What exactly is a ‘REFERENCE standard’? Well it’s a bench-mark you look-up to and endeavor to achieve; the standard you adopt as your own or refer to; and even by which you may chose to judge your own performance. Prior to the inception of Soundstream’s REFERENCE series of amplifiers, no other company had ever brought either of these concepts to the fore: all connections on one side, fully adaptable power supply for either SQ or SPL applications, the use of 1% and 2%
tolerance resistors and separate L & R level adjustments…yes we started it all and don’t forget that! Today thankfully, advanced technologies in small-signal processing and MEGA-FET power devices, makes it possible for a complete and faithful re-introduction of these phenomenal sound processing machines, minus the added cost of 2% resistors for example and high-count B-FET devices.

So, Soundstream is the absolute unmitigated FIRST to establish an audio amplifier REFERENCE standard for all others to follow and consequently, set it self apart from the rest that worked! There are definitely a lot of copy-cats out there today; trying to “steal our thunder”; but not to worry, we’ve huddled & planned for the follow-up, enter the new
REFERENCE (encore) series:
Every a bit a chip-off-the-old-block in terms of flawless sound reproduction PLUS; we have gone to work to introduce some serious enhancements like these: 4.5:1 Power Supply capacity to audio output power ratio, laser-cut precision gapped-core toroidal transformers, polystyrene caps in the input stages, high-speed JFET OP amps with high CMRR factors and precision tracking VRs.
GENERAL FEATURES


RUBI™ (Rapid-Use Branched Impulse) proprietary power supply topology
STACT™ (STabilized Apex Current Topology) Reduces power supply stress by 50%
Trident™ amplifier protection topology
Ultra-Low ESR Capacitance Bank ensures rapid power delivery for dynamic peaks
Hawkins Bass Control™ Proprietary bass equalization topology
IDI™ (Intelligent Distress Indicator) gives visual indication of amplifier protection status
Harmonic Bass Alignment™ produces tighter, more accurate bass
Fully regulated MOSFET power supply
Triple Darlington Output Circuitry
BIP™ Bias Input Protection
Rail Stabilization Protection Circuitry
Bi-linear selectable two-way crossovers for amplifier and line outputs
Continuously Variable High and Low Pass Crossovers
Balanced Line Inputs for the Highest level of Noise Rejection
Gold RCA Inputs and Outputs
Gold 2-gauge Power Connectors
Tri-mode operation

Hrrrmmm Interesting... I finally hunted down a pair of 'real' Ref's recently...

Old one looks nicer - more elegant design, like art.
new one just looks like engineers design.

Both the images above, Fud's and my post are Original SS ref amps from the same Era.

....

you know you want one Adam...

sell your soul to the devil and come back to the dark side mwhahaha

the one i posted was a class A 100II a couple of years older but not much..

2 x 50W @ 4 ohms (<0.1% THD)
2 x 80W @ 2 ohms
1 x 160W @ 4 ohms bridged
Fuse: Internal 10A AGU for power supply, 2 x 5A ATC for output

Can be optimized for 2 or 4 ohms stereo and 4 or 8 ohms bridged
1 Ohm stereo stable
how about this - the davinchi


mmm 7 channels of goodness!

And i know someone with one brand new in the box!!!

I want a Davinchi...

What do these sell for now? I love the idea of running a whole system from one amp