Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
Scandinavia is home to many highly regarded audio companies, but most are located in Sweden and Denmark. Norway has just a few well-known makes, including Electrocompaniet, Hegel Music Systems, and SEAS. Hegel and Electrocompaniet are both active in electronics, while SEAS makes speaker drivers for speaker manufacturers.
In 1973, Per Abrahamsen and Svein Erik Børja were inspired to design the first Electrocompaniet amplifier by a paper published six years earlier by Dr. Matti Otala of Finland’s Tampere University of Technology, detailing his work on transient intermodulation (TIM). According to the website of semiconductor maker Analog Devices Inc., TIM distortion occurs when signal delays in amplifiers that employ negative feedback make the amplifier incapable of correcting distortion produced by fast, transient signals. This distortion, previously unidentified, explains why transistor amplifiers of the time, which measured so well on traditional distortion parameters, sounded so harsh and unmusical compared to the best tube amplifiers they were supposed to replace. The first Electrocompaniet product was a 25Wpc stereo amplifier based on a design that would minimize TIM, and had excellent sonic characteristics. Otala’s paper and the amp it inspired had a big impact in the market and led to a succession of better-performing transistor designs. Electrocompaniet designs were adopted in many recording studios, including the famous Abbey Road Studios, home to so many Beatles recordings.
Electrocompaniet ultimately floundered in a tough market and went bankrupt in 2004. That same year, the Norwegian company Westcontrol bought Electrocompaniet and moved office and production to Tau, outside Stavanger, Norway. Westcontrol invested in a large, highly automated production line, allowing the company to compete effectively with products manufactured in the Far East, where labor costs are lower.
The Classic Line
Electrocompaniet’s Classic Line comprises CD players, streamers, integrated amps, and power amps, all the way up to the AW 800 M monoblock amplifier ($45,000/pair, all prices in USD). The AW 800 M weighs over 120 pounds. The subject of this review, the AW 300 M monoblock, sits just below the AW 800 M in the Classic Line and lists for $29,000 per pair. Each monoblock weighs 66 pounds. If you want both channels in one box, you can select the AW 250 R ($8500), which weighs in at 86 pounds. The number in the model name (800, 300, or 250) refers to the rated output power per channel into 8 ohms. The AW 300 M doubles its rated power into 4 ohms—always a good sign—and is rated at 1000 watts into 2 ohms.
Keep an eye open for new products in the subtly elegant Classic Line, including a high-end preamplifier.
AW 300 M—connections and controls
The AW 300 M makes an excellent first impression, even before you plug it in. It is beautifully designed, with rounded edges and a matte-black finish, capped by an acrylic front plate. This plate is 0.75″ thick, polished to a mirror finish, and silk-screened. It is secured to the chassis by four long bolts, which you can see from the side or top of the unit. Two substantial aluminum rods, running front to back across the top of the unit, brace the all-steel chassis to minimize vibration.
The rear plate has two balanced connections: one for input, the other to link to other components, such as a subwoofer. Below these are four well-spaced speaker outputs, which support biwiring. The WBT binding posts are compatible with banana and spade connections. The binding posts are furnished with insulating covers to reduce the risk of electric shocks, as required by European safety regulations, and to prevent accidental shorting between the terminals. If the user prefers, FuruTech binding posts may be specified. I had no problem inserting spade lugs into the slots provided. Some other amps, including the Electrocompaniet ECI 6 DX Mk II streaming integrated amplifier that I reviewed a year ago, have caused me problems because the slots are not wide enough for my spade lugs, or because the speaker cables, which can only be inserted in one position, hit other rear-panel connections.
Below the speaker outlets sits a ground connection, which I did not use, and below that a standard IEC mains input. Flanking the mains input you will find the power rocker switch and 12V trigger connections. If you look closer, you will see a flap secured with a thumb nut. Behind the flap lie the voltage setting (115V or 230V), and three fuse holders. The amp came set for 230V, but the manual and an attached card carried a strong warning to check this setting before powering up.
Supporting the chassis is a set of four spiked feet. These are SuperSpikes by Soundcare, another Norwegian company. The spikes sit within the frame of the footers, presenting a flat surface to the floor or shelf while still isolating the amps from external vibrations—excellent thinking that protected my wooden bases.
On the front of the unit there is one large button to switch the unit between standby and on. If you look around, you won’t see any more controls. But if you read the manual first, you’ll discover two additional buttons on the front underside of the chassis. The left button, when released, provides automatic power down into standby mode if no signal is detected for an extended period. The right button, when released, will keep the front-panel illumination above the power button on when the amp is in use. When pressed in, that illumination will turn itself off after a short period. These are set-and-forget settings. I’m happy to see them assigned to a concealed location.
On power up, the power button lights up to show one of three symbols: red indicates standby mode, blue means powered up, and a blinking light indicates an error mode.
Inside the chassis
The mains power is first heavily filtered to remove DC and high-frequency components before being fed into an 800VA toroidal transformer, which is both electrostatically and magnetically shielded. Capacitor filtering (a substantial 110,000µF) and multiple highly regulated supply lines ensure that the different stages of the amplifier each get the appropriate, highly stable DC voltage without cross-contamination. The input stage operates in class A with zero feedback. Wide-bandwidth, open-loop circuitry feeds the output stage. This output stage isolates the input and driver stages from the speaker load and incorporates a very short feedback loop. Electrocompaniet specifies hyper-fast, soft-recovery rectifier diodes and low-noise metal-film resistors. Both JFET and bipolar transistors are used, and all components are discrete. Special attention has been paid to the ground reference to ensure preservation of fine, low-level detail. The heavy, braced chassis is designed for maximum rigidity to minimize vibration.
The test system
I set the AW 300 M monoblocks on two wooden bases on the carpeted floor, close to the speakers. Feeding the amps was my reference DAC, the EMM Labs DV2 ($30,000). Since the DV2 has its own high-precision volume control, there was no need for a separate preamp. My digital sources were an exaSound Delta M101 server ($2999 when available, since replaced by the Delta Music Server Mark II at $3299) running Roon and Qobuz, and an EMM Labs XDS1 V2 SACD player ($25,000). The Delta server connected to the DV2 via a Nordost Tyr 2 USB cable. The XDS1 sent its digital output (including DSD) via an EMM Labs Optilink glass cable to the DV2, bypassing the player’s internal converter. All the other cables (power, balanced interconnect, and speaker) were Nordost Valhalla 2, and power was distributed from the dedicated line via a Nordost QRT QB8 distribution box. The speakers were YG Acoustics Hailey 2.2 three-way floorstanders ($46,800/pair). A Soulution 511 stereo power amp ($41,975) was on hand for comparison purposes. All these components were chosen for their neutrality, low distortion, wide bandwidth, and high resolution.
Then I set the amps to play burn-in tracks continuously for 300 hours before any serious listening. It’s lucky I have a soundproofed listening room.
How do I pick music for my listening tests?
It is easy to take an academic approach when reviewing equipment. You may concentrate on the individual characteristics of the sound. How deep does the bass go? How does it respond to massive dynamics? Does that voice sound beautiful? Can I tell where all the musicians are?
There are many more things to analyze in this way, and they are all important. From another perspective, we can get hung up on the specifications. How silent is the background? How high is the channel separation? How low is the distortion? But what really matters is how the component connects you to the artists. Do you get that thrill you experience from great musicians in a superb hall?
I pick the tracks I listen to for these reviews not because they are my personal favorites, nor because they are superbly recorded. Instead, I go for music that is difficult to reproduce in the listening room; music that discriminates between configurations. Where possible, I want to hear music and musicians I’ve heard recently in a live setting, because live acoustic music is the ultimate benchmark.
When I listen to these tracks, I want to feel excitement. If I start tapping my feet on the floor, or singing along, or arm conducting, that’s a better indicator of quality than any other. The equipment is doing its job.
Next, I’m listening for voices and instruments that sound natural, so there will be a big emphasis on acoustic music. Period instruments are perfect in this respect. Many amps or speakers will make their gut strings sound thin or edgy. Only the best components will sound musical when reproducing period instruments.
Then, I like to listen to complex music, to see if the soundstage collapses when everything is happening at once, and whether the louder instruments drown out the softer ones. Let’s throw in some 20th-century orchestral music!
Some people may ask: What? No rock, pop, or (insert your favorite musical genre here)? I listen to a wide variety of music for these tests. I want to see if there’s some type of music that the equipment struggles with or excels at. I don’t list all the tracks I audition, but you can be sure I listen widely, except for country music. I’m allergic to country music.
But with the class of equipment that we are testing on SoundStage! Ultra, I don’t expect to catch a unit out in one type of music (and I didn’t here). Great equipment should be up to all the challenges you can throw at it. In fact, one of the marks of great equipment is that it should not play favorites.
Listening
After connecting the Norwegian monoblocks to my system, I first turned the volume up to maximum, with no music playing. There was absolutely no sound coming from the speakers. That’s a big plus, and it’s also why I had no need to tie the ground connector to the building’s ground.
Then, I set them playing. These amps sounded big, bold, and authoritative. Prodigious bass, a wide image, and an absence of fatigue were the salient aspects of the sound. Clearly these were formidable components which could drive the big YG speakers to high levels without any sense of strain.
For my listening tests, I sought the help of an audiophile friend. This gentleman is blind, and his depth perception and ability to locate sound sources is very highly developed. Spatial aspects of the sound that I had to work hard to uncover came naturally to him. I really appreciated his help.
Our first selection was the Holly Cole Trio’s Girl Talk (CD, Alert Z2-81016). I last saw Holly Cole perform at a church in Toronto, Canada, and let’s just say she raised the rafters. What a performer! “My Baby Just Cares for Me” has a plucked-bass accompaniment to Cole’s vocals, and it needs an amp with very solid, pitch-perfect, deep bass. It also needs one that exerts total control over the speakers, so that they can start and stop on a dime when the music demands. The AW 300 M amplifiers had power and presence to spare, and the vocals were warm, clear, and powerful. But the bass notes, strong in level, didn’t quite sound like a plucked string. They emerged somewhat rounded.
We moved on to the gut strings of the Mosaïques Quartet playing Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, op. 20/II, on original instruments (CD, Astrée E 8786). I heard the Mosaïques Quartet at the St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto some years back, but my seat was way, way back. The Norwegian amplifiers sounded just fine in this difficult material. Nothing harsh. The string tone was beautiful and rich throughout. The imaging was stable, the dynamic range wide, and the excitement level strong. I could happily live with it. To be honest, this CD sounded better than my live experience. Bravo!
So far, we were listening to smaller-scale music. Time to move up in complexity to Charles Mingus’s stunning debut album for Columbia, Mingus Ah Um (24-bit/192kHz FLAC, Columbia Records / Qobuz). My friend and I listened to nine top-notch jazz musicians playing their hearts out on this superlative recording from May 1959. The sheer weight of sound and color of instruments was intoxicating on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” and even more so on “Fables of Faubus.” However, we noticed that the rim shots were a little thin and jagged.
How about the most complex music? We moved on to Béla Bartók’s atmospheric Concerto for Orchestra, played by the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra under Zoltán Kocsis (SACD, Hungaroton HSACD 32187). It was hard to set the volume level right on this work, since it starts off so quietly, only to explode later. But that’s exactly what we needed to really test the dynamic range of these monoblock amps, and to see how well they held up at major crescendos. My friend was not familiar with this masterpiece, but came away suitably impressed. Imaging was superb, the brass both clean and thrilling. The flute was lifelike, fast, and colorful, although not so easy to locate precisely. Orchestral colors were very rich and, at times, almost artificial. The third movement exhibited a slightly brittle sound. The music held together throughout, with a stable image even at the big climaxes.
On less demanding tracks
One of my favorite jazz musicians is the saxophonist Sonny Rollins. I know what he can sound like from a concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall in 2007. That massive, vibrant sound is seared into my brain. On that occasion, he was supported by some younger musicians who couldn’t really keep up with the elder statesman. There are so many outstanding Rollins albums I can recommend, including Way Out West and Alfie. For this test, I pulled out Saxophone Colossus (SACD mono, Analogue Productions CPRJ 7079), recorded in 1956. Rollins is backed by Tommy Flanagan on piano, Doug Watkins on bass, and the superb Max Roach behind the drums. Saxophone Colossus finds him in top form, with musicians who could drive him to unparalleled heights. The AW 300 M pair sounded forward and controlled, with great density of tone, a fast attack, and an open top. The piano was a little soft, but the cymbals were clear and clean. You never get that on CD. We also compared the DSD and Redbook layers. The difference was night and day. The DSD reproduction was so good there was almost no room for improvement.
The first Rolling Stones record I bought was Let It Bleed. I bought it again on CD in 2002 (SACD, ABKCO 90042). As with many of the band’s albums, and many Dylan albums, those CDs were actually SACDs, although the record companies didn’t make a big fuss about it. What a shame the Beatles didn’t get the same treatment. I won’t spend too much time on this ABKCO release, since it pales beside the 2019 remastering for the 50th Anniversary Edition (24/192 FLAC, Universal Music / Qobuz). The remastering improved the presence, balance, and tonality of the recording, particularly in “Country Honk.” Through the AW 300 M monoblocks, the guitar was clean, the violin was sweet, and the vocals were fine. Top notch!
A lot of people swear by female singers to test components. I’m not sure why. I think a piano is much more difficult to reproduce accurately. But I enjoy the voices anyway, so I listened to Jennifer Warnes on her album The Hunter (24/48 FLAC, Porch Light / Qobuz). “Way Down Deep” sounded relaxed, with a beautiful voice, full bass, and lovely imaging. The balance was excellent, although the percussion was soft. Sadly, I’ve never heard Warnes live. I did see great backup singers supporting Leonard Cohen on his final tour (Sharon Robinson, and the Webb Sisters), but Warnes was no longer one of them by that time.
Comparison
My reference amplifier, the Soulution 511, is more expensive than a pair of Electrocompaniet AW 300 Ms, but half as powerful. We repeated some of the listening tests with the Soulution and found significant improvements in three aspects of the sound. First, the Soulution was faster, more accurately conveying David Piltch’s plucked bass notes on Cole’s rendition of “My Baby Just Cares for Me.” Second, the Soulution threw an image with greater accuracy, so that we could more easily locate the musicians and follow their movements around the stage. It was also a little more open on top, with noticeable improvements in the sound of percussion on Mingus’s “Fables of Faubus,” and a marked improvement in the orchestral color in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. On less demanding tracks, these advantages were considerably reduced.
Parting thoughts
In my tests, the AW 300 M amplifiers played effortlessly at very high volume levels, delivering prodigious bass output and rich tonality—especially rich for a solid-state design. They had great presence, a black background, and strong resolution. The pair of amplifiers produced a wide, well-defined soundstage, though without the pinpoint accuracy and layered depth of my reference amp. Dynamic range was superb, but attacks were slightly soft on some material. From my listening, it’s clear that the AW 300 M has reserves of power that will comfortably drive a wide range of speakers to ear-splitting levels.
I enjoyed my time listening to the Electrocompaniet AW 300 M monoblocks. I was also very impressed with their internal layout, the attention to detail, the relatively compact dimensions, and their luxurious appearance. They have fulfilled the promise I first saw in the ECI 6 DX Mk II. When they go back to their rightful owner, I’m going to miss them.
At this price point, I can recommend these monoblocks if your speakers are inefficient or present a difficult load, you like to listen at realistic volume levels, you appreciate truly deep bass, and if, like me, you enjoy a forward presentation. But a purchase of this nature mandates extended auditioning in your own home, or at a dealer who can set up partnering equipment similar to your own.
. . . Phil Gold
philgold@soundstage.com
Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.
Associated Equipment:
- Digital sources: exaSound Delta streaming server, EMM Labs XDS1 SACD player
- DAC: EMM Labs DV2
- Power amplifier: Soulution 511
- Loudspeakers: YG Acoustics Hailey 2.2
- Power, interconnect, and speaker cables: Nordost Valhalla 2
- USB link: Nordost Tyr 2
Electrocompaniet AW 300 M mono power amplifier
Price: $29,000 per pair
Warranty: Five years, parts and labor
Electrocompaniet AS
Teknologivegen 2
4120 Tau
Norway
Phone: +47 51741033
Email: sales@electrocompaniet.com
Website: www.electrocompaniet.com
