Neil McCauley
23-01-2017, 12:50
I have a pre-production pair of these units in for review. Initial impressions are very encouraging. We anticipate publishing in February this year.
Meanwhile, we are shortly to undertake an interview with the designers. Something a bit more technically inclined than previous ones; ones which included quote a bit of history. It was we felt – at that point - useful and our readers lapped it up. But … it’s history and although there’s a lot more that could be said about that, EWA have decided to look only to the future now. That seems entirely sensible to us.
So AoS members, would you like to put a few questions to Alan Elsdon and Colin Wonfor?
If so then we will add them to our list, shown below, providing that the questioner respects their desire – in this interview at least – to focus on the technology and its implementation in EWA products.
So all you have to do is to add your question(s) where indicated and if suitable, these will be included.
Closure for accepting questions, due to editorial tight time schedules here, is 24:00 GMT on Wednesday 25th January.
Thanks. Neil McCauley / editor in chief
Please add YOUR questions here:
1:
Our question set – so far:
Gentlemen, you’ve been designing amps and preamps for over 30 years. Is it still a challenge? Are you having fun?
What constitutes "success" in the HB100's design?
Most designers stick with one concept and run with it for their entire career - how did EWA come to use such a varied approach to their amp designs?
Is the HB100 being musical the result of it being simple?
If you had to pick one out of many amplifier design aspects, such as stability, load tolerance, good phase response, no slew rate limiting and so forth, what was your No.1 factor for the HB100
In 2017, have we reached a point where amplifiers won't be getting much better or does amplifier design have a long way to go towards perfection?
Can amplifiers have a "personality" outside of a particular system or does a system determine an amplifier's sound and if so, what "personality" does the HB100 have?
What is the personal favorite amp that EWA have designed and why?
Generally, how important is Class A bias?
Is there anything else you can say about the Class A situation? One of the things you were talking about a while back was noise; high order harmonics and things like that.
Is reliability a major design goal for EWA?
What is the EWA philosophy on power supplies? Should they be tightly regulated and how was your decision applied to the HB100?
In terms of the chassis design having an influence on the HB100, is it simply the shielding factor, or is there more to it?
You are very careful about the resistors you use. How can one low tolerance 47 Ohm resistor sound different from another one?
Okay, what about capacitors?
Generally, what's your take on digital amps?
What's next on your plate for future projects; an HB preamp perhaps?
Where do EWA see the future of audio heading?
Where does EWA see itself 5 or 10 years from now? Do you think you both of you can radically influence the way future amplifiers are built? Do you see yourself becoming famous, perhaps like another Mark Levinson?
That's about all the time we have. Is there anything else that you would like to share gentlemen?
END
Meanwhile, we are shortly to undertake an interview with the designers. Something a bit more technically inclined than previous ones; ones which included quote a bit of history. It was we felt – at that point - useful and our readers lapped it up. But … it’s history and although there’s a lot more that could be said about that, EWA have decided to look only to the future now. That seems entirely sensible to us.
So AoS members, would you like to put a few questions to Alan Elsdon and Colin Wonfor?
If so then we will add them to our list, shown below, providing that the questioner respects their desire – in this interview at least – to focus on the technology and its implementation in EWA products.
So all you have to do is to add your question(s) where indicated and if suitable, these will be included.
Closure for accepting questions, due to editorial tight time schedules here, is 24:00 GMT on Wednesday 25th January.
Thanks. Neil McCauley / editor in chief
Please add YOUR questions here:
1:
Our question set – so far:
Gentlemen, you’ve been designing amps and preamps for over 30 years. Is it still a challenge? Are you having fun?
What constitutes "success" in the HB100's design?
Most designers stick with one concept and run with it for their entire career - how did EWA come to use such a varied approach to their amp designs?
Is the HB100 being musical the result of it being simple?
If you had to pick one out of many amplifier design aspects, such as stability, load tolerance, good phase response, no slew rate limiting and so forth, what was your No.1 factor for the HB100
In 2017, have we reached a point where amplifiers won't be getting much better or does amplifier design have a long way to go towards perfection?
Can amplifiers have a "personality" outside of a particular system or does a system determine an amplifier's sound and if so, what "personality" does the HB100 have?
What is the personal favorite amp that EWA have designed and why?
Generally, how important is Class A bias?
Is there anything else you can say about the Class A situation? One of the things you were talking about a while back was noise; high order harmonics and things like that.
Is reliability a major design goal for EWA?
What is the EWA philosophy on power supplies? Should they be tightly regulated and how was your decision applied to the HB100?
In terms of the chassis design having an influence on the HB100, is it simply the shielding factor, or is there more to it?
You are very careful about the resistors you use. How can one low tolerance 47 Ohm resistor sound different from another one?
Okay, what about capacitors?
Generally, what's your take on digital amps?
What's next on your plate for future projects; an HB preamp perhaps?
Where do EWA see the future of audio heading?
Where does EWA see itself 5 or 10 years from now? Do you think you both of you can radically influence the way future amplifiers are built? Do you see yourself becoming famous, perhaps like another Mark Levinson?
That's about all the time we have. Is there anything else that you would like to share gentlemen?
END