Exposure x amplifier4/6/2023 ![]() That, plus increased voltage from the transformer secondaries, account for the increase in output power compared with the 2010: 75Wpc instead of just 50Wpc. Following that, the output transistors are SanKen bipolars, which replace the MOSFETs preferred for earlier Exposure designs. The signal goes from there to a second gain stage, which also has a constant current source, and to which the designer has applied some local feedback to keep that stage's output impedance low. That first gain stage in the amplifier section is a long-tail transistor pair loaded with a constant current source, after which the signal is cascoded-another new twist for the 2010S, this one to improve rejection of the positive supply rail. Accordingly, the input impedance of the 2010S is lower than average, which may force the prospective owner to be more cautious than usual when it comes to choosing source components and interconnects. Interestingly, a key change from the 2010 to the 2010S involved replacing the older model's 50k-ohm volume pot with a 20k-ohm unit: a seemingly insignificant change, but one that served to linearize the product's upper-range frequency response, because this is an integrated amp with a passive preamp stage: The music signal goes straight from the volume pot to the amplifier's power section. (According to the Exposure website, the S stands for Super Power I'll spare the delicate constitutions of Stereophile's whiniest critics by not reaching for the obvious political joke.) It's also descended, in a more immediate way, from something called the 2010, an earlier version with less output power. It was Farlowe, in fact, who designed the X integrated amplifier that had impressed me all those CESes ago, and I'm told that the new 2010S ($1250) is, in many respects, descended from that excellent design. Founder John Farlowe, a talented designer who got his start building guitar amps for the Who and Jethro Tull (footnote 1), now enjoys life in a sunnier clime. Then again, I was right about the company changing hands: Exposure Electronics, though still doing business in England-where final assembly and all testing continue to take place-is now owned by a Malaysian firm. As it turned out, I needn't have been so cynical. I was in no mood to write about one of those. I was torn: I remembered how good that early one was-how shockingly, unforgettably, paradigm-shiftingly good-but I assumed that, by now, the company must have changed hands and was probably using their once-good name to promote the same boring me-too sadness as almost everyone else. That company, Bluebird Music, called me and wondered if I'd like to try the latest Exposure integrated. Now they've come back one more time, through the efforts of the Canadian firm that also sends Croft amps and Neat speakers over the border. Gather what you will from the fact that, almost 20 years later, I remember that system-and literally nothing else from the entire show.Īnd then Exposure more or less went away from the US.Īnd then they came, and left, and came and left again. Still, for all of that, I was astounded by how well that system performed: not only how well it played the notes and beats, but how well it sounded, too. So it went at that Exposure display, where all requests to hear good music were denied, albeit politely. Smart Showgoers would choose the former, of course-yet, even so, man does not live on electric bass solos alone. But in those days, virtually everyone in the US who was professionally associated with one of those companies refused to demonstrate their gear with anything other than two records: the Blue Nile's A Walk Across the Rooftops and Ben Sidran's awful Don't Let Go. Let's back up a minute: It's fair to say that Exposure got their foot in the door by falling in with the whole Linn-Naim thing-not that there was anything wrong with that. The exhibitors seemed to believe it was better to impress with a humble product than to overwhelm with a full-bore assault, because they limited their display to a single amplifier: the then-new Exposure X (as in "10") integrated, mated to a record player comprising a Linn LP12 turntable, Ekos tonearm, and Troika cartridge, and a pair of Linn Kan loudspeakers. Yet another of the best systems I've ever heard at a hi-fi show was an exhibit by some former distributors for the English manufacturer Exposure Electronics, at a Chicago Consumer Electronics Show in the late 1980s.
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