attacks of the left hand solidand clear, prolonging its vibrations to thefloor under my feet, yet not hiding the vio-lins, which are silky, caressing, full of emo-tion. The human voice is of incomparablebeauty in a highly demanding vocal workthat includes impressive flights and pas-sages of overwhelming sensitivity. In orchestral music, wind instrumentsexpress themselves with communicativeverve. The soprano sax did somewhat sur-prise me by sounding just a little shrill,though I must add that I found it that waywith our reference electronics too. However this small shortcoming is am-ply compensated by the amplifier’s manyqualities, including the faithful reproduc-tion of the sensitivity and virtuosity of themusicians, rendering of an infinite varietyof inflections and modulations, and a gen-erous dynamic palette.

—Reine Lessard

Brand/model: Connoisseur SE-2Price: C$3899 (equivalent toUS$3120), extra for lacquered woodsidesDimensions: 45 x 40 x 21 cmClaimed power (8

���: 9 W/channel

Most liked: Plenty of finesse, surpris-ing bodyLeast liked: Limited power (duh!)Verdict: Power isn’t just a matter ofwatts