Auditor
9
The End of Ear Fatigue
With headphones, ear fatigue can begin relatively soon, and there are
several causes.
First, some cans themselves may not be that comfortable to wear...
Moreover, a standard headphone amplifier is often an additional im-
portant reason for premature ear fatigue. Almost without exception,
present-day headphone amplifiers employ comparatively undemand-
ing IC’s. In the best cases they might work with symmetrical voltages of
+/-15 V to +/-18 V, and in less favorable cases, with only a simple supply
of 9 or 12 V from cheaper external “wall-wart“ power supplies.
But the voltage level acts in circuitry much like the cubic inch capacity
to the productive power of a combustion engine: Cubic inch capacity is
replaceable with nothing but more cubic inch capacity – and in the pro-
ductive power of electronics, voltage level functions similarly.
For some years, now, SPL has addressed this issue in all of its master-
ing product series through its own specifically developed 120 volt tech-
nology. Consoles and signal processors of the SPL Mastering Series
appear as central elements in installations of today’s most renowned
mastering houses (e. g. Bob Ludwig’s Gateway Mastering & DVD in the
USA, Simon Heyworth’s Super Audio Mastering in Great Britain or the
Galaxy Studios in Belgium). This 120 volt technology is based on dis-
crete operation amplifiers from SPL’s own production, developed and
perfected over many years by SPL’s co-founder and chief developer,
Wolfgang Neumann. The SUPRA OPs have a signal to noise ratio of
116 dB and offer a 34 dB headroom – that yields an unequalled 150 dB
dynamic range.
The musical result is not to be mistaken: Regardless of the monitor-
ing means, regardless of how loud you monitor – the Auditor always
remains a distant, impartial factor unaffected when used to capacity
and beyond being overloaded. The phase stability is always perfect, its
THD next to immeasurable. The SUPRA OPs cannot be stressed in the
most stressful circumstances, and for precisely this reason its musical
sound is always relaxed and spacious. All frequencies are reproduced
in balance, basses are stable and tight, mids are clear and differenti-
ated and highs remain transparent and soft.
Such supreme and heretofore unreachable neutrality in audio repro-
duction is the direct consequence of our technical approach and basis
in 120 volt technology: Possible disturbances from such as noise or
distortion are so slight that we even arrive at the boundaries of the
best measuring equipment, and what remains is quite simply unaltered
musical sound.
Introduction
