darTZeel Audio NHB-18NS - Manual (Page 4)

darTZeel NHB-18NS
User Manual, version 0.93 Page 4 of 10
darTZeel NHB-18NS
User Manual
1. Introduction
Congratulations for purchasing a darTZeel NHB-18NS.
Our machines are designed and hand built for very
long lasting use and musical pleasure.
The darTZeel NHB-18NS is a highly unusual
preamplifier, and requires special care. We strongly
recommend you
read this manual in its entirety , in
order not to miss any reason for enjoying your ma-
chine at its very best!
In order to facilitate packing/unpacking operation,
please go to our web site
www.darTZeel.com and
download our full pictured packaging instruction.
2. Brief description
The darTZeel NHB-18NS is the perfect partner of
the NHB-108 model one.
The in-house designed, built-in phono stage, is
offered as a standard feature.
One of the secrets of the darTZeel NHB-18NS can
be found in two words:
Passion and Love… The passion for sound, of
course, and love of music, needless to say…
As for the rest, we just put in few electronics, a wee
bit of mechanics, and a touch of appropriate soft-
ware.
The NHB-18NS is a full battery powered machine.
Two different operation modes can be chosen:
1. Automatic mode:
Every time you will switch your preamplifier
ON, battery operation mode will be selected,
no matter if the batteries are fully charged or
not. In case batteries would need a charge, or
when the NHB-18NS is switched off, the ex-
ternal supply will charge them automatically.
When batteries are fully charged, you can ex-
pect for a battery life of about 12 hours.
2. BTM (AC mode):
In this mode, batteries will be constantly kept
fully charged. A built-in overcharge protection
allows for using this mode permanently, ensuring
you will benefit of a full charge when you will
perform some critical listening session.
More detail about these two modes are described
later (Chapter 3.5 Special features).
As for the embarked technology, the NHB-18NS is
truly at the peak that is possible to realise today.
With more than 1,200 electronic parts involved, we
however kept our very first aims untouched. The
signal path only travels through 7 junctions (7 tran-
sistors) from input to output, while the phono stage
only adds 6 junctions for the sake of best transpar-
ency.
All basic circuits – phono stage included – are
directly derived from the internationally patented
NHB-108 model one amplifier’s. No global feed-
back, open loop output stages, very wide bandwidth
and extremely low phase shift: this is the NHB-
18NS.
Our proprietary volume control involves a very new
approach, never achieved before: no any contacts,
relays, switches or silicon devices are used. The
delicate sound then remains untouched, for your
greatest pleasure, so the reason why we did not
write “Volume” on the front plate, but simply
Pleasure Control… The way we do it is still a bit
confidential at the moment; we just can say that
some light is involved in the control.
The Enjoyment Source – commonly called “input
selector” – also benefits from the very same kind of
approach: we do not select the input, we do enable
it. Here again, no switch, relay or the like.
NS stands for No Switch. We are very proud that
the NHB-18NS is the very first “zero contact”
preamplifier in the world. So we are even prouder
you can enjoy it right now.
This present user manual is still under its prelimi-
nary state, so please excuse us for some missing
detailed explanations and less than perfect presenta-
tion…