Lavardin Technologies

Lavardin történet

A Lavardin Technologies alapítását 8 évnyi alapos kutatás előzte meg, hogy 1996-ban elkezdje saját termékeinek gyártását az azóta már legendássá vált, ikonikus modell, az IT integrált erősítővel. Az üzemegység Montoire-ban, egy bájos falu és Lavardin várának tőszomszédságában található, mely inspirálta az alapítókat a Lavardin Technologies létrehozásában.

2000-ban, egy megközelítőleg 5100 nm-es új gyárba költözött, ami Franciaország szívében, a Loire-völgyben helyezkedik el, ahol a legtöbb királyi vár található. Ez biztosította a Lavardin Technologies számára a még magasabb szintű tervezés lehetőségét, hiszen itt saját laboratóium is rendelkezésre áll a legmagasabb szintű audio termékek megalkotására.

Minden Lavardin Technologies termékre egyöntetűen jellemző a minimalista kivitel, hiszen a termékek megalkotásánál a cél a kategórián belüli legjobb hangminőség elérése és nem a fölösleges design elemek és bemenetek hozzáadása. Ezáltal biztos lehet benne, hogy a megvásárolt erősítőre elköltött minden egyes forintot a hangminőségre fordított.

Model ISx  (Model IS 1998 - 2016)
A Lavardin Technologies maximalizmusát jellemzi az is, hogy az IS integrált erősítő az 1998-as megjelenését követően 18 évig változatlan formában volt jelen a high end erősítők piacán, mely idő alatt megszámlálhatatlanul sok méltató teszt jelent meg a világ legnevesebb szakmai magazinjainak hasábjain. Az IS modell megalkotásával egyidejűleg hozta létre az IS Reference modellt, ami egy speciális tápegységgel rendelkező kiadása volt az eredeti IS modellnek.

2016 novemberében jelentette be a Lavardin Technologies, hogy más modellekhez hasonlóan az IS modell is frissítésre kerül, melyet több évnyi kutatás és megannyi meghallgatással töltött munkaóra előzött meg, hogy megszülethessen az új Lavardin Modell ISx valamint az ISx Reference integrált erősítő.

Az új X-áramkörök jelentős javulást hoznak az átláthatóság és mikro-dinamika terén, az előd modellhez képest. A Model ISx egészen biztosan közelebb hozza a zenét, mely az árkategóriában az egyik legjobb hangreprodukcióval rendelkezik.

Modell ITx
A Lavardin Technologies maximalizmusát jellemzi az is, hogy a legelső modell, az IT integrált erősítő az 1996-os megjelenését követően 20 évig változatlan formában volt jelen a high end erősítők piacán, mely idő alatt megszámlálhatatlanul sok méltató teszt jelent meg a világ legnevesebb szakmai magazinjainak hasábjain. Az IT modell megjelenésének 15. évfordulójára alkotta meg a Lavardin Technologies az IT 15 modellt, ami egy speciális kiadása volt az eredeti IT modellnek.

2016 novemberében jelentette be a Lavardin Technologies, hogy más modellekhez hasonlóan az IT modell is frissítésre kerül, melyet több évnyi kutatás és megannyi meghallgatással töltött munkaóra előzött meg, hogy megszülethessen az új Lavardin Modell ITx integrált erősítő. További újításként, az eredeti IT modell megszületésének 20. évfordulójára megalkotta a Lavardin Technologies az ITx 20 high end integrált erősítőt.

Az új X-áramkörök jelentős javulást hoznak az átláthatóság és mikro-dinamika terén, az előd modellhez képest. A Model ITx egészen biztosan közelebb hozza a zenét, mely az árkategóriában az egyik legjobb hangreprodukcióval rendelkezik.

Lavardin History
Founded in september 1996 after 8 years of research on audio distortions, Lavardin Technologies Company started with the production of the now legendary Model IT. The factory was located in Montoire, just near the charming village and medieval castle of Lavardin wich inspired the founders to name their creation.

In 2000, lavardin Technologies moved to a new factory of 5,500 sq ft near the city of Tours in the Loire Valley, the very heart of France where all the greatest King's castles are located.
This has provided us with superb manufacturing facilities and allowed us to design Lavardin Technologies products to a higher quality standard that ever before. We are thus able to concentrate on the design of new and even improved products in our design laboratory.


Mission Statement
Our goal is to continue to develop Lavardin unique Memory Free Amplification Technology that opens a path for a new generation of high-performance audio devices delivering outstanding sound quality.
The three driving forces behind Lavardin Technologies are : Innovation, Real Value & Good Faith.


Conception, assembling, quality process
All Lavardin products are made in FRANCE -- what does that mean? Our products are not merely "assembled" here in France, nor are they built in Asia. These are home-grown, made in France products.

We have the complete in-house control of all assembly work. The production team has complete responsibility for individual products from start right through to final test.
The electrical parts used come from all over the world, most are made in the USA, EU, and Canada. Notable parts include: transformers designed in-house and manufactured in Italia; Nais/Panasonic relays made in Japan; Resistors from Vishay/Draloric (EU) etc.
All components are cut and bent on 3 hight precision (1/100 mm) machines, each capable of 18000 operation per hour. Then we test, select and match components by hand. They are mounted on proprietary designed printed circuit boards: drawings are fully made by hand on our CAO, like a piece of fine art as no automatic routing software could satisfy to our specific requirements.
Circuit boards are fabricated in the south of Paris area by a company supplying aircraft and space industries.
Then completed boards are soldered on our wave soldering machine VITRONICS-SOLTEC and fully controled under stereoscopic microscopes VISION-ENGINEERING.

The Lavardin Technologies Amplifier mechanical parts are a work of art. All Lavardin Technologies parts are manufactured by the best precision technicians here in the Loire Valley or in the Paris area.

• All of our 10mm or 6mm front panels are machined from solid aluminium bar which is finnished by black anodised.
• All our cases are stronger than normal and are made from 3mm thick aluminum : an elegant and durable material for our amplifiers which are designed to last a lifetime and are sent to customers all over the world.
• Each knob on a Lavardin Technologies product is machined from solid high-grade non magnetic aluminum bar and undergoes 6 stages of machining, hand polishing and black anodisation before it is assembled onto a unit.

Each Lavardin Technologies Amplifier is extensively tested during its production :

• Components of top quality and pre-tested components are used in our circuitry.
• After assembly, the circuit itself is tested before being integrated.
• After the final assembly, the Lavardin Technologies Amplifier is fully tested for performance
• The amplifier box is closed.
• Then the amplifiers are put in a test bench for 4 days with cycles of power-on, power-off, in order to detect any malfunction.
• After this test, each amplifier is tested using known reference recordings

Nothing we manufacture leaves the factory without undergoing this listening test, to ensure that it performs its most important function; to respect music.

Lavardin Technologies designs and manufactures high end audio amplifiers using exclusive and revolutionary design concepts which radically reduce what we have named the "Memory distortion" of components.

The memory distortion (1) of components is the greatest discovery in analog audio design over the last twenty years. It clearly demonstrates the reasons why a good valve amplifier can beat its solid state counterpart hands down for sheer musical enjoyment.

Memory distortion is the property that is the dominant factor in causing solid state amplifiers to sound shrill and mechanical. Tube technology allows electrons to travel through a vacuum which leaves no storage or memory effect, but solid-state amplifiers use silicon components which keep a trace of current flow that has gone through.

New electron flow is continuously affected by the pattern of the immediately preceding electron flow. As soon as the memory effect of these solid state circuits is reduced, all the improvements that transistor technology brings, such as high output power, accuracy, very low harmonic distortion and extended and linear frequency response, can be added to the most alive and silky musical rendition of the best single-ended monotriode designs.

This may not sound very new: some manufacturers claim to combine valve smoothness with the muscle of solid state power by using hybrid designs. As a result, they only combine the memory distortion of solid state with the limited bandwidth and distortion capability of valves.

This discovery at Lavardin Technologies demonstrates that the classic measurements made all over the world for the last decade are meaningless when considering the musical quality of an amplifier. In fact, when fixed frequency or fixed level test signals are used, it is not possible to detect remnant "memory" signals. Fixed frequency or fixed level signals may occur for less than 0.01% of the duration of any classical piece of music!! We do not believe that good sounding audio amplifiers should be designed to be perfect for 100% of the test time and only for 0.01% of the actual time they are reproducing music !!!
The Model IT integrated amplifier rated by many to be the FINEST AMPLIFIER EVER MADE, irrespective of price or technology, is the result of more than 8 years research on the memory effect of electronic components used in audio circuits designs.

Lavardin Technologies is proud to introduce this innovative concept to push audio radically forward. It breaks new ground in music reproduction. To hear a Lavardin once is a great experience: the music sounds natural, clear, fast and smooth, and never mechanical. This means that no other amplifier can be considered "the standard" any more.

TECHNICAL CORNER
What does memory distortion exactly mean?

Memory distortion is a new concept in distortion process analysis. Usual concepts of distortion are based on a very simple distortion model which does not tally with the real behaviour of electronic circuits. In the classic theoretical model of distortion, distortion of a non selective circuit results from its band limitations for linear distortion and from its non-linear transfer function for non-linear distortion. This model is a good approximation for audio circuits. But for highest quality audio it is too simplistic. It results from a tonal approach to circuits for design and measurement.

The tonal approach is very important and can be done accurately, but it ignores time; and musical flow is a key issue. That means that the classic approach to distortion measurements are valid only for time independent systems. However, the main difference between noise and music IS organisation in time.

Audio circuits are not independent of time. A detailed analysis of their behaviour with non-stationary signals reveals many changes in their characteristics. The amplitude of these changes is generally low, and these changes remain hidden by stationary signals. This is the reason why they cannot be detected with classic (and tonal) measuring systems and are thus ignored by audio designers. The amplitude of these changes, however, is often great enough to be easily audible in high quality audio systems.

That is the reason why listening tests with these systems do not tally with the usual measurements. These measurements are not able to characterise the behaviour of the circuits for musical signals in the time domain. They aim to measure THE transfer function, but they only measure ONE of the transfer functions - those which correspond to stationary signals. Most audio system are designed to be perfect for sine waves, but these are a very limited part of the total audio signal. These changes in circuit characteristics are linked to the signal itself, but not in real time, which leads to our new and exclusive concept of memory distortion.

Memory distortion occurs each time that the dynamic behaviour of a system is different from its static behaviour. If there is no memory distortion, then static and dynamic behaviour are similar and classic (static) measurements are valid. This is the secret of "tube sound". We are proud at Lavardin Technologies to have full control over that which remains "The mystery of tube musicality" for previous audio designers.

Az itt megtekinthető Lavardin erősítő kategóriánkban az integrált erősítők, előerősítők, végfokok ár szerint növekvő sorrendben kerültek megjelenítésre, így a bevezető alatt megtalálhatja a kategóriában található összes Lavardin integrált erősítőt, előerősítőt, végfokot ár szerint növekvő sorrendben. Amennyiben még nem biztos a megvásárolni kívánt Lavardin készüléket illetően, állunk szíves rendelkezésére a tökéletes erősítő kiválasztásában.