 The Zen Ultra
is a six channel all tube
pre-amplifier that has been designed
for the audiophile who wants both home
theater and serious two channel at the
same time.
It is also ideal for two channel
audiophiles with bi-amp and tri-amp
systems, allowing you control over
each amplifier.
Of course this could be done with
three separate audiophile preamps...
if that were all it did. The Zen
Ultra brings something badly needed to
the table. It allows you to have
total manipulation over six stereo
channels at the same time and can mix
two channels into any of it's six
channels or visa versa.
This was done to handle and fix dozens
of common problems in movie sound
tracks and it was done to allow 2
channel listening with additional
speakers in any ratio and level.
I started this project for myself
around Christmas of 2000 and have been
testing it on an almost daily basis
for the past 10 years and still
haven't had the urge to change or try
to improve it. This is how I
know it's more than ready to go into
your system and successfully solve the
same problems I had.
Below is a
picture of the Zen Ultra mounted into
the top of my equipment rack.
If you're an
audiophile looking for the ultimate two
channel preamp, or wanting to do a
bi-amp or tri-amp setup, or HOME THEATER
with real audiophile sound, or all of
the above at the same time... take a
moment to bookmark and read this entire
page!
Steve Deckert /
DECWARE High Fidelity Engineering
TWO CHANNEL
CONFIGURATION
Have
three different preamps at
once and switch between
each!
This is really
cool if you enjoy rolling
tubes since you can put a
different set of tubes in
each section. This
way you can A/B different
fully warmed up tube
combination's while you
listen... You might
even have certain
combination's that work
best for certain types of
music!
TRI-AMP
CONFIGURATION
Use
it to drive 2 or more
amplifiers for bi-amp OR
tri-amp systems
This
gives you a master volume
as well as individual volume
controls for each amplifier
making it painless to dial in
your system's frequency
balance!
MULTI-AMP 5.1 CHANNEL
CONFIGURATION
If you're interested
in achieving true
audiophile home theater...
Or trying to make a
system that will do BOTH 2
channel audiophile playback
AND 5.1 channel
movies... please read
this entire page, because
after 10 years of field
testing this preamp we have
created something that
virtually solves EVERY
frustrating problem you've
had trying to reach this
goal in the past.
Description:
The Zen
Ultra can run multiple
amplifiers, each with their own
volume control. It can
even send one source to all amps
or send separate sources to each
amp! Think about that for a
minute.
The Zen Ultra is a 6
channel preamp grouped into
3 stereo pairs - each with
it's own volume
control. So it's
exactly like having 3 stereo
preamps each with it's own
set of inputs and
outputs. HOWEVER, it
does more...
We call this "direct
mode" where each channel has
it's own discrete input and
output. This is what
you need if you want to
watch movies in 5.1 surround
sound.
The first of the three
main preamps is special
because it has 4 pair of
inputs for 4 different
sources. The remaining
two preamps only have 1 pair
in and 1 pair out.
That's a total of 12
channels.
The remaining two
preamps can each be switched
to use their normal input OR
the input that is being sent
to the first two
channels. This means
that after the movie is over
and you want to spend some
quality time listening to
your favorite CD's or LP's
you don't have to change
anything! It also does
an INCREDIBLE Stunt...
While you're listening
to your two main speakers in
stereo, you can
simultaneously send the
signal to your rear
speakers, or your center
speaker, or your sub - EACH
WITH IT'S OWN volume
control. This allows
you to blend the other
speakers in at any level you
want!
Once you have your
levels adjusted how you
like, THERE IS A MASTER
volume control for the
channels you just
added! This way you
can turn the added speakers
up or down all at once and
without effecting anything
that's happening on your
main front speakers.
This concept preserves the
carefully set levels between
speakers that you spent some
time to achieve.
There is also a switch
for each of the remaining
two preamps that let you go
between direct and bridged
modes, effectively allowing
you to turn on or off the
center/sub channels OR the
rear channels easily.
You can read an in depth
explanation of what you can do with this
preamp HERE.
How it
handles movies:
STEVE'S
HOME THEATER AND 2 CHANNEL RIG
The
Zen Ultra is beautiful in
it's problem solving
abilities!
You can instantly
adjust the volume of the
front channels, rear
channels, center channel and
subwoofer with REAL
KNOBS! No more remote
controls you can't read or
on screen setup menus with
calibration tests that never
work right anyway! You
simply start the movie and
if necessary make a couple
easy adjustments as you listen to the movie.
Once you have a highly
transparent, all tube home
theater setup you'll have
breathtaking resolution,
enough to make movies sound
better than 90% of all CD's
and you'll quickly become
aware of less than stellar
sound tracks on some movies
that in the past would have
gone unnoticed on a typical
solid state home theater...
In
fact, here's some all
too common let downs
when you're expecting
great sound in 5.1
surround... and how to
correct them on the fly
with the Zen Ultra!
When the sound track
on a movie sucks...
You'll find one of these
things happening:
1)
It was mixed with a dominant
center channel and the main
speakers only come on when cars
drive by or on certain
scenes. This can ruin a
movie for any audiophile.
FIX: Take
the stereo output from your
Bluray player and run it into
one of the auxiliary inputs on
the front channels. Select
that input. The Zen Ultra will
down mix it to the center, sub
and rears in any levels you
want, in this case the
fronts. You now have a
large stereo image, sound coming
from the mains at all times, and
still have your center channel
doing the dialog!
2)
The rear channels are silent
throughout 90% of the movie
because they mixed it that
way. Then sounds blurt out
from the rears the remaining 10%
of the time causing more of a
distraction than anything.
FIX: Run
the rears at a reduced volume
with the same signal on your
fronts with a single flip of a
switch. This actually
sounds far better than you would
think, in fact it sounds so good
this way that you'll find
yourself doing it often.
3)
There is no bass because the
movie was mixed for cheep home
theater crap where the sub is
doing bass instead of low
frequency effects. Also
common on many music videos.
FIX: Run
the center/sub channels with the
same signal on your fronts with
a single flip of a switch.
Now instead of the sub playing
only low frequency effects (some
movies only have a few seconds
of it in certain scenes) it
plays bass and your movie sounds
full and tight.
4)
General sound quality of the
entire movie is offensively bad
and edgy.
FIX:
Downmix it from the main front
speakers into first the
center/sub channels and then the
rear channels with the flip of
two switches. Do one, the
other, or both. Another
option is to then switch your
input selector to the aux stereo
signal coming from your Bluray
player. This gives you 4
different sounds at your
fingertips.
NEVER
ONCE during one of
these BUMMER
SCENARIOS did you
have to stop the movie, find
the remote, use a setup
screen, or turn the lights
on. You simply turn a
knob or flip a switch and
instantly save the movie
without so much as a bump in
the road. Your guest
won't even know what
happened - except that it
suddenly started sounding
good.
THE
SOLUTION TO THESE 4 MOVIE
BUMMERS are solvable by
no other means, and it was 10
years and 500 movies of
systematically overcoming all of
these things that created the
Zen Ultra. NOTE:
During this R&D many many
DVD and Bluray players were
tested and found to have great
inconsistencies in how they
decode various movies. For
example, when a movie exhibits
any of the prior mentioned
bummers on one player, the same
thing would not happen on some
of the other players... but
those other players would have
the problems on different movies
whereas the original player
would not. This is WHY you
can't win with a setup other
than the Zen Ultra. (In
addition to using several
players, several computers
were also used with the same
results).
You can
read an in-depth article about the
design and what you can do with it
HERE.
The Zen Ultra is
100% tube, all point to point
silver wired and completely hand
built with no curcuit boards!
It's pure analog - with real
knobs, real switches. That
leaves virtually ZERO competitors
- there simply isn't anything
anywhere near this quality that
will do what the Zen Ultra does.
The Zen Ultra uses vacuum
tube regulation! First of all,
the vast majority of tube amplifiers
for sale do not even have tube
regulation. The reason is because it's
a luxury in their eyes that just adds
to the price.
Not
to mention the obvious... but just
because an amplifier has tube
regulation doesn't mean it's going
to sound better. Tighter and
more control, yes. Better?
...not always. The classic
shunt style regulation so often seen
in the tube amplifiers that do offer
it, often poison the transparency
with injected noise that must be
further filtered out. The
Ultra doesn't need tube regulation
to improve power supply performance.
It features an oversized power
transformer with tube rectification
with separate filter sections for
each channel. It's a brute force
approach that delivers
over 150 ma. of current when less
than half of that is actually used
by the circuit.
The Zen Ultra is tube
regulated on every channel with VR
Tubes (shown right) giving you four
of these beauties to watch softly
glow when the lights are out!
As usuall we do things a
little differently in that our Voltage
Regulation tubes are wired in
series with the load. In that
configuration they become a filtering
device instead of a regulating
device. The VR tubes place a
measurable vacuum
gap between the load and the
power supply. This creates Ultra
Clean Power because all of the the
contamination that creeps into your
power transformer via the wall outlet
is filtered off. It literally
doesn't make the jump between the
cathode and anode of the tube. (Noise
from pollution in your local power
grid is greatly reduced)
Talk
about black backgrounds, we could
call it the grain eliminator or the
liquidity insurance program, or just
an unfair advantage over virtually
all of our competitors.
This
is one of the reasons why we know
that unless you own and use a power
generator, like the PS AUDIO power
plant as an example, there is no way
your present preamp will sound as
grain free as a Zen ULTRA
(...assuming all else was equal and
even that's unlikely.) And if
it wasn't enough to do it once, we
employed this technology on every
channel. That's a lot of GLOW
from these beautiful tubes that
don't even get hot or wear
out!
You
won't find tube regulation in the
vast majority of power amplifiers,
or preamplifier and you certainly
won't find it in a 6 channel home
theater preamp!!! Yet,
impressive as it might sound it is
only a small part of why the Zen
Ultra can achieve the unique sound
quality that is has.
- 120/240 VAC
OPERATION
- FREQUENCY
RESPONSE: 10Hz ~ 70kHz
- INPUT TUBE CHOICES:
6922, 6N1P
- RECTIFICATION: ONE
5Y3GT or 5AR4 or 5U4
- REGULATION: FOUR OA3
TUBES
- INPUTS: 12 RCA TYPE
INPUT JACKS
- OUTPUTS: 12 RCA TYPE OUTPUT JACKS
- HIGH B+ VOLTAGE: 410
VDC CHOKE REGULATED
- INPUT IMPEDANCE: 100
K OHMS
- OUTPUT IMPEDANCE:
>1000 OHMS
- INPUT SENSITIVITY:
FULL GAIN @ 2.0 VOLTS
- NOISE:
-90dBOPERATION: CLASS A1
- SIGNAL TUBES: USES
EIGHT 6N1P or 6922 DUAL TRIODES
- REMOVABLE POWER CORD
- SIZE: 19-1/8
" WIDE x 13-3/4 " DEEP x
7-3/4 " HIGH
- NET WEIGHT: 16.8
lbs.
- WARRANTY: LIFETIME
TO ORIGINAL OWNER / 90 DAYS ON TUBES
The Zen Ultra has some options.
You can
select from the Black Figured Base
(shown at the top of this web page) OR
the Contemporary Style Base (shown
above). Different woods can be
selected from the shopping cart.
The Black Figured base is only available
in Black.
There are
also some knob choices. From left
to right are Ebony, Gold, Black, Cream,
Walnut. You can configure your
Ultra with the knobs you want from
within the shopping cart.
We offer this preamp
with a 30 day money back trial
so you can
hear one in
your own room!
|
