Back in the 1950s, Cesare Sanavio, then a new electronics graduate with a specialty in output transformers for tube amplifiers, began his career in radio and television, traveling to various locations outside his native Italy to apply his expertise. Eventually he settled in Paraguay and started designing tubed sound systems for public installations, teaching his son Luciano the art. A few years later, Sanavio and his family returned to Italy. There, he worked as a consultant to several hi-fi companies. Finally, in 1994, drawing on decades of accumulated knowledge of tube-amplifier design and manufacturing, and a particular focus on output transformers of the highest quality, Cesare Sanavio and his two sons, Luciano and Lorenzo, formed Mastersound.
When Cesare Sanavio died, Lorenzo and Luciano continued operations. In 2015, the company re-formed, with some new international business connections and a new CEO, Antonio Ferro. The company’s new headquarters is in Arcugnano, a small town in the province of Vicenza. It employs six people, four in production and two in the office. Luciano is now the company’s lead designer and production manager, a role previously held by Lorenzo, who has retired from such duties but remains a co-owner of the business.
Today, Mastersound’s stated goal is to produce tube amplifiers of the highest quality available on the market. To this end, the company hand-builds each amplifier in its own laboratory, “one by one, with extreme care,” their “Made in Italy” webpage asserts, “using the best components” and manufacturing techniques. Mastersound output transformers are hand-wound on a mechanical winding machine in a secret, closely guarded process the company claims makes them “unique in the world.”
The company’s line currently includes three preamplifiers, which use ECC82 and ECC83 tubes; three monoblock power amplifiers utilizing 6SN7, 300B, and 845 tubes; and nine integrated amplifiers, which, variously, set ECC802, EL34, 300B, 6SN7, 845, KT120, and KT150 tubes aglow. The Compact 845 integrated ($10,495), the subject of this review, is one of Luciano’s designs.
Design
The Compact 845 is beautiful. Its stout pair of Psvane 845B HiFi Series power triodes is protected by a butterfly-like, laser-cut, anodized aluminum tube guard; its curved black-walnut side panels adorn a hefty, CNC-fabricated chassis made of antimagnetic stainless steel. The 75lb Compact 845 stands 10.8″ high, 18.1″ wide, and 16.3″ deep, which stretches the “Compact” designation to its limit.
The sleek tube guard creates a symmetry that ties the amplifier’s external components together in graceful, flowing lines. The Compact 845 is sure to draw looks and praise for its striking design.
Viewed from the front, two large aluminum knobs occupy the two sides of the faceplate: The left knob allows the user to choose among five input sources, marked CD, Tape, Tuner, Aux, and Direct; the right knob controls a motorized, Alps 50k ohm logarithmic potentiometer, one of the silkiest, most solid-feeling volume controls I’ve encountered—a feature I appreciated especially after learning that the lovely, wood-encased remote control didn’t work.
Back-panel connections include the two pairs of RCA and XLR inputs for connection to an external preamplifier; three pairs of gold-plated RCA inputs and one pair of XLR inputs; two sets of speaker binding posts (4 and 8 ohm taps); a fuse plug, and an IEC power connector. The XLR and RCA jacks are manufactured in Italy, by Axiomedia, as are the speaker posts. The unit sits on four robust, tall feet.
As mentioned, the output transformers are the company’s particular focus and point of pride. In a recent email, Ferro, the CEO, elaborated. “Power and output transformer are designed and built by hand, by us, using high-quality OFC copper cable and grain-oriented sheet metal. Our transformers have EI-type cores. Each amplifier has its own dedicated power and output transformer, designed especially to obtain the maximum performance from the tubes used. Our output transformers have a unique design that permits a very large bandwidth and allows us to zero the feedback, with enormous benefit to the naturalness of the sound.”
The Compact 845 includes custom capacitors by Italian firm ICEL. Why custom? They’re “made for us in polypropylene,” Ferro wrote, “because this type allows much better insulation.” The amplifier also makes use of Vishay 1% resistors and Swiss Huber+Suhner wire. In addition to the big Psvane 845B HiFi tubes, the Compact 845 employs long-plate JJ ECC802 triodes in the preamplifier stage (because they’re “quieter and less microphonic than the standard ECC82,” Ferro explained) and TungSol 6SN7GTBs driver tubes. The 845 uses solid state rectification.
Tube bias is factory-set and mustn’t be altered, Ferro stressed, except when changing tubes. “Biasing … is usually unnecessary for the 845 because these tubes usually work for a very long time. We have our own design of auto-bias circuit that maintains the tubes’ value constant during [their] life. Our triode amps are set at the factory and only need be set again when the power tubes [are] changed.” Tubes should, consequently, only be changed by a qualified technician. “For our pentode amps, it’s completely automatic and doesn’t need to be set again until the tubes need to be changed.”
Ferro recounted when Luciano Sanavio illustrated the difference between class-A and class-A/B designs by way of analogy: “Luciano did a demonstration at an Italian audio dealer where he asked, ‘Do you know the ball-throwing machine that is used in tennis for training? You can have the ball inside the machine that is already turned on, or you can insert the ball and then turn on the machine: class-A is the first case—at all times you’re running at maximum power; class-A/B, instead, operates only when necessary. Therefore, class-A/B won’t have the same reactivity and speed in transients as class-A.'” The Compact 845 operates in class-A.
Setup
The Compact 845 fit snugly into my five-tier Salamander Archetype rack. I connected it to my Tavish Design Adagio phono stage and, variously, pairs of DeVore Fidelity O/96, Volti Audio Razz, and MoFi Electronics SourcePoint 10 loudspeakers with Analysis Plus Silver Apex speaker cables. Acoustic Signature Maximum Neo, Thorens TD 124, and Kuzma Stabi R turntables were my analog sources.
When you turn on the Mastersound amplifier, a red LED begins to flash; when the amplifier reaches operational status, it stops flashing. For optimal performance, the Compact 845 should be turned on at least 30 minutes prior to listening, the manual advises, to allow the tubes to stabilize at their optimal operating temperature. The manual also notes that during operation, the cylindrical transformer enclosures, which act as heatsinks, become quite warm, which is normal.
The manual recommends a minimum of 200 burn-in hours for peak performance. I dutifully streamed Roon/Tidal/Qobuz for about this duration, using an Apple iPad mini and a HoloAudio May DAC as a source.
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COMPANY INFO
Mastersound SRL
Via Galileo Galilei 2/2 – 36057
Arcugnano VI
Italy
39-392-997-6159
mastersoundsas.it
ARTICLE CONTENTS
Page 1
Page 2
Mastersound’s Vicenza Conservatory Project
Specifications
Associated Equipment
Measurements
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