Full review in STEREOPLAY magazine (Germany), September 2008
Accuphase Pre-Amplifier C-2110 / Power Amplifier P-4100
Phase Two by Johannes Maier & Holger Biermann
Having been rather on the conservative side for many years, Accuphase is evidently on the way to wrest the last decibel from amplifier physics by employing new technologies. So, does the new combination of pre- and power amplifier sound better than ever before?
Hardly any other high-end manufacturer knows it better than Accuphase: in the almost consistently researched territory of amplifiers it's getting more and more difficult to reach for really new stars.
We assume that, "more than ever" must have been the motto under which the
Japanese engineers have launched their most recent developments. One of them is the new pre-amplifier C-2110 which comes along in a fully balanced layout of each channel and truly balanced inputs and outputs, whereby this pre-amp is also considered to redefine the new basis, so to speak.
The novelty: that mediaeval component called "volume potentiometer", in which wipers are to judder along resistive pathways and some day is going to emit scratchy noises, had to be banned from the signal path, after all. Resorting to the notorious alternative instead, namely a run-of-the-mill IC which controls the volume in half a decibel steps, was out of the question for Accuphase. Nevertheless, a potentiometer from ALPS remained, yet only to tell a CPU to do this or that,
depending on the potentiometer's position.
Eventually this means to have influence on an electronic bottleneck, which,
per channel and half the balanced circuitry, consists of 16 differently continuous converter amplifiers which are controlled by current switches arranged in parallel configuration. Starting wide open they are handing over half of the full volume level and are gradually becoming ever so narrow until just a minute signal can get trough still. Whilst the processor is providing many thousands different combinations of smaller or lager transitions, it yields a gradation that can no longer be perceived as such. Thus, the listener gets the feeling of controlling the volume up or down in the conventional analogue way.
In spite of this complexity Accuphase, by no means, has thought of saving cost somewhere else. Two balanced and five RCA inputs plus tape loop: a pack of hopefully high-quality sources may find connection at the rear panel. In addition, the
C-2110 would also accept, at fixed amplification, the left and right front channel of a surround-preamp.
Located at the rear panel, two slots are prepared to give home to dedicated option boards from Accuphase, namely the Digital Input Board DAC-20 which features MDS++ D/A converters and the Analog Disc Input Board AD-20 for MM and
MC pickup cartridges. We trust that both will make you feel like being in paradise.
It's therefore not surprising that this beauty also provides a highly sensitive tone control with various crossover frequencies. Or it lets you switch the phase by
180°, if necessary with certain recordings. Or you can select your favourite output mode by means of a rotary switch at the front panel behind the flap.
Another finesse: with a selector set to 12, 18 or 24 dB this pre-amplifier offers you to alter the basic gain. Likewise, a selector switch for input sensitivity of minus 3,
6 or 12 dB can be found on the power amplifier P-4100. When combined, these
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