The Coffman Labs G1-A is a limited production amplifier that has taken three years to come to fruition, indeed it is the only product in the company’s arsenal. Featuring rare and custom parts the G1-A been designed in Portland, Oregon as something that will last for decades with proper care. It is a line stage, phono preamplifier and a headphone amplifier.
In part the G1-A has been inspired by an RCA amplifier around a century old. As with the RCA amplifier the G1-A is said to contain “nothing that could degrade easily over time”. All internal wiring is point-to-point and is hand done, though apart from the input and output wire runs are non-existent due to the 3D topology of the layout. All of the components are claimed to be “over-sized for voltage” and all switches are “military aircraft quality and rated for millions of operations.”
The Coffman Labs preamplifier is available in 120 or 24 volt versions, has a separate power supply and has a tube compliment of 2 x 12AX7 for RIAA, 2 x 12AU7 for phono boost, 2 x 5687 in the line output and a single 5ARE.
The Coffman Labs G1-A is being sold in the US exclusively through Echo Audio from June 2012 at a cost of 5500$
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In the first three months of 2011 just over 20 million CDs were sold in the UK, but this figure dropped to 15.3 million in 2012 – a drop of 25%. Sales of vinyl in the UK experienced growth in 2011 of almost 40% over 2010 figures but still only account for 19.5% of non-download sales. In 2011, according to IFPI, worldwide sales of downloaded singles and albums rose by 17% with some countries (US and S.Korea) deriving over half of their sales of music from downloaded sources. IFPI estimates that 32% of record companies’ revenues are derived from digital channels. More »