Hi guys, just thought I'd start a thread devoted to the little known Nat Audio amps from Serbia.
I've just invested in the Utopia 2-box preamp, and SE2SE 75W/ch 211 SET monos utilising a quad of NOS 1948 GE tubes.
These amps are replacing my much loved Audion Quattro 4 box dual mono line stage/Black Shadow 25W/ch 845 SETs utilising Elrog tubes (which themselves replaced my Hovland HP200 tube preamp/Radia SS power amp).
I don't really have a lot to say about them technically, but will chip in w/comments when relevant.
Sound quality, however, I am v.happy to talk about.
I've always favoured a slightly lean sound, being v.sensitive to excess warmth potentially obscuring fine detail, or being a euphonic colouration, jarring in the l/t. V. much my experience w/eg BAT amps that I've listened too, and less stellar SET amps.
So the Nat "fully saturated" sound was initially disconcerting, requiring a certain amount of hair pulling and dialling in, and plain old acclimatisation to be made, to "get" the sound.
Initially this total fullness from the mids into the bass was just little OTT. But then I realised w/more dialling in that there was no gauziness to the sound, no obscuring of fine detail, no softening of dynamics, no blunting of upper mids/treble.
No, just a full blooded sound that is blazing fast, v. detailed but not spotlit, and warm but only in the ways that real musical instruments sound warm in real life, and not as a hifi artefact.
I can say the sound is right up there w/the Koda trial I made a year ago, but w/added neutrality, and at a third of the price. That is as great a selling point of the Nat that I can think of.
Nat Audio - giant killers? Most certainly.
I've just invested in the Utopia 2-box preamp, and SE2SE 75W/ch 211 SET monos utilising a quad of NOS 1948 GE tubes.
These amps are replacing my much loved Audion Quattro 4 box dual mono line stage/Black Shadow 25W/ch 845 SETs utilising Elrog tubes (which themselves replaced my Hovland HP200 tube preamp/Radia SS power amp).
I don't really have a lot to say about them technically, but will chip in w/comments when relevant.
Sound quality, however, I am v.happy to talk about.
I've always favoured a slightly lean sound, being v.sensitive to excess warmth potentially obscuring fine detail, or being a euphonic colouration, jarring in the l/t. V. much my experience w/eg BAT amps that I've listened too, and less stellar SET amps.
So the Nat "fully saturated" sound was initially disconcerting, requiring a certain amount of hair pulling and dialling in, and plain old acclimatisation to be made, to "get" the sound.
Initially this total fullness from the mids into the bass was just little OTT. But then I realised w/more dialling in that there was no gauziness to the sound, no obscuring of fine detail, no softening of dynamics, no blunting of upper mids/treble.
No, just a full blooded sound that is blazing fast, v. detailed but not spotlit, and warm but only in the ways that real musical instruments sound warm in real life, and not as a hifi artefact.
I can say the sound is right up there w/the Koda trial I made a year ago, but w/added neutrality, and at a third of the price. That is as great a selling point of the Nat that I can think of.
Nat Audio - giant killers? Most certainly.