‘There are three components to the accurate evaluation of audio,’ says Drawmer Sales Director, Ken Giles. ‘Audio professionals pay a great deal of attention to the choice of microphone and speakers. However the third component, the monitor preamp and analogue-to-digital conversion used to reference this material, is crucial and often overlooked. The Drawmer HQ is specifically designed to do that job – and to a highly accurate, precision-engineered standard.’
Volume adjustment and source selection are via rotary controls on the front panel. A third, smaller front-panel rotary control allows instant switching between two different sets of speakers for A/B comparisons, or allows the HQ to drive both sets of outputs simultaneously. The HQ’s volume control incorporates new Drawmer Seamless Relay Volume Control (SRVC) technology, and offers the smooth, continuous and quiet operation of a potentiometer combined with the accuracy of a precision relay volume control – the HQ’s output channels are balanced to within 0.05dB across the entire volume range.
Designed to act as a central hub in a studio, mastering room, reference library or any high-end listening environment, analogue inputs accept audio on balanced XLRs and unbalanced phonos. In addition, separate stereo RIAA-corrected phono inputs are provided, so that turntables may be directly connected for restoration work or reference without the need for a separate phono preamp. The HQ also permits the connection of digital sources at up to 192kHz in AES format (via XLRs), TOSlink (on an RCA jack) or AES3id (on a BNC connector), and a standard USB ‘B’-type connector allows audio to be streamed at lower rates from a laptop.
Each input source, whether in the analogue or digital domain, may be given its own input gain settings for optimum level-matching of the connected devices. Audio from mixing desks, turntables, digital audio workstations and DVD, Blu-ray or CD players may all be united within the HQ and sent to the balanced and unbalanced analogue outputs simultaneously. Digital sources at their original sample rate and bit depth can also be routed to a dedicated SPDIF output.
More: www.drawmer.com
