Quad Artera Pre The Artera Series' first dedicated preamplifier sees the return of Quad's much-admired analogue sound tailoring controls. The new Artera Pre from Quad, Britain's original high-end audio company, draws upon the company's rich technical heritage whilst being a design firmly of the present. The first dedicated analogue preamp to join Quad's Artera Series, the company's flagship range of solid-state audio electronics, the Artera Pre reintroduces a famous Quad feature - the Tilt control. First available in 1982 on the classic Quad 34 preamplifer, the Tilt control was created by Quad founder Peter Walker as an audiophile-quality answer to tone adjustment. He believed that in the real world, the ability to adjust tonal balance on an amplifier was useful to cater for different rooms and recordings, but that typical tone and EQ controls were clumsy and inadequate in their effect. While conventional tone controls adjust bass or treble individually, the Tilt control adjusts both ends of the frequency spectrum together - either attenuating the bass and lifting the treble, or lifting the bass and attenuating the treble, in steps of 1dB. In effect it rotates - or tilts - the audible frequency range on a 700Hz axis, adjusting the overall balance of the sound to make it 'warmer' or 'cooler' without affecting the apparent volume or 'colouring' the sound. The tilt control is unique to Quad and is a subtle, precise and consistent way to adjust sound to compensate for different recordings and the acoustic anomalies of different rooms. Though much acclaimed when it was introduced and still admired to this day, it has not featured on a new Quad product for a decade - The Artera Pre is the perfect opportunity for its return. The new Artera preamp ads further analogue bass filters to the Tilt function for additional sound tailoring which may be useful for a variety of reasons. The Tilt and bass filters can be combined to create individual EQ profiles to assign to each source input. In this way, each input can be configured to suit the connected component, be it a turntable, a CD player, a tuner, a DAC or streamer, or any other playback device with an analogue output. Individual adjustment may also be made in real time, to suit whichever recroding is being played. While the inclusion of these facilities echoes the classic Quad 34 preamp, the Artera Pre is otherwise a very different beast both inside and out. The Quad 34 is known for its 'velvety' tone, in line with the times when it launched but falling a littel short of the steadfast transparency and neutrality required of the best audiophile preamplifers today. The circuitry is exceptionally well specified, including a low-noise toroidal transformer, numerous reservoir/smoothing capacitors and an impressive number of regulators. The power supply incorporates 11 regulated supply rails including multiple ultr-low-noise regulators, with extensive measures against contamination and cross-coupling. The core signal path is short and direct to preserve signal purity and volume is adjusted in the analogue domain under microprocessor control. Vinyl lovers and headphone users are well catered for with dedicated, high-quality circuitry. The Artera Pre's low-noise, Class A phono stage is configurable for both MM and MC cartridges, while an integrated headphone amp features a discrete, Class A output stage with low output impedance to drive even the toughest of loads. Four stereo RCA inputs are provided - three line-level and one phono - plus one balanced XLR. All inputs can run in direct mode if preferred, bypassing all other circuitry to procide the shortest possible signal path from input to output. Unlike many preamps with balanced inputs, the Artera Pre's four-channel volume control enables the audio signal to remain fully balanced throughout.
