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EAR 912
FULL FUNCTION
PREAMPLIFIER
Designed by Tim de Paravicini
INTRODUCTION
Thank you for purchasing an EAR 912 preamplifier. You are now the owner of one of the
world’s finest preamplifiers. We trust that it will give you many years of faithful service
and musical pleasure. Please take a few moments to read this manual as it gives useful
tips on operation and care of your new amplifier.
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
The EAR 912 preamplifier is a fully-featured valve (tube) preamplifier which is designed
to cater both for the vinyl lover and the modern multi-source line-level system. It has been
designed to offer superb sound quality first and foremost but without any sacrifice in
facilities and flexibility.
The dominant feature of the 912, and the one which most clearly distinguishes it from
other high-end preamplifiers on the market, is its extensive use of transformer coupling.
Designer Tim de Paravicini is known as probably the leading authority on audio-band
transformers, and he has used his expertise to the maximum in the 912, designing
transformers specially for the task. The moving-coil phono input is of course
transformer-coupled with no less than four different taps offering a wide range of
impedance matching, while the balanced line inputs and all stage outputs are also coupled
through transformers. At the main output, the phono and XLR stages are even fed from
individual transformer windings, ensuring freedom from hum loops in systems which
employ both balanced and unbalanced connections.
Because the circuits in the 912 have been designed from the start to be transformer
coupled, they make full use of the possibilities afforded by transformers. Separate
windings for drive and feedback allow very elegant, high performance circuit blocks to be
