Dynaudio North America recently announced that it has been appointed as the distributor for Octave Audio for the USA and Canada. Octave Audio, based in Karslbad-Ittersbach Germany, has been producing high-end tube electronics for over 20 years. Octave was actually founded in 1968, at first producing transformers and specialized industrial equipment for the infrasonic industry. The development of tube amplifiers began in 1980, and the first Octave product produced was the forerunner of the HP 500 preamp, which itself was brought to market in 1987. Today Octave offers a wide range of tube-based amplification products ranging from the attractively priced V40SE integrated amplifier up to its state-of-the-art Jubilee preamp and mono block amplifiers. Engineered and built in Germany, Octave models incorporate unique monitoring and protection systems and an innovative combination of sophisticated tube and elegant semiconductor circuitry.

Octave integrated and power amplifiers feature an extremely accurate bias control calibration system that anyone can use to precisely bias the tubes. In contrast to simple Class A power amplifiers, Octave amplifiers operate in Class A/B, which demands precise setup and control of the bias current. The sophisticated built-in bias calibration system simplifies this adjustment, which is crucial to sound quality. As the bias adjusters on Octave's amplifiers are outside the case and complimented by front panel display indicators, anyone, regardless of their technical knowledge, can easily adjust the bias of the individual tubes to an extremely high level of precision - within 0.3% accuracy - without any special tools or measurement equipment necessary.

Octave (integrated and power) amplifiers also feature power management with soft-start control, which extends component and tube life by smoothly ramping up the tube heaters and operating voltage from switch-on. Thus, the power supply components never have to deal with the usual huge inrush of switch-on current. This extends component life considerably, ensuring that every Octave amplifier performs at peak performance for a very long time. They also feature an advanced electronic protection system that continually monitors the output level of the tubes. Should the output be short-circuited or overloaded, the protection system acts immediately to electronically isolate the power supply and protect the components. Combined, the power management and protection systems provide optimum all-around protection, which will even safeguard against abuse. The systems protect the amplifiers from damage through incorrect usage or tube faults, making Octave amongst the very few tube amplifiers that are as easy to operate as top quality transistor designs.

In addition to offering protection against faults, the aforementioned systems also extend tube life expectancy to 3-5 years for the power tubes and 5 -8 years for the driver tubes. Octave integrated and power amplifiers have also been engineered to offer excellent load stability, optimizing their output transformers for 4 ohm loads, thus making the amplifiers perfectly at home driving any loudspeaker, including "real" 8 ohm models.
Octave preamplifiers feature electronic stabilization of the power supply, which serves to ensure a high stability of the sound as well as the bias setting during mains variations, while also yielding improved bass performance and a greater overall effortlessness of the reproduced sound.

The Octave lineup features 3 integrated amplifiers, the V40SE ($4,900), V70 ($6,600) and V80 ($9,800 line/$10,500 with either MM or MC phono stage) , the HP 300 mk II ($5,500 line/$6,800 with MC Phono Stage) and HP 500SE ($10,000 line/ $11,500 with MM/MC phono stage) preamps, the RE 280 mk II ($8,000) stereo and MRE 130 ($16,000 per pair) mono block power amps, as well as the Jubilee Preamp ($35,000) and Jubilee Monoblock ($67,500 per pair) amplifiers. Octave also offers the optional Black Box ($1,200) and Super Black Box ($3,500) power supply capacitance upgrade modules. A stand-alone phono module is forthcoming as well. The Octave website can be accessed at www.octave.de, with the English section slated to be updated shortly.