Extensive Listening Tests; Extraordinary Longevity - Classe Audio OMEGA - V1.1 Owner's Manual

extensive listening tests

extraordinary longevity

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voltage here, or using a slightly different part there, may make all the
difference between solid and absolutely outstanding performance.
This level of refinement only comes with a great deal of experience, and
is not available to those who flit from one trendy notion to the next. It
accounts in no small measure for both the consistency of sonic perfor-
mance among Classé products (as they are all based on similar analog
gain stages), and for the consistently excellent reviews those products re-
ceive by owners and reviewers alike.
Excellent measured performance is to be expected in world-class prod-
ucts, and Classé products deliver that performance. However, experi-
ence has shown that technical excellence alone is insufficient to guaran-
tee subjectively musical results.
For this reason, all Classé products are laboriously fine-tuned during the
development process by carefully controlled listening tests. Our ears are
still some of the finest laboratory test instruments available, and nicely
complement more traditional engineering test equipment. In the course
of optimizing the circuitry for a product, hundreds of decisions are
made based on the subjective impression given by substituting one high
quality part for another.
As an example, we may listen to half a dozen 0.1% tolerance film resis-
tor components of the same value, from several different companies.
Standard tests may show them all to provide identical results in terms of
noise, distortion, and so forth. Yet, almost invariably, one selection yields
some small improvement in the subjective reaction to the performance
of the product under development. Less often, even a single such change
can result in a surprisingly large improvement.
Multiply those various improvements by the dozens or even hundreds
of such decisions that must be made before the product can be finalized
for production, and you have a remarkable improvement indeed - all
based on careful listening tests, which we view as a necessary comple-
ment to the solid engineering you might rightly expect from Classé.
Another benefit of having worked with highly refined circuit designs so
extensively over many years is that we have vast experience in what
works well over the long term.
By using only the highest quality parts to begin with, and then using
them in an informed way as a result of both accelerated aging experi-
ments and actual long-term experience, we are able to design and
manufacture products which we are confident will stand the test of
time.
We are confident that your new Classé product will give you many
years of trouble-free reliability and musical enjoyment, just as previous
Classé products have given their owners.