Slightly shortly, Editor Jim Austin urged I assessment the Technique 3. Maybe he’d already been tipped off by Ken Micallef’s reward when he first encountered Infigo in November 2021 on the Capital Audio Fest, and by the following buzz (footnote 1). I used to be involved, although, that the Infigo Technique 3s may not be capable of drive my Wilson Audio Alexia 2s. Although Infigo proprietor/designer Hans Looman assured me that they’d, “no downside,” I made a decision to carry off till I may hearken to the amplifiers once more.
Some months later, I encountered the identical pairing on the inaugural Pacific Audio Fest. Describing that have, I wrote, “Smoothness was the system’s sturdy swimsuit, dwarfing (on this room) layering, element, dynamics, and grandeur. Then once more, sound on a 16/44.1 file of Chabrier’s Spain was probably the most liquid of something I heard on the present as much as noon. … Completely the proper timbre and sound high quality for this music. … Equally spectacular was the gorgeous guitar sound on a 24/176.4 switch of the Mercury Dwelling Presence LP of The Romeros enjoying Rodrigo’s Aranjuez’s live performance. The sound was very good.”
Shortly after that, the considerably simpler to drive Wilson Alexia Vs entered my system. Extra assured that the Technique 3 would mate effectively with my audio system, I requested assessment samples.
Looking back, now that I’ve spent a number of weeks with the Infigos in my reference system, I want I might mentioned “sure” at first alternative.
The person and the corporate
Infigo means “spectacular” in Latin; that phrase additionally describes Looman, the designer and firm founder. At the same time as a baby in The Netherlands, at a time when folks had been switching their televisions from tubed to transistor, he already knew that his future could be in electronics.
“I used to be all the time going by the rubbish and pulling tubes out of previous TVs,” he advised me throughout his go to to Port Townsend to put in a pair of Technique 3s. “It drove my mother and father nuts. I used to be all the time choosing issues aside to find out how they labored, with an eye fixed on the long run.”
In 1986, after specializing in analog expertise and digital expertise throughout his undergraduate and graduate research in Delft and Utrecht, Looman based an organization that specialised in measuring strategies. He began out measuring water high quality, and nanovolt expenses on particles in paper pulp. Measurement remained certainly one of his two passions; the opposite was music. At the same time as he took the corporate full-time, in 1991, he performed classical guitar. Later, he took up trumpet and French horn. Some Friday evenings, he made music with different guitar-playing buddies. “I can not sit nonetheless, so I used to be all the time making music after I wasn’t measuring issues.”
Wishing to know why totally different amplifiers fully modified the sound of audio programs, he headed down “a deep rabbit gap” and approached amplification from a special standpoint than many. “I handled music as if it had been my nanovolt expenses on particles in paper pulp, if you’ll,” he mentioned. “These expenses are so delicate that they’ll change or be destroyed in case you contact them. I checked out all features of audio as a result of there’s a lot greater than meets the ear. Then, I constructed an enter part that measured far past 20Hz20kHz and could be fully pure sonically.”
In the course of the worldwide recession firstly of the brand new millennium, all the pieces Looman had constructed over 20 years fell aside within the span of two years. Needing to start out over, he and his spouse accepted a suggestion from Canadian relations, wrapped their total life up in a 40′ container, and headed to Kelowna, British Columbia. There, Looman began a brand new electronics meeting firm. After studying that Resonessence Labs, a derivative of Kelowna-headquartered chipmaker ESS, wanted somebody to construct their first sequence of D/A converters, Looman started consulting for Resonessence, establishing its presence at audio reveals. He took the primary show-ready model of his amplifier to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, with Resonessence, in 2011.
On Valentine’s Day 2020, after Resonessence shut down, Looman based Infigo Audio. Not a month later, the pandemic hit and audio reveals went on hiatus. He centered his time on improvement, of amplifiers and a brand new DAC. He “mainly engineered the Resonessence DAC the best way I assumed they need to have engineered the factor,” he advised me; the consequence was the Infigo DAC, the Technique 4. By November 2021, when Infigo merchandise lastly debuted on the Capital Audiofest, Looman had each a DAC and amplifiers prepared for Ken Micallef to listen to.
There’s one other side to the Looman story, which remains to be unfolding: a budding recording profession. The identical yr he landed in British Columbia, Looman started making archival recordings for the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra (OSO) and Youth Orchestra (OSYO). “Probably the most attention-grabbing recordings I did was … of Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer) carried out by the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra in 2015 as a part of a filmed biography, which landed me an entry within the IMDb,” he defined. “My recording technique is a derivative of an audio measurement expertise I’m engaged on to visualise the depth and focus of a stereo subject.”
Technical particulars
Looman constructed his first prototype amplifier in 1998. “I used to be already certain that I wanted to construct a class-A amplifier, as a result of these sounded the most effective to me,” he mentioned. “Sadly, they ran so scorching that I could not even contact my 1W class-A amplifier. Questioning what I may do to create that good class-A sound with out cooking the room stored me up at evening.
“I made a decision that the brute-force [approach] of all the time working your entire present {that a} speaker would ever want by the amplifier was not the cleverest means of doing it. It places numerous stress on the parts, generally shortening their life. And if one thing is consistently pumping its most load, it is not as agile or able to performing in linear trend. Lastly, after three years on the design bench, I dreamed the answer at 1am. By 6am, I had modified my 1W amplifier, and the answer labored.”
Looman strove to protect the sound high quality of his 1W amp whereas scaling up the facility and guaranteeing the design wouldn’t run scorching. “I am not going to offer away your entire secret sauce,” he mentioned, “however my amps run chilly and solely devour possibly 25 or so watts on high of what you must run your audio system. Should you’re working 100W into your audio system, the amps will eat possibly 125W or 130W. So solely this 25W or 30W will likely be consumed into warmth. However the energy is there to make sure that all transistors are open and on the prepared. You by no means have crossover distortion. As an alternative, you might have the gorgeous sound of class-A with ultrafast transient response.”
Looman is pleased with the corporate’s “DC Bias Adjustment System,” which he says balances output DC stage with out limiting low-frequency output. He strove to get rid of section distortion as effectively, by eliminating capacitors within the sign path. Low frequencies lengthen right down to 0Hz, he advised me, with a separate safety circuit that disconnects the audio system when the DC stage will get too excessive.
How highly effective is the Technique 3? Looman mentioned the Technique 3 will deal with dips under an ohm, but it surely will not double its energy output all the best way down. As for the amp’s extension means past 20kHz and its means to run cool, Looman mentioned that the amp’s heatsink is stuffed with tons of of superfast bipolar transistors. “Should you use numerous very small gadgets to unfold warmth over a big space, they’re extraordinarily nimble and quick, and every contributes to the facility output. An analogy is to a rope-pulling contest. When you have 4 very massive guys on one finish and 400 children on the opposite finish, you understand the youngsters are going to win.”
The Technique 3’s curved heatsink eliminates mechanical resonance, Looman advised me. “Even in case you put the amps very near a loudspeaker, they continue to be sonically useless. The concept for the heatsinks got here to me after I took certainly one of my prototypes to Westlake Audio and the man mentioned they had been singing like xylophones.”
Footnote 1: Truly, I had heard them, too, additionally with the Alta Audio Adams, at an occasion on the VPI Home in Previous Bridge, New Jersey.Jim Austin
