Art Audio Argento 300B Upgraded Living Voice Twin PSUS
Excellent condition with original packaging. One year old.
Retailed at 13000.
Upgraded by Living Voice with Kondo wiring, Hovland caps and Twin outboard PSUs
Art Audio Argento LV. I stumbled on this amplifier by chance during a visit to Definitive Audio. It is a demand-led amplifier that has never really been advertised, reviewed or marketed. LV have been making them for long-term customers who have Kondo preamps but can’t stretch to the Kondo power amps’ prohibitive prices. It is an 18-watt parallel single ended 300B stereo amplifier with a 6H1π-eb input stage and 12BH7 driver stage. Solid state rectified, it comes with an enormous Souther mains transformer which provides the HT voltages and the negative grid supply. There are no windings in the mains transformer for the 300B heaters. Instead the filaments are supplied by a massively specified separate outboard supply with its own rectification and regulation, which is connected by Kondo umbilical cords directly to the 300B valve bases.
This is an area of amplifier design that is often disregarded but Living Voice feel that this part of the topology is just as important as the HT supply or the negative grid supply. There are also significant modifications to the negative grid and HT supplies. There is extensive use of Kondo wire in both the power supply and the audio circuit. Every aspect of the circuit has been developed and evolved over years using complex and demanding music to select component types and values, tolerance factors and so on. This is a specialized and particular recipe that is all about achieving the correct overall balance of virtues. These amps are complex and time consuming to make and LV do so reluctantly. But the results are spectacular. For me they have been a considerable discovery and for the first time I’ve heard a power amp that I could happily live with if for some reason the Kondo Gakuohs had to go. At £16,000 they are just over a quarter of the price, which is one of the reasons for their considerable popularity of late up at Definitive Towers where they’ve been popping out the doors like hot cakes.
