Audio by Van Alstine Amplifiers, Pre Amps & Dacs?

[NMyTree]

Has anyone ever heard anything from Van Alstine?

Anyone know anything about their designs and equipment?

I have some interest and I'm curious in their Fet Valve 550EXR Amplifier, OmegaStar 440EXH amplifier, Transcendence Seven Hybrid Tube Pre Amplifier and OmegaStar DAC?

I keep reading stuff about their superbly musical design and parts. And the Dac seems to get a lot of the same accolades.

I don't know anything about designs and so forth. I'm not very technically knowledgable of these things.

[JazzGuyy]

I have an AVA Omega amp. It is a rebuild of the Hafler 220 amp of many years ago. Hafler and Dynaco rebuilds and mods are how AVA got started I believe and many of his original circuits came out of the rebuilds. The Omega amp I have is very good. It is much quieter than the Hafler was and sounds very transparent. The only problem I have with it is that I get "birdies" through my speakers when I turn it off.

[David Meek]

Birdies????? :scratchhead:

[JazzGuyy]

When I turn off the amp I get a sound like chirping birds through the speakers connected to it.

[NMyTree]

Have you talked to Frank about these eager little birdies, residing in your speakers? What did he have to say?

[JazzGuyy]

Never bothered. I know that there are amps that do this. It has to do with how they shut down. The amp is long out of warranty now. I've had it about five years. I use it to power my surround speakers.

[autio]

I have a AVA 440 hc and it does the same thing! The problem is explained in an older review of the amp from High Performance Review, Autumn, 1995

The Omega III 440hc does have one attribute that I have not ever heard in another amplifier: a melodic power-down noise. When I shut off the amp, it was quiet for about 10 seconds, then came this electronic, bird-like noise that lasted for about five seconds. Van Alstine said that the noise is the small signal regulated power supplys shutting down at about 0.02 watts output, that the anomaly is not harmful, and that eliminating it was not worth the cost of adding a muting circuit.

In any case, the noise did not occur during power-on or during operation, and was of no significance to me.

[JazzGuyy]

Thanks for the info. I knew there was an explanation but never bothered to find out what it was. I had read in reviews of other products from other companies that do the same thing.