September 2020 | Newsletter No. 16

Another great review

Welcome to our September 2020 newsletter.

Just one item this month. Another exceptionally good review of our Emperor integrated amplifier: this time in the September issue of the German audiophile magazine Stereoplay.

The German Physiks Emperor integrated amp

“another miracle worker”

Stereoplay is Germany’s oldest audiophile print magazine with an average monthly circulation in the country of over 40,000 copies for the print version alone. Consequently, when you get a great review like the one our Emperor integrated amplifier has just received, people tend to take notice. In the first paragraph of the review they make it very clear that they like it.

“We only use the label "Super Test" if a component far exceeds the usual standards. It can be that the construction has been taken to extremes, that the product advances the state of the art, or that it provides a sound experience reaching new levels.  Here is another miracle worker.  The German Physiks Emperor Stereo Integrated Amplifier has enough muscle to drive every imaginable loudspeaker to the limit.  It combines sheer power, with ultimate design skills and thus raises our sound experience to a new level. Let's be clear:  This is the most complete integrated amplifier that has ever played in our listening room. It brings everything with it: emotion, analytical ability, deep visceral bass.  A complete experience!”

"The loudspeaker that this amplifier cannot drive does not exist."

This is a very bold statement, but they back it up with the tests that they carried out in their laboratory.

Power delivery
“Our laboratory was very impressed with the drive capability of the Emperor.  It was clean with immense power.  The loudspeaker that this amplifier cannot drive does not exist. It delivered 361 watts into an 8-ohm load, both channels driven and easily coped with loads that imposed large phase shifts.  

How does it behave when the load impedance was set to 2-ohms and reduced towards a short circuit?  The Emperor simply flexed its muscles and with over 1000 watts, prepared to burn off the loudspeaker cable, as though it was a fuse.” 

Frequency response
“Perfectly neutral, with a wide bandwidth and a gentle drop well outside the audio range.”

Distortion analysis
“With increasing power, harmonic distortion is perfectly proportional to power”.

This indicates that the output devices are being operated well within their design limits and that the power supply is generously rated.

“But this says nothing about the amplifier’s musical abilities. The Emperor could be a refrigerator without emotion. But it is not. A few bars were enough for us to know that we were standing in front of a miracle.” 

“A brute with elegance”

The reviewer was equally impressed with how the Emperor integrated amplifier sounded.

“For an Emperor - what kind of music do you start with? With Beethoven's fifth piano concerto, of course, which bears this nickname. The imperial concert. The best version? Difficult. The catalogue is extremely full, with over a hundred recordings. For audiophile perfection we chose the recording with Friedrich Gulda at the keyboard and Horst Stein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Decca has sold thousands of this recording. For us, the best sound is from the SACD version …”

“Such force, such control - only a few seconds in and we are in a rush of sound. This Decca recording in particular is notable for its solid and meaty sound. There is no dispute, the horses are let off the leash. This is a wonderful piece of music - and this amplifier really lets the horses run.  There is very impressive drive and power in the lower octaves.  We took extra time to precisely set up the loudspeakers.  No matter what we listened to, we felt intoxicated.  We had butterflies in our stomachs, while our brains were running at full speed - what a party! If we really did perceive any limits, it was because of the loudspeakers, the source and sometimes even the loudspeaker cables. The Emperor Integrated however, was never taxed.  It remained unflappable.”

The reviewer concluded with:

“Here you can wonderfully experience how an amplifier finds the perfect path between brute force and the ability to portray extreme delicacy. The body and fullness of sound that we associate with a tube amplifier was wonderfully present. In addition, we had the unrestrained, unlimited power of a solid-state amplifier. Clearly, the manufacturer has spent as much time listening, as he did thinking about the design and its construction.”

Visit the Emperor integrated amplifier web page

Read the full review in German on our web site

We are working on an English translation of the review and if the magazine approves this, we will post it on the German Physiks web site in the Reviews Library.

A little more information …

The Emperor integrated amplifier is essentially our Emperor preamplifier and Emperor stereo power amplifier packed into one chassis. The pictures above show the amplifier from the top, with the main cover removed.

The picture on the left shows it with the screening panel in place and on the right with it removed. This panel is made from steel and serves two purposes. Firstly, it acts as a screen to reduce the ingress of electromagnetic interference. Secondly, the slots in it control the air-flow through the unit and provide a more even temperature distribution. This ensures a better balance between the two halves of the balanced circuitry, which in turn leads to lower noise. We called in an expert on air-flow control to help us with this part of the design.

The picture on the right shows the stereo power section on the top level of the amplifier. Below this is the preamplifier section and below this are four toroidal power transformers for the various sections of the unit.

Great care has been taken with the physical layout of the components within the amplifier, as this also has a major effect on the noise floor.

You will see quite a bit of direct-wiring in the right hand picture. In the prototypes, a lot of this was routed via tracks on the circuit boards. Whilst this looked tidier, we found that by direct-wiring these lines, the amplifier sounded significantly better.

The Emperor integrated amplifier, like all our electronics is designed and built in Germany by a sub-division of German Physiks. They have expertise in both analogue and digital audio and been designing and building audiophile electronics for over 30 years. Their customers include a number of leading German audio brands and also some well known overseas brands. Confidentiality agreements and the threat of death preclude us from saying more.

Visit the Emperor preamplifier web page

Visit the Emperor stereo power amplifier web page

Until next time…

Thank you again for signing up to our newsletter and thank you for your continued interest in our products. Please don’t forget to visit our Facebook and Instagram pages.

If we can be of help with anything at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us here. You can find your national distributor here.

Holger Mueller | German Physiks