O some time ago, Jay Bee offered to trade a Realistic component system for a Scott Receiver. Not too long ago, we made the exchange. I was initially despondent to see that the units were the the model that had faux-aluminum fascias instead of an integrated plastic shell that housed the components that I was expecting. The plastic chassis affair was less expensive than the faux-alu., which makes it more desirable. Both offer comparable quasi complementary amplifiers that, when used properly, offer the very best Class A available in solid state, into 8 ohms, at one watt.

 

Realistic component system drives the Linaeums 20 year age difference fazes not 300 ma sufficient to satisfy committee of apartment dwellers

Since all quasi-complementary circuits sound much the same, one fundamental criteria of quality is the variable that affects sound, in this case, the supply voltage. The high voltage rail of the SA102 is 10 volts, sufficient to allow an amplifier with a 300 ma/16v circuit to offer passable Class B performance at two watts. The SA102 won't go much beyond this point; The sound clouds quickly, as a mushed-up midrange intermodulates with an increasingly wobbly bass. If you are interested in Kraftwerk and have loudspeakers that are 89 dB efficient, the SA102 can and will rock for you. Apartment dweller, this one has your name written on it.

With two conditions

One: Although the SA102 identifies the level control as volume, it is actually a loudness circuit that supplies equalization according to a curve devised by its inventors to compensate for 'who can say what reference quality loudspeaker system made in the forties...'

The loudness circuit is audio's equivalent to the human appendix.

Two: Like many other audio components, the SA102's input sensitivity is 150 millivolts. This places the switchover to Class B somewhere near the 11 o'clock position on the control. With a loudness circuit employed, Class A shares its table with a grotesque bass and treble boost attenuated to zero by a resistor/capacitor network that attaches to the control's variable resistor (loudness pot) at 40%, about 11 o'clock.

 

The easiest trick to remove the effects of both, is to utilize the volume of resistance remaining in the pot (60%) in a manner that places the zero point of the pot at eleven o'clock. Class B occurs at one o'clock, switching to Class C at a sliding range from one fifty o'clock for a modest little amplifier like the SA102, to about maximum with any number of Bob Carver's amplifiers.

From Option to No Choice

For those who have access to a volume control on a CD player or tuner, reestablishing a proper volume control is as simple of attenuating with the source unit as the control. Move the volume control to 11 o'clock and, while playing music, attenuate the control until the audio signal is barely detectable.

For those who do not, it is possible to remove the loudness circuit completely with a few snaps of a wire cutter. Tube, solid state, it doesn't matter. In the case of the SA102 six screws must be removed, four from the bottom, two from the back. The chassis is then removed from the front. The circuitry is upside down. Etc.

I mention all of this because had I not performed the appendix attenuation above described, the SA102 would have failed muster, would not have supplanted the extant: I would have kept the MIL Type 130B as a preamplifier for the R74S receiver's tuner section, utilizing the receiver's power amplifier to drive the SCCS system. Here pictured is the Realistic Component system driving the Linaeums with success into Class B

There is a point

 Typical listening in my household varies from quiet listening below 75 dB, to sound pressure levels not in excess of 82 dB. Full spectrum power at one watt is sufficient to drive a Linaeum to 92 dB, a sound pressure level that is sufficient to supply the discotheque experience to the homeowner, albeit in a humble way. The SA102 is able to do it. An eight ohm load like that the Linaeum presents to the SA102 is an easy load, and as a ported speaker, it is capable of taking maximal advantage of the SA102's 1000 uf coupling capacitors.

 

I listened to the SA102 with its matching speakers which the flavour of e.q. selected by the loudness circuit was designed to work with, and got pleasant results. After the circuit clip the amplifier was listened to with the Linaeum (8 ohm), the SCCS (16 ohm) and the Wharfedale (12 ohms) loudspeaker systems. (With the exception of the Linaeum teeter, all of the drivers are cone.) With its alnico magnets, the Wharfedale was the most efficient of the three, but I give the bass edge to the SCCS, as usual. The Linaeum positioned itself between the two.

Since the SCCS and Wharfedale speakers are higher in impedance than the amplifier is designed to interface with, the SA102 won't develop full power into either speaker. Since it is 8 ohms, the Linaeum permits the amplifier to take full advantage of its power, allowing an 8 ohm speaker to come close to the amplitude of the Wharfedale W3, manufactured in 1962, and smashingly efficient (at least 100 dB for 1 watt at 16 ohms). I also observed how similar the pair sounded, how different from the SCCS, which sounds more compelling in an unembellished sort of way.

Gramophone When I had the SA102 open to do the loud-ectomy I availed myself of the phono stage that looked, for all intents, like any other cascade circuit. Nothing fancy, nothing cheap looking. I hooked up the Biotracer through a moving coil cartridge step-up transformer into the phono. Audion Society member Joseph "Quincy" Rosen commented on the sound while Society members sat back to relax to the vinyl entree, The Lounge Lizards.

Radio Works Just Fine

A modest companion piece, the ST102 reveals itself to be a capable performer, demonstrating unusually high selectivity for what must have been a 3 uv tuner. It has a layout that should look familiar to any person who has removed the cover from a vintage tuner. A tuning capacitor is situated over to the side to allow cables to be strung that attach the capacitor to the front panel mounted tuning dial, and to the tuning indicator. The tuning capacitor is a standard size, the multiplex adaptor is built around a chip, but is also 'built out,' using a time division with four adjustable pots. The AM tuner gives excellent performance, but with an internally mounted ferrite rod, the tuner may need to be spun one way or the other to get clear reception.

Famous last words

Since I rarely give comprehensive information in these moments of truth about audio, notably, I don't supply the kind of data that boys and men like to pore over (technical analyses, moi?), I should tell you at least some of the rudimentary information that I obtained in my analysis of the SA102. Its quasi complementary circuit develops ten volts d.c. on its B voltage rail, the second of five horizontal 'rails' visible.

Ten volts of B voltage buys 3 lucky watts in mushy music-land, which is where a 300 ma power supply will go, no further. It also, more importantly, supplies a watt of the finest quality extant in solid-sate, and for that matter, most of vintage audio. So alluring is the one watt that I have mated the SA102 with the Wharfedale, for the powerful low bass that impresses everyone so much. Me too. With the addition of a couple of watts with a sufficient power supply would cast the SA102 in with a small assortment of practical, sensible power amplifiers.

Since I long ago gave up the habit of reproducing the absolute sound in my living room, this Realistic combo is a scream. Because the B voltage is a stellarly low ten, the amplifier is silent.

Its all quite quiet, jeah!...

One other important factor that, like minimalist audio less one, is so close to being unobtrusive that it may be ignored, is here treated as a footnote... (So not. Observe most closely.) Said article is the tone circuit that is subtractive, not the additive and noisy Baxandall tone circuit. Subtractive tone controls seem less useful because the circuit attenuates treble, supplying no control over bass frequencies. While no control is desirable over one that is built into a circuit, if offered a choice between subtractive or additive functionality, choose the former.

In using the Realistic SA102, I am practicing the audio art in a manner that is very different from the Quad ELS setups in a large room. Large scale imaging with the Quads is like nothing else, and owners will go to great lengths to supply cool amounts of Class A triode watts, coupled using polypropylene, and so on. I have engaged in such 'ceremonies' from time to time. But this gig is all about obtaining something codign with the Quad experience. Had I installed the Quads and used the SA102 to drive them, I would have gotten something before the ELS ripped the SA102 to shreds with its midrange impedance depression. I know that it would have been 'something good.'

So, I'm stuck. I am stuck in the extreme in early summer 2003, in a heatwave that arrived on the first day of summer (as did spring arrive, casting a brutal winter out in its turn). It is on a day such as today that I'm a grateful chape to find myself using an amplifier that draws as much, if less power than my clock radio. Poor Flingpoo with his dual chassis tube preamplifier and oven-like power amplifier.

I'm also stuck in the middle of a lot of high power equipment that is starting to look less meaningful, less justifiable, less understandable. Power wars, be off. Only Harry Pearson and his 1000 watts worth of triode amps, his multi-driver colossal, sound reinforcement speakers in some nice wooden cabinet, can tell you what it's all about.

But there's so much B.S. in high end audio, that I don't suppose it matters much. For those who wish to spend, there's one or another charlatan waiting to do the second hand car spiv. Although some seem good and others bad, subjectivity often takes charge, and in some cases, so does pragmatic matters such as style. What do you mean by that?

That said, allow me to return to the otherwise consistent flavour of this essay by urging you to find your own 'champ amp.'