PRODUCTS

AKSA SWIFT PREAMPLIFIER (retail product)

Aspen's penultimate flagship product, this is a full-featured, remote controlled hybrid preamplifier specifically designed for the AKSA power amplifier range. After a long gestation, the Swift is now available as a retail product, Aspen's first! This is a full featured, high end preamp of sensational appearance and astonishing performance, it implements microprocessor (ATMEL) control for full remote operation from your listening position. And there are tubes.......!

The Swift offers exquisite timber, chrome and stainless steel construction, audiophile quality motorized volume control, full source selection, home theatre bypass, muting, ATMEL microprocessor controlled relay switching, mute and tracking sub-woofer output. It operates from line level and phono (MM) inputs, and uses a highly sophisticated tube output stage with frequency compensated, dynamic shunt regulation.

The Swift is revolutionary. It is hybrid, with a solid state front end, and conjugate tube output stage. It was developed alongside the big names in the high end business, and its performance is stratospheric, bringing stunning presentation of image and warmth on all musical genres. Its insertion into the signal chain brings unexpected benefits to soundstage, clarity, layering and, most notably, to engagement. The AKSA Swift Preamplifier is sells at a fraction of the cost of the big names, yet offers stunning musical performance.

Warranty: Three years, unconditional

AKSA Lifeforce (fully built/tested power amp modules)

This product is the very latest power amplifier from Aspen incorporating a new topology for Aspen and a natural performance enhancement of the AKSA power amplifiers. It is available as a stereo pair of fully built/tested modules only to existing owners of AKSA power amplifiers, either 55W or 100W. A generous trade-in on fully operational AKSA55/100 modules is offered. The Lifeforce topology incorporates all the lessons learned over five years of AKSA 55W and 100W design maturation. It is a marked enhancement in sonic terms, with impeccable distortion, slew rate and frequency response specifications. Components used are of the finest quality, ranking with those used in the N+ versions of the AKSA power amplifers. The Lifeforce is the last word in resolution, impact, clarity and soundstage and competes with the finest designs in the world. It is truly high end, with a presentation nothing short of stunning.

AKSA 55

The Aksa 55 is a solid state, push-pull power amplifier module delivering 55 watts RMS into an 8ohm load. It is built with an integral heatsink for both channels, and runs from a +/-36V bipolar power supply.

Designed with sonics as the primary focus, the AKSA 55W employs extremely refined circuit design and topology to produce a stunning sound quality rivaling the best audiophile grade amplifiers in the world. This remarkable achievement has been realised in a module which, through meticulous industrial design, is easy to construct for hobbyists with a little experience.

AKSA 100

The Aksa 100 is a solid state, push-pull power amplifier module delivering 100 watts RMS into an 8ohm load.

The bigger brother to the AKSA 55, the AKSA 100 employs the same philosophy and design principles to create a power amplifier with the same sonic atributes, but at considerably higher power. The AKSA 100 offers power with glory, and provides a sensible option for people with low efficiency speakers, a large listening room, or a taste for very high level sound reproduction.

GK-1 PREAMPLIFIER

This is the cut-down, kit version of the AKSA Swift Preamplifier! It brings the same, sensational benefits to soundstage, clarity, layering and engagement, particularly when used with AKSA power amplifiers. Released in bare format in late December 2002, the basic version sells for less than $US625 for a complete kit, including tubes, two grain oriented silicon steel transformers and all components with the sole exception of the enclosure. The manual switching variant is priced at less than $US835. At these prices, the GK-1 matches and exceeds the performance of big name products costing five times more. This product is literally extraordinary.

'PARIS' MOVING COIL HEADAMP (retail product)

The Paris MC Headamp was developed largely as an intellectual exercise. The amplification of the tiny output signals from moving coil cartridges, typically at a level of just one half a millivolt, is one of the most difficult design challenges of audio engineering. At these input levels, tubes are quite noisy, and even good opamps are in grave difficulties. Short of immersing germanium transistors in liquid nitrogen, the usual techniques employ either carefully matched, single die differential transistors, often Jfets, or transformers, which are very expensive and somehow always fall short on resolution. Unfortunately, the usual topologies have poor power supply rejection ratio (PSRR), and this mandates very quiet supplies, often batteries.

Aspen has developed an extraordinarily quiet MC single ended headamp which uses hard to source high transconductance JFETs from Toshiba and has very high PSRR. The design implements an elegant but unique single ended topology to refer the output to ground, rather than the supply rail. This markedly improves PSRR, thus reducing noise to virtual inaudibility. In turn this escalates information retrieval, for which the MC cartridges are renown.

The Paris was named after a favourite Ry Cooder album, a truly evocative musical experience not unlike this component.

TLP

The AKSA TLP is a unity gain, vacuum tube line pre-amplifier module to couple input sources to any line level input power amplifier. While designed for the AKSA power amplifiers, its use is universal, and it will cope with any power amplifier with an input impedance down to 20K ohms.

Its purpose is strictly to add that indefinable tube romance to a competent solid state amplifier. It is a very real alternative to purchasing a large, expensive and costly-to-maintain tube amplifier.

Like the AKSA power amps, the TLP is designed with premium sonics in mind. It has ready provision for a volume control, offers that special tube magic, and permits use of very long interconnects whilst preserving full compatibility with the AKSA power amps. The TLP adds that mystical "warmth" associated with tube audio equipment, something much sought after, particularly by jazz afficionados.

VSONICS

The VSONICS are a brand new 2-way transmission line speakers with a large 8" Peerless midbass woofer and an impressive 150W RMS/ 8ohm rating.

These exceptional loudspeakers were designed to complement the AKSA power amplifiers, and because of their unique, innovative design are ideal for almost any system or room. This unusual flexibility is achieved with innovative transmission line design which fires forward and permits the speakers to be placed against the rear wall if required. The combination of imaging, resolution, vitality and bass heft is astonishing for such a small speaker - they are less than 3' tall, and yet the sound brings any room to life like no other speaker. The VSonics will suit almost any listening environment or program material.