Audio Note M10 Signature - Manual (Page 6)

Congratulations on your purchase of the Audio Note (UK) M10 Signature
Pre Amplifier. It is without doubt or question, the finest Line Level preamplifier in
production today, and is a full Audio Note (UK) Level 5 product. No other preamplifier
has ever managed to retrieve such incredible levels of detail, resolution and sheer
musicality from your recorded music collection. Its performance will astound and
amaze you, and invite you into a world of musical experience that you had previously
only imagined.
It is well known that the accurate reproduction of music, not just sound, requires the
purity of the incoming signal to be preserved. It is therefore not difficult to conclude
that, in order to achieve this goal and to retain the musicality of the original
performance, the complexity of the circuitry itself must be kept to a minimum.
In response to this, the M10 Signature preamplifier uses a single-ended, zero
feedback circuit topology. This is simply the most linear design possible, demanding
pure Class A valve operation and removing the need for a phase splitter, which
introduces unnecessary crossover distortion.
In contrast to the majority of the audio industry, we design our circuits with the aim of
minimising non-harmonic and time base anomalies, rather than producing
vanishingly small harmonic or low intermodulation distortion measurements. These
non-harmonic amplitude and time base distortions have a highly perceptible and
adverse affect on the signal waveform, and it is far more important to address these
factors than participate in the increasingly irrelevant numbers game that chases
‘perfect measured response’.
As a result, the M10 Signature was designed for maximum linearity and minimum
transient distortion, and avoids the need for detrimental ‘corrective’ measures, such
as inherently error-prone feedback loops.
Rather than using separate controls for volume and balance, the M10 Signature
preamplifier is equipped with a dedicated Audio Note (UK) stepped attenuator for
each channel. This not only brings the enormous improvements in sound quality
expected from the now legendary Audio Note (UK) stepped attenuators, but also
provides a level of channel balance accuracy that is impossible to achieve with
conventional volume and balance potentiometers.
The M10 Signature features two pairs of correctly engineered balanced / XLR inputs
for sources with suitable balanced outputs. Each input is connected directly to an in-
house custom designed and produced, silver wired input transformer, which offers
the finest possible input for your XLR Line level source outputs.
Each channel is powered by an independent external power supply, based on the
Galahad design, first used in the standard M10 Line preamplifier. The M10 Signature
version takes this design and improves on it significantly; more about the design
concept of this and the rest of the M10 Signature circuit can be found in the section
below entitled “An Introduction from the Designer”.
As one would expect, the output transformers for the M10 Signature are the finest
possible examples we can produce. Each transformer is fully silver wound, and
feature our own 55% nickel iron C-Cores.
M10 SIGNATURE PRE AMPLIFIER