[English Translation Test Accuphase E-480 / hifi & records 04/2019]
Revolutionary
With the E-480 Accuphase is presenting the successor to the E-470. But there's a lot more behind it than just a cosmetic facelift.
Already the visual differences between the new Accuphase E-480 integrated amplifier and its precursor E-470 are clearly obvious and immediately discernible to the sympathetic eyes of the beholder. The status LEDs are no longer concealed behind the display glass cover and have instead slipped onto the front panel. Many of the controls, which are hidden behind a massive flap and were formerly designed as pushbuttons, are now rotary switches and Accuphase has also changed their positions.
In my opinion definitely for the better, because to me operating the E-480 seems to be even more intuitive than was the case with the precursor, which was already good in this regard. But with these words the upgrade from the E-470 which made its debut in 2014 and which I had the pleasure of presenting in issue 1/2017 to the E-480 has by far not been fully described yet. Because deep inside the integrated amp a lot more things have changed as well.
Those who are a little versed in electronic parts will know that for two decades the
»mobile devices« of this world at first the iPods, then the smartphones have been controlling the demand and thus ruling the market. Genuine new developments of transistors for audio applications became rare a long time ago, but fortunately one can also strike a bonanza in the fields of medical, measurement or video technology.
Nobody needs to tell Accuphase the importance of selecting the right components for a high-end amplifier; the Japanese already referred precisely to this fact in the brochure of their first power amplifier back in 1973 (long before the subject became popular over here, then gradually accepted among experts and finally totally overestimated).
Like all amp-builders Accuphase had once started using bipolar transistors, then step by step converted the driver stages to mosfets in the 1980s and finally also fitted the power stages with them in the 1990s. The class-A power amplifiers from that era the
A-20, A-50 and A-100 all had identical power mosfets made by Toshiba on their heatsinks. The E-470, too, was still equipped with newer Toshibas, even with the same types which are also doing service in the E-600 integrated big brother and the A-250
reference mono blocks. But recently Accuphase has turned towards other makers beside the long-standing favorite supplier Toshiba and started using power transistors from Fairchild in the A-75 and International Rectifier in the E-650 respectively. So it's only logical that the E-480 may now benefit from the current power mosfets of this manufacturer (IRFP 240/9240) as well.
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The new power transistors can permanently deliver 20 per cent higher currents than the previous models. For them Accuphase has custom tailored a perfect driver stage to enable a 20 per cent greater damping factor of the power amp section at unvarying output specs. A new protection circuit also plays its part in this gain I'm really curious about how this will affect the sonic result. The pre and power sections of the E-480 are fully separated (there is one balanced and one unbalanced preamp output), the power amp circuitry equals that of the A-75, but with three transistor pairs instead of ten.
Moreover, the AAVA volume level control, in my view one of the best on the market,
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