AudioValve Assistent-50 User Manual

TEST

TVSTES

Integral valvestereo amplifier

150 000 rub.

Audio Valve Assistent-50

COMPONENTS

PROJECTORS

COMPONENTS

ACOUSTICS

AV

STEREO

PORTABLE

< 10000

< 30000

<100 000

>100 000

INTEGRAL

SOLUTION

A genuine German valve amplifier with perfect performance
and assembly quality…
When one is presented with such arguments, it’s hard to keep
yourself from reaching for the wallet YaroslavGODYNA

LiveandLearn

We understood that this visitor
would turn out to be a unique
exhibit, by the wooded box it was
delivered in – with a blindly bolted
cover with eight screws. We are

HISTOY

still poorly aware of German High
End stars, and Assistent-50 is a
demonstrative evidence of the depth
of this ignorance. The Audio Valve,
which has been dealing with valve
amplifiers for about 30 years (the
current portfolioincludes over a dozen
models), has presented several
generations of them (for instance, our
Assistent was preceded by models 10
/ 20), and boasts of a sufficientnumber

of devoted admirers across the
world, from Europe to America, to
keep afloat during today’s era of
extra-severe marketing massacre.

Red and Black

The Audio Valve Assistent-50
amplifier we pulled out from
the box is, no doubt, one of the
most spectacular devices,
which ever visited our editorial
office. The black silhouette
leans against four gilded
washers. A 10-millimeter sheet
of Perspex is clamped from
above with a metallic cover
fitted with a “window". The

TECHNOLOGY

latter, in its turn, has two wide slits
cut, for ventilation of valves. And
what valves! Four legendary
ECC82EA (12AU7A) working on
input are, by the way, made in
Russia. Further the signal is
pumped with eight (four per
channel) QQE 3 / 12 valves
produced by Valvo — they are less
famous here, and represent
coupled GU17-type tetrodes, with a
common cathode and screenmash.
Plus there are a couple of 270 mF
capacitors.

Audio Valve Assistent-50

Appearance, assembly quality,
playback stability

No built-in background
corrector

All this splendor is installed on a
trademark bright-red board, in fact,
such beauty shouldn’t have been
hidden behind the fine mesh. The
assembly is perfect. Layouts of all
Audio Valve amplifiers were
developed by one person —
Helmut Becker. In this case, owing
to its own patented system of
self-adjustment of mode ABR, they
managed to reject coupled
selection of capacity valves.
Besides, now each of them is
provided with a diode, which
would glow in case of necessity of
its replacement.

Order and tranquility

Withdrawal of heated air is
conducted not only through
upper holes, but also through a
mesh on the rear side. Also,
there are five pairs of RCA for
external sources and one
recorder output — instead of
the latter, we would be more
happy to see a background

EXPERIENCE

corrector for MM, even a
simple one. However, the Audio
Valve includes a separate Sunilda
background corrector. Meanwhile,
we were pleased to see
Assistent-50’s sockets for audio
cables. That deserves respect. In
fact, it is possible to easily connect
therea thin cable, as wellas a thick
one.It is a pleasureto connect such
components. Apart from a gilded
volume knob and a general power
button on the rear panel, there are
nocontrols on the amplifier’s body.

Input changeover through a relay,
mutingandstandby— all these are
entrusted to the heavy and
serious-looking remote control.
Small buttons are grouped on its
metallic padding, and one should
mention that a part of them
remained unsigned, therefore the
initial switch-on moment arouses
slight puzzlement.

But, at least, here we go: the
relay clicks, the red standby diode
fades away, and a blue Audio
Valve emblem appears on the
glass of the front panel. A
projecting logo — this is what we
haven’t seen yet! Now listen.

So, what does our ear have to
deal with? The lack of unpleasant
tails of “metallic” distortions of
medium-upper band is obvious.
The music is not forced out from
the metal, but sounds naturally,
“comes from nowhere”, in a
cohesive way. Tonally the area of
highest frequencies is carefully
rounded and smoothened.
Undoubtfully, it can’t be called a
monitor, studio sound. But do
many of us really need it? This is a
typical domestic pet, which will
never confess to the owner that
some record was dubbed poorly.
The mid is smooth, the bass is soft
and rolling. Strange as it may be,
the device wonderfully conveys
hip-hop patterns with rich, rolling
sound. At the same time, in
records with the highest tension in
the mood, the sound lacks
pomposity, certain compression

can be felt at the speaker.
However, Assistent-50’s scene is
solid, it doesn’t split into parts, and
will offer depth even with a large
display panel in the middle of the
system. What is quite important,
the device demonstrates
surprising indifference towards the
quality of mains power, therefore
the music performance it offers will
be characterized by excellent
stability, regardless of the time of
day.

Protection and parts

As the upper part of the
amplifier is ventilated (there
cannot be any other in
equipment with valve output

ADVICE

cascades), and our urban
apartments, even best-appointed
ones, are not free from dust, it is
better to foresee a certain type of
protection.At least you can put our
latest edition onto it… Of course,
any obstacle for harmful particles
may be installed only after the
device is completely cooled down.

By the way, in case of
necessity, most of the
components — valves, knobs,
sockets and Alps servomotors,
may be ordered from Russian
Audio Valve distributor, in «N?t?+»
salon.

DATA

NAME Audio Valve Assistent-50
TYPEintegral valveamplifier
PRICE 150,000 rubles FEATURES

¦ Capacity (per 8 Ohm) - 2 × 50 W
¦ Valves - 4 × ECC82, 8 × QQE 03/12,

RS 1029 or CV 2798
¦ Number of inputs - 5
¦ Number of outputs - 1
¦ Input impedance - 47 kOhm
¦ Harmonic distortions (20 W) less than

0,3%
¦ Dimensions - 420×155×320mm
¦ Weight - 18 kg

TESTIN PAIR

¦ ProAcResponseOneSC

Acousticsystems

The device
displays
surprising
indifference
towards the
quality of
mains power

CONTENT

¦ POP ...................................................+

¦ ROCK ................................................-

¦ JAZZ..................................................+

¦ ELECTRONIC....................................+

¦ CLASSIC...........................................+