OVERVIEW
Our “dream team” of the world's finest audio engineers and industrial designers achieved something truly remarkable with the Hercules, comparable to a single vocalist possessing both the warm baritone of Johnny Hartman and the penetrating soprano of Maria Callas. The Hercules is a tremendously powerful amplifier that sounds as musical as a single-ended triode tube amp.We could have built this 1,000-watt monoblock amplifier in the usual way, bulking it up then tweaking it to sound a little better. Instead, we first designed the best-sounding 125-watt amplifier we have ever heard. We built this single-ended amplifier as a module, so that we could achieve the desired power by combining modules. Thus, the Hercules sounds exactly like that original 125-watt amp.
The Hercules' balanced drive design delivers a perfect balance between the positive and negative halves of an audio signal. Most balanced amplifiers use N-type output transistors for the positive half of the circuit and P-type transistors for the negative half, which produces an imbalance between the two halves of the signal. We build the Hercules by combining two matched single-ended amplifiers using only N-type output transistors. Because the Hercules uses only one type of output device, every element of the musical signal passes through exactly the same circuit components-and the musicality of the single-ended design is maintained.
Such perfect balancing can be fully appreciated only if the Hercules receives a perfectly balanced signal. To this end, we condition incoming signals with our Line Stage Gain Module, the same used in our Altair line stage. If the Altair is used as the preamp for the Hercules, the gain module can be bypassed through our Constellation Link interface. To supply the Hercules with abundant power, we fit it with dual custom-wound 1,500-watt toroidal transformers and massive storage capacitors. Low-voltage circuits receive fully regulated, noise-free DC power.
A 432- by 230-pixel LCD on the rear panel displays vital operating information. All of this data can also be displayed on our Pyxis wireless system controller.
No matter what speaker one wishes to drive, no matter what type of music one prefers, and no matter how loud a volume one demands, the Hercules can deliver it easily-and it can do so with an intimacy and emotion previously thought impossible for a high-powered amplifier. For audiophiles, it is truly a dream come true.
