I am prototyping a new pair of Mono Blocks.

These are single ended and are made to use a variety of popular power beam tetrodes and pentodes such as the 6L6, EL34, 6550, 350B, KT120,KT150. The Articulated Mono Block can also be ordered to use a your favorite directly heated triodes such as the 2A3 or 300B.  One  physical Mono Block is 35″ long, or wide depending on how you look at it, by 7 1/2″ deep.  This gives one stereo pair a wingspan of 70″.

I was just saying there is a cost for everything. Well, the cost for superior infrastructure and electronic layout, physical fortitude, supreme serviceability, longevity and tonality, is size and weight. Size and weight. Make a space, call a friend, install this beautiful culmination of forty years of study and service work in your favorite listening area.

Flank these Articulated Mono Blocks with a pair of Specimen Horns to create a truly awe inspiring sonic installation. Let’s live a little shall we?

This is a rare circumstance when a wiring layout almost completely resembles the schematic of the electronics. This means one basic thing. Linearity of signal path. This is so often waived as a design consideration in favor of “shrinking the package”. Everything comes at a price. This is especially true in engineering and art. When we shrink a package we have to make compromises. Some of these compromises are manifested in inadequate physical structure and a flimsy juxtapositions of components. Other companies utilize component values that are at risk of failure at normal operating points for the circuit.  This quite strategically leads to premature failure. Very often, in accepted circuit design the signal path meanders back and forth, choking on its own backwash. We never discover clarity or beauty in vague oscillations haunting the spectral periphery of our favorite records. Do we?

They look stunning on an appropriately sized mantlepiece or a shelf. They also work very nicely behind a bar.

The blueprint for the project is a full scale drawing featuring top and side views for layout.

Coming together alongside a plethora of ongoing projects here at Specimen.

In the spray booth, the frame receives several coats of nitrocellulose lacquer

The finished frames are wired with point to point solder connections.

Once the frame parts have been produced, they are glued together