A Peak Experience
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday October 27, 2003
The names and model numbers of audio components frequently reflect the desires, aspirations or even superstitions of their designers. Ivor Teifenbrun, of Linn, insists model names include the letter K. This has resulted in such strange-sounding products as the Knekt, Sondek, Kivor and Arkiv.
Amar Bose always uses the number 901 to identify the most expensive model in his company's speaker range, which explains why the current Bose 901s look and sound nothing like the Bose 901s of 1968.
Gilles Belot, the French owner of Cairn, is a keen mountaineer who names his products after climbing routes, mountains and weather patterns. His choices are sometimes unfortunate. Cairn's only CD player is called the "Fog". Belot surely thought he was safe using the height in metres of his favourite mountain, Mt Blanc, as a model number for an integrated amplifier, the 4808. Unfortunately, a new survey put the mountain's height at 4810.4m.
There are two versions of the 4808. The one reviewed here is the "A". Its rated output is 30 watts a channel into eight-ohm speakers and 60 watts a channel into four ohms. A higher-powered model, the North Face, delivers 100 watts a channel into eight ohms. The output stage in the low-power model operates almost entirely in Class-A mode. Class-A circuitry is enormously inefficient, so the amplifier runs very hot, but it gives sound quality that's purer and more musically involving than that from the Class-AB circuitry found in almost all other integrated amplifiers, including the North Face.
This is the first amplifier we've seen that has no lettering on the front panel. Not even the manufacturer's name. Just one very small, stylised engraving of a mountain against an expanse of brushed aluminium. The two semi-spherical discs on either side of the circular blue display control all amplifier functions, including volume, balance and input selection. Output volume is varied not by a potentiometer but a resistor network, so it can be set in precise 0.5dB steps. The amplifier is very beautiful but the front-panel display is dimly lit, with small lettering and icons, and thus hard to read.
In Europe, where most people live in small apartments and are fined for making too much noise, the 4808's 30-watt output would be more than enough, even with fairly inefficient eight-ohm speakers. Australian users, on the other hand, will need to select their speakers very carefully to reap the full benefits of the 4808's low-powered Class-A circuitry. We'd suggest speakers with nominal impedances of four to six ohms that are rated at 89dBSPL or more.
We teamed Cairn's 4808 with a pair of Audio Pro Black Diamond floor-standing speakers (4ohm/91dBSPL). The result was superb sound with power to spare. There was no background circuit noise from the amplifier, even at maximum volume, and no hint of distortion. The music played back as cleanly and clearly as if it was coming from the original instruments. It isn't just the sound that's good; build quality is also magnificent.
Info file
Cairn 4808 Integrated Amplifier
RRP: $3499
The Audio Lounge
2 Westside Avenue
Port Melbourne, Victoria 3207
(03) 9645 3411
info@audiolounge.com.au
www.audiolounge.com.au
© 2003 Sydney Morning Herald