Line Stage Gain Module

Fully balanced circuitry

Simple, elegant remote control

User-friendly front touchscreen

Altair II’s front touchscreen accesses all of the preamp’s advanced functions, including input configuration and all other setup parameters. Large, high-contrast fonts allow the display to be read from across a room.

Incomparable mechanical isolation

Altair II’s audio circuits are double-isolated from vibration. Each Line Stage Gain Module is mounted on a sandwich of an isolating polymer layer between two stainless steel sheets. An elastomeric suspension in turn supports this platform. Highly flexible, custom-made wiring prevents any vibration on the chassis from reaching the floated circuit boards. The sheer mass of the Altair II chassis and internal assembly also helps damp vibration.

Home theater bypass mode

Through the front touchscreen, one of Altair II’s inputs may be configured for home theater bypass. This mode allows the left and right channels from a surround-sound processor to pass through Altair II, permitting the same left/right speakers and amplifiers to be used for two-channel or multichannel reproduction without having to make volume adjustments. Switching to any other input restores two-channel sound.

Nearly impermeable shielding

In order to block 50/60 Hertz electromagnetic interference from household circuits, we encase Altair II’s inner workings in an enclosure machined from solid billets of aluminum to a minimum wall thickness of 8.2mm. These thick walls cannot resonate or vibrate as a sheet metal enclosure can.

Constellation Direct balanced interface

Owners of Constellation Audio’s Hercules and Centaur amplifiers can experience an even higher level of quality from Altair II through our Constellation Direct interface, which bypasses the input module of the amplifiers to reduce the number of gain stages in the signal chain. This reduces noise and improves reproduction of musical detail.

Triple-transformer power supply

Altair II’s power supply incorporates three separate R-core transformers, one for left channel analog audio, one for right channel analog audio, and one for control circuitry. The power supply’s machined aluminum enclosure shields the audio section of Altair II from the transformers’ electromagnetic energy. Custom-extruded PCOCC cables tipped with aerospace-type Hypertronics connectors carry the separate the three separate power feeds to the Altair II main chassis.

Optically controlled resistors for volume control