Sugden Sapphire Series

Fanthorpes can reveal that Sugden have released the Sapphire Series

The Sugden Sapphire range consists of the DAP-800 Digital Analogue preamplifier and FBA-800 floating bridge Pure Class-A stereo power amplifier.

Sugden DAP-800 Pre Amplifier

The analogue and digital sections of the DAP-800 Digital Analogue preamplifier are completely self-contained, with their own power supplies and voltage regulation, and on completely different PCBs. The analogue stage has a 50-watt toroidal transformer and the digital stage a 15-watt E-core transformer.

The DAP-800 analogue stage incorporates a Sugden circuit in its most developed advanced form. This circuit has a high impedance input section, and the current gain stage drives a folded cascode stage into a Class-A output stage. The DAC facility to interface with digital products includes inputs for USB, Optical and coaxial S/PDIF signals. The DAC is a non-oversampling, digital filterless type where the digital interface transceiver is a Wolfson Micro electronics device. The DAC also includes Post Conversion Filtering in the analogue output stage. The USB signal received is converted via a circuit including a Texas Instruments Universal IC whose SPDIF output signal is re-clocked and de jittered by the Wolfson interface transceiver.

Sugden FBA-800 Power Amplifier

Sugden refers to the circuitry inside the FBA-800 Power Amplifier as a floating bridge circuit that operates in Pure Class-A output mode. Power output is rated at 40-watts per channel. According to Sugden, the Class-A operates in bridged mode with the output earth floating. Each channel consists of two amplifiers working as voltage amplifiers driving an output stage of bridged power transistors.

The 350VA power supply is a low impedance design with a single custom made bifilar wound transformer, with four separate windings. The main smoothing capacitors for the output stage are specially developed for professional audio applications with excellent ripple characteristics and long life. The four power transistors per channel in the output stages are multi-emitter devices with an output capability of 26-amps per device. The FBA-800 operates in the full balanced mode from the input of the unit to the output.

For more information about the Sugden Sapphire Series you can contact us on 01482 223096 or email shop@fanthorpes.co.uk