Technical Overview - Audio Note M2 Phono Balanced Owner's Information

Technical overview

The M2 Phono Balanced utilises simple but sonically effective circuitry using vacuum tube technology
rather than complex techniques using impure semi-conductor type devices, so common in the audio
industry.
This kind of circuit architecture is incredibly transparent and revealing. As a natural consequence, part
material plays an important role in the final sonic performance, so we use only the best possible
components and materials. Where components that meet our standards are not available - we make our
own.
The M2 Phono Balanced's circuit arrangement is briefly described below.
The phono stage uses ECC83/12AX7A and ECC88/6DJ8 vacuum tubes. Two zero feedback common
cathode stages with a passive RIAA network between them are used for each channel. Paper in oil and
Black Gate capacitors with Audio Note pure silver interconnect provide very pure signal transfer.
The line level stage is driven via high quality Noble volume and balance controls. The amplification stage
uses a 6SN7 anode follower. Again, AN paper in oil and Black Gate capacitors and 1% premium resistors
are used throughout. Adjustable gain and output impedance is performed by the selectable application
of negative feedback around this stage.
The high voltage power supply uses a 6X5GT vacuum tube rectifier with choke input filtering and vacuum
tube regulation. The vacuum tube regulator employs a dissimilar pentode/triode, the pentode as the
power device and the triode section as an error amplifier. The filament voltages are also regulated to
reduce hum and noise.
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