Extensive Listening Tests; Extraordinary Longevity - Classe CP-500 Manuel Du Propriétaire

extensive listening tests

Excellent measured performance is to be expected in world-class products, and Classé
products deliver that performance. However, experience has shown that technical
excellence alone is insufficient to guarantee subjectively musical results.
For this reason, all Classé products are laboriously fine-tuned during the development
process by carefully controlled listening tests. Our ears are still some of the finest
laboratory test instruments available, and nicely complement more traditional
engineering test equipment. In the course of optimizing the circuitry for a product,
hundreds of decisions are made based on the subjective impression given by substituting
one high quality part for another.
As an example, we may listen to half a dozen 0.1% tolerance film resistor components
of the same value, from several different companies. Standard tests may show them
all to provide identical results in terms of noise, distortion, and so forth. Yet, almost
invariably, one selection yields some small improvement in the subjective reaction to the
performance of the product under development. Less often, even a single such change
can result in a surprisingly large improvement.
Multiply those various improvements by the dozens or even hundreds of such decisions
that must be made before the product can be finalized for production, and you have a
remarkable improvement, indeed – all based on careful listening tests, which we view as
a necessary complement to the solid engineering you might rightly expect from Classé.

extraordinary longevity

Another benefit of having worked with highly refined circuit designs so extensively over
many years is that we have vast experience in what works well over the long term.
By using only the highest quality parts to begin with, and then using them in an
informed way as a result of both accelerated aging experiments and actual long-term
experience, we are able to design and manufacture products which we are confident will
stand the test of time.
We are confident that your new Classé preamplifier will give you many years of trouble-
free reliability and musical enjoyment, just as previous Classé products have given their
owners.
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