Anthony Gallo Reference 3 S.A. Amp - Manual (Page 5)

but does so only over a very limited frequency range where our human hearing is the least sensitive to timbre and
tone. Using our SA within this unique twin-drive scheme doesn’t create any audible discontinuities or
discrepancies even if your main amplifier was a low-power triode design with a very distinctive sonic signature.
For once, you can actually implement the “tubes on top, solid-state on the bottom” ideal without suffering
the usual compromises. And should you deal with asymmetrical loudspeaker response due to unusual room
geometries, the SA’s independent gain controls for each channel double as a balance control. You can trim the gain
of the speaker whose closer wall or furniture reinforcement gives it an acoustic room boost.
The volume controls on the SA operate very much like a bass tone control on a receiver, except that it’s far
more precise and allows independent adjustments for each channel. Listening to your favorite albums, you can
easily set the tonal balance and the subjective amount of bass exactly to your liking. You could even have multiple
settings such as ‘flat’ for Classical and ‘phat’ for Pop and Rock, Reggae and Rap. Why not? It’s as easy as turning
up the two gain controls by a predetermined amount that still sounds coherent, just a little bit stronger in the low
bass than is perfectly flat (but great fun).
What about the other two front-panel adjustments, the stereo/mono and auto on/off switches?
In the Ref³ main speaker setup, the stereo switch must be set to ‘stereo’ so that each speaker receives its
own bass-boost signal. The 3-position off/auto/on front panel selector setting depends on whether you want the SA
to automatically turn off whenever it doesn’t sense a signal or be powered up by the 12-volt rear-panel trigger.
• In ‘off’ mode, the 12-volt trigger will turn on the SA (the main power switch must be set to on).
• In ‘auto’ mode, the SA switches into signal-sensing mode and turns on automatically when it
detects an input signal, then turns off when no signal is present (the main power switch must be set
to on).
• In ‘on’ mode, the SA is always on unless you set the main power switch to off.
How about the rear panel connections?
For use with our own Ref³ speakers, connect the RCA inputs of the SA to the second pre-out of your
preamplifier or integrated amplifier. If you don’t have two pre-outs, use the included Y-adaptor on the main
outputs of your preamplifier/integrated. Then connect the 2
nd
voice coil speaker inputs from the SA speaker
outputs. Be careful to observe proper +/- polarity on both ends of the speaker cable. The full-range/low-pass switch
on the SA’s rear panel must be set to low-pass so the crossover control works.