Octave Audio V 40 SE integrated amplifier
By Art Dudley • Posted: Jul 25, 2014
They spoiled all my fun.When I receive a product sample for review, I look forward to taking photos while I unpack the thing, as a guide to repacking for later on. This company provided an illustrated packing list—it was the first thing I saw on slitting open the carton. I look forward to crafting amusing remarks about poorly written or whimsically translated owner’s manuals; this company provided the clearest, most comprehensive manual I’ve ever seen. I look forward to having some sort of anomalous event—smoke, noise, or smoke and noise—to write about. This product offered nothing of the sort.The company in question is Germany’s Octave Audio, and the sample they provided was of their entry-level integrated amplifier, the V 40 SE Line ($5300)—a remarkably well-built, well-presented, reliable, effective, mature, professional product. Damn it.Description
The company known today as Octave Audio has its origins in the Hofmann transformer-winding company, started in 1968 by Karl-Heinz Hofmann, whose son Andreas Hofmann has been designing and building amplifiers since the 1970s. By the 1980s, the products of Hofmann the Younger began to set the direction for a manufacturing effort that soon began doing business under its present name.The Octave V 40 SE Line is a true integrated amplifier, with an active preamplifier section that uses one 12AX7 dual-triode tube and one 6922 dual-triode tube, for phase inversion—its model designation notwithstanding, the V 40 SE is a push-pull design—and for line-level gain, the latter measuring 14dB at the V 40 SE’s preamp-out jacks. The capacitor-coupled output section, which adds another 38dB of gain, uses one pair per channel of beam-power pentode tubes; KT88s are supplied as standard, although the owner’s manual suggests that the owner can also use KT90, KT100, or 6550 tubes. Other allowable tubes include the 6L6, KT66, KT77, 5881, or EL34 pentodes, although the user is cautioned that none of the tubes in that latter group will provide the full 40Wpc for which the Octave amplifier is specified. Whichever the choice, output tubes are operated as pentodes, with up to 300V on their screen grids, and the output circuit uses 10dB of global negative feedback.The Octave V 40 SE has a fixed-bias output section, with output-tube cathodes close to ground and adjustable bias current on the signal grids. Along with a protection system that monitors and regulates the rail and heater voltages, and a user-defeatable Ecomode system that reduces those same voltages when the amp is powered up but not in use, the V 40 SE incorporates a system that both monitors output-tube bias currents and gives even the most technophobic user an easy means of adjusting them, as needed. (I’ll come back to this feature in a moment.) Unsurprisingly for a product with such sophisticated circuitry, the Octave is among those contemporary tube amps that also contain a number of solid-state devices, including four op-amps, numerous regulators, a few bipolar transistors, and, of course, full-wave rectifiers for the power supply.The V 40 SE’s case is mostly of aluminum alloy, with panels that fit together solidly and precisely. The first things one sees on removing the top cover are the generously sized output transformers and mains transformer; the latter is almost startlingly impressive, its wrappings appearing to rise from a pool of translucent potting, in the manner of Millais’s Ophelia rising from the brook. Most of the amp’s audio circuitry is built onto a single, sturdy PCB, with auxiliary boards for power-supply circuitry, input-selector relays, and the logic circuitry that enables the amp’s metal-clad remote handset. (The remote controls only volume, by means of a motorized analog potentiometer.) Parts quality is fine throughout, with new tubes from Sovtek (small-signal triodes) and Electro-Harmonix (beam-power pentodes).Although the V 40 SE’s internal power supply is hardly anemic—I spied four 400V, 470µF caps tucked between the mains transformer and the left-channel output transformer—Octave Audio also offers an upgrade, the Black Box ($1200). This outboard bank of reservoir caps is user installable: You simply first power down the amp and disconnect it from the wall AC current—a point stressed by a warning label on the rear panel—then connect the Black Box by means of a four-conductor umbilical before powering up again.Setup and installation
I used the Octave V 40 SE in my usual system, in place of my Shindo Masseto preamplifier and Shindo Corton-Charlemagne monoblocks. Given that the Octave lacks a phono stage, I used it in tandem with my lingering review sample of Sutherland Engineering’s fine Insight phono preamplifier ($1400).
Installation was straightforward for the V 40 SE, which is of a reasonable size and weight. Gold-plated RCA jacks are supplied for four line-level sources, with an extra pair of inputs, unattenuated, for the two front channels of a home-theater installation, for those who think young; preamp-out and record-out jacks also appear on the rear panel. Loudspeaker terminals are of a sort I’d never seen before, with luxuriantly large knobs that would, I assume, make it easier than usual for owners to tightly clamp their spade lugs; I carried on with banana plugs, which, perversely, I nonetheless prefer.Not only have I never seen a better owner’s manual than that which accompanied the V 40 SE: I have never encountered a surer, safer, less ambiguous, or altogether better means of checking and adjusting tube bias. On the front panel are three rows of four LEDs each, these corresponding with the four output tubes. The user begins by setting the input selector to a dedicated bias-adjust position—the amp needn’t be connected to sources or speakers—then powers up the amp. Initially, under most circumstances, the bottommost row of bias LEDs—yellow lights signifying low bias current—are illuminated. Ideally, and typically, as the amp reaches normal operating temperatures, the yellow LEDs fade out while the row of green LEDs above them—signifying correct bias—begin to fade in. (This was fascinating to watch.) After five minutes, with standard output tubes in place, only the green LEDs should be lit—but if any of thered LEDs in the top row light up, the user knows to back off the current for that tube by inserting the supplied miniature screwdriver into one of four tiny openings hidden on the front display. Needless to say, if the yellow LED for a given tube remains on, the user should increase current until all is good and green again.
The company known today as Octave Audio has its origins in the Hofmann transformer-winding company, started in 1968 by Karl-Heinz Hofmann, whose son Andreas Hofmann has been designing and building amplifiers since the 1970s. By the 1980s, the products of Hofmann the Younger began to set the direction for a manufacturing effort that soon began doing business under its present name.The Octave V 40 SE Line is a true integrated amplifier, with an active preamplifier section that uses one 12AX7 dual-triode tube and one 6922 dual-triode tube, for phase inversion—its model designation notwithstanding, the V 40 SE is a push-pull design—and for line-level gain, the latter measuring 14dB at the V 40 SE’s preamp-out jacks. The capacitor-coupled output section, which adds another 38dB of gain, uses one pair per channel of beam-power pentode tubes; KT88s are supplied as standard, although the owner’s manual suggests that the owner can also use KT90, KT100, or 6550 tubes. Other allowable tubes include the 6L6, KT66, KT77, 5881, or EL34 pentodes, although the user is cautioned that none of the tubes in that latter group will provide the full 40Wpc for which the Octave amplifier is specified. Whichever the choice, output tubes are operated as pentodes, with up to 300V on their screen grids, and the output circuit uses 10dB of global negative feedback.The Octave V 40 SE has a fixed-bias output section, with output-tube cathodes close to ground and adjustable bias current on the signal grids. Along with a protection system that monitors and regulates the rail and heater voltages, and a user-defeatable Ecomode system that reduces those same voltages when the amp is powered up but not in use, the V 40 SE incorporates a system that both monitors output-tube bias currents and gives even the most technophobic user an easy means of adjusting them, as needed. (I’ll come back to this feature in a moment.) Unsurprisingly for a product with such sophisticated circuitry, the Octave is among those contemporary tube amps that also contain a number of solid-state devices, including four op-amps, numerous regulators, a few bipolar transistors, and, of course, full-wave rectifiers for the power supply.The V 40 SE’s case is mostly of aluminum alloy, with panels that fit together solidly and precisely. The first things one sees on removing the top cover are the generously sized output transformers and mains transformer; the latter is almost startlingly impressive, its wrappings appearing to rise from a pool of translucent potting, in the manner of Millais’s Ophelia rising from the brook. Most of the amp’s audio circuitry is built onto a single, sturdy PCB, with auxiliary boards for power-supply circuitry, input-selector relays, and the logic circuitry that enables the amp’s metal-clad remote handset. (The remote controls only volume, by means of a motorized analog potentiometer.) Parts quality is fine throughout, with new tubes from Sovtek (small-signal triodes) and Electro-Harmonix (beam-power pentodes).Although the V 40 SE’s internal power supply is hardly anemic—I spied four 400V, 470µF caps tucked between the mains transformer and the left-channel output transformer—Octave Audio also offers an upgrade, the Black Box ($1200). This outboard bank of reservoir caps is user installable: You simply first power down the amp and disconnect it from the wall AC current—a point stressed by a warning label on the rear panel—then connect the Black Box by means of a four-conductor umbilical before powering up again.Setup and installation
I used the Octave V 40 SE in my usual system, in place of my Shindo Masseto preamplifier and Shindo Corton-Charlemagne monoblocks. Given that the Octave lacks a phono stage, I used it in tandem with my lingering review sample of Sutherland Engineering’s fine Insight phono preamplifier ($1400).
Installation was straightforward for the V 40 SE, which is of a reasonable size and weight. Gold-plated RCA jacks are supplied for four line-level sources, with an extra pair of inputs, unattenuated, for the two front channels of a home-theater installation, for those who think young; preamp-out and record-out jacks also appear on the rear panel. Loudspeaker terminals are of a sort I’d never seen before, with luxuriantly large knobs that would, I assume, make it easier than usual for owners to tightly clamp their spade lugs; I carried on with banana plugs, which, perversely, I nonetheless prefer.Not only have I never seen a better owner’s manual than that which accompanied the V 40 SE: I have never encountered a surer, safer, less ambiguous, or altogether better means of checking and adjusting tube bias. On the front panel are three rows of four LEDs each, these corresponding with the four output tubes. The user begins by setting the input selector to a dedicated bias-adjust position—the amp needn’t be connected to sources or speakers—then powers up the amp. Initially, under most circumstances, the bottommost row of bias LEDs—yellow lights signifying low bias current—are illuminated. Ideally, and typically, as the amp reaches normal operating temperatures, the yellow LEDs fade out while the row of green LEDs above them—signifying correct bias—begin to fade in. (This was fascinating to watch.) After five minutes, with standard output tubes in place, only the green LEDs should be lit—but if any of thered LEDs in the top row light up, the user knows to back off the current for that tube by inserting the supplied miniature screwdriver into one of four tiny openings hidden on the front display. Needless to say, if the yellow LED for a given tube remains on, the user should increase current until all is good and green again.
As it turned out, my review sample arrived in a state of perfect adjustment, again sapping my fun. Damn it.
Apart from the above-mentioned pots for the bias-adjustment system, user controls are thin on the ground. On the rear panel, a small three-position toggle is provided for defeating the above-mentioned Ecomode—as must be done during bias adjustment—and for turning off the output stage. At the front of the left side panel is a simple, hefty rocker switch for power; on the left side of the faceplate is a generously sized input-selector switch, matched on the right by an identically sized volume knob. The V 40 SE’s balance is not adjustable, and a mono switch is not provided.
A nicely styled tube cage, made from very light alloy, is supplied, and Octave strongly recommends leaving it in place whenever the amp is in use. (Removing it is a simple matter of loosening two bolts with a supplied Allen wrench.) I thought the V 40 SE sounded very slightly better without the cage and so, also perversely, I left it off.
Listening
The Octave V 40 SE was characterized by an up-front sound with nonetheless excellent stage depth with stereo recordings—and with a better-than-average sense of scale. It was enjoyably vivid, even if tone/tonal/timbral colors weren’t as saturated as with the best preamps and amps. And while I wouldn’t describe the V 40 SE as sounding bright, its treble was sufficiently extended that reasonable care should be taken in the setup and adjusting of partnering gear, especially phono cartridges; ratty-sounding digital gear should be avoided altogether.
My review sample benefited from generous run-in time; moreover, during every listening session, the V 40 SE sounded notably richer and more natural after 15 minutes or so of playing time. One day, immediately after powering up the Octave, I put on a fine LP reissue of selections from the first two suites from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, performed by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic (Columbia Masterworks/Speakers Corner MS 6023); it wasn’t until the fourth excerpt, Masks, that strings began to have a really good sense of touch. Consequently, I went back to the first selection, the well-known The Montagues and Capulets, and heard strong gains in the amount of presence and tone in the celeste and solo saxophone, both of which now sounded tactile and, again, vivid.Coincidentally, the V 40 SE was especially well suited to the next record I tried: a 1978 recording, by Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, of Brahms’s A German Requiem (LP, London OSA 12114). While lacking the sense of mystery for which recordings of this work by Furtwängler and Lehmann are noted, Solti draws from the players and singers exquisite tone and very precise phrasing, both of which the Octave amp succeeded in getting across. The amp was also notable for remaining poised—and big—in the forte passages at the end of « Selig sind. die da Leid tragen » and the recurring fortissimo passages in « Denn alles fleisch, es ist wie Gras. »
The Octave’s ability to accurately portray—or at least not distort—musical timing and momentum was superb. Naim-caliber superb, in fact. I sampled my mono copy of Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman’s New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass (LP, Elektra EKL-238); the opening bars of « No Title Yet Blues » had me nodding and moving along with Weissberg’s driving, Scruggs-ian banjo, and the wonderfully offbeat timing of Clarence White’s crosspicked guitar came across as well as I’ve ever heard it. I heard the same sense of drive in Earl Scruggs’s own « Dear Old Dixie, » performed by Béla Fleck on his Crossing the Tracks (LP, Rounder 0121). But because the decidedly bright recording—unusually bright for Rounder Records—wasn’t shown to its best advantage by the combination of Octave amp and vintage Altec Valencia loudspeakers, I switched over to my far less ruthless Orangutan O/96 speakers, from DeVore Fidelity.With acoustic music of other sorts, the V 40 SE proved its mettle and its apparent lack of timbral colorations. In the title song of Jerry Garcia and David Grisman’s Shady Grove (AIFF file ripped from CD, Acoustic Disc ACD 21), both the acoustic guitar and mandolin sounded « woody » and natural, and Garcia’s voice was present and clear, displaying well both its distinctive character and its frailties at that point in his life. Gillian Welch’s even better-recorded « That’s the Way the Whole Thing Ends, » from her The Harrow & the Harvest (AIFF file ripped from CD, Acony ACNY-1109), sounded just perfect in every regard—especially the limber, colorful tone of David Rawlings’s weird old Epiphone Olympic archtop guitar. The natural impact and force of note attacks were acceptably good, but not at the level of quality exhibited by the best tube electronics of my experience.Yet the Octave’s lack of coloration did not, as so often happens, bring with it an absence of texture or timbral richness, both of which qualities I heard in good measure while playing the absolute finest-sounding CD in my collection: the 1998 recording, by Marianne Rônez and Affetti Musicali, of Heinrich Biber’s Mystery Sonatas (Winter & Winter 910 029-2). I could say the same thing about the more accessible, not to mention popular, music on the Electric Light Orchestra’s eponymous debut album (LP, Harvest SHVL 797), where everything from the electric guitar that begins the record to the low C in the stacked cellos at its close was sumptuous and rich and veryengaging.I love Gordon Jenkins’s wonderfully over-the-top arrangements for Frank Sinatra’s September of My Years (LP, Reprise FS 1014), especially the big plunk in the strings that heralds the rest between the intro and the body of « September Song. » The V 40 SE got that pretty well—well enough for a satisfying experience—but not as well, and not with the same electrically intense attack, as my Shindo separates. Similarly, the German amp did a fine job of communicating the sense of force in Bob Cranshaw’s bass playing in « Yesterdays, » from Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins’ Sonny Meets Hawk! (LP, RCA Living Stereo LSP-2712), but it missed the very last word in physicality.I’ve referred already to the Octave’s very good sense of scale—and I noted, while enjoying the stereo selections described above, that it presented those recordings with stage depth and image specificity in abundance. Mono LPs—including Dizzie Gillespie’s New Jazz Sounds (LP, Verve/Clef MGV-8135), The Jazz Soul of Oscar Peterson (LP, Verve MGV-8351), a nice-sounding late Prestige copy of Sonny Rollins’s Tenor Madness (LP, Prestige 7047), and that mono copy of New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass—were enjoyable through the V 40 SE, but the Shindo separates and others of my experience, all of them on the expensive side of the ledger, made even more of the mono experience. I do enjoy electronics that can express all of the sonic flesh and blood that’s hidden in the grooves of so many mono LPs, especially those from Verve; the Octave, while good in most other respects, didn’t have quite enough color and chunk to run with the best.
The V 40 SE had exceptionally good bass power and grip, as it exhibited with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s 1962 recording of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (CD, JVC JMCXR-0011): a clichéd example, but nonetheless a good one. The Octave also did a magnificent job with the lowest of low-bass pedal notes in a recording, by Torvald Torén, of Franck’s Grande Piäce Symphonique (LP, Lyricon LRC 2-5)—and it impressed me with its ability to untangle and follow the dense melodies and sometimes jarring harmonies throughout that work. (Music for plaiting daisies on a summer afternoon it is not.)The Black Box
Before my time with the V 40 SE came to a close, I had a chance to try Octave’s Black Box power-supply upgrade, installation of which took little more than a minute. Octave suggests that the Black Box, which increases the V 40 SE’s power-supply storage capacitance fourfold, reduces the impedance interaction of the loudspeaker load, making speaker’s efficiency less critical. While I can’t speak to the technology behind that claim, I can say the Black Box made a distinct improvement in the sound—and while the Black Boxed V 40 SE played no louder for a given volume setting, it did exhibit qualities that I associate with an increase in loudspeaker drivability: The amp’s already good sense of scale got even better, and the sound of stereo recordings took up an even wider portion of my listening room. There was also a much greater sense of touch—the percussive guitar chop following the words « the river may be . . . » in « Hymn 43, » from the nicely recorded Graham Nash/David Crosby (LP, Atlantic/Classic SD 7220), went from noticeable to startling—and textures became more distinct and more deeply drawn, whether it was the distinctive growl of the P90 pickup in Neil Young’s « Old Black, » or the thrum of Jacqueline du Pré’s cello, the Davidov Strad.Conclusions
In use and sound alike, I came to regard Octave Audio’s V 40 SE as a tube amp for people who don’t like tube amps, in the same sense that an appletini is an alcoholic beverage for people who don’t like alcohol, and Blondie is a punk-rock band for people who don’t like punk rock. It’s instantly enjoyable. It’s enduringly enjoyable. And it’s safe. The V 40 SE doesn’t deliver quite as much tube magic as its most expensive, most exotic competitors, but it did deliver hour after trouble-free hour of tactile, colorful, and very involving musical performance.
The Octave’s ability to accurately portray—or at least not distort—musical timing and momentum was superb. Naim-caliber superb, in fact. I sampled my mono copy of Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman’s New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass (LP, Elektra EKL-238); the opening bars of « No Title Yet Blues » had me nodding and moving along with Weissberg’s driving, Scruggs-ian banjo, and the wonderfully offbeat timing of Clarence White’s crosspicked guitar came across as well as I’ve ever heard it. I heard the same sense of drive in Earl Scruggs’s own « Dear Old Dixie, » performed by Béla Fleck on his Crossing the Tracks (LP, Rounder 0121). But because the decidedly bright recording—unusually bright for Rounder Records—wasn’t shown to its best advantage by the combination of Octave amp and vintage Altec Valencia loudspeakers, I switched over to my far less ruthless Orangutan O/96 speakers, from DeVore Fidelity.With acoustic music of other sorts, the V 40 SE proved its mettle and its apparent lack of timbral colorations. In the title song of Jerry Garcia and David Grisman’s Shady Grove (AIFF file ripped from CD, Acoustic Disc ACD 21), both the acoustic guitar and mandolin sounded « woody » and natural, and Garcia’s voice was present and clear, displaying well both its distinctive character and its frailties at that point in his life. Gillian Welch’s even better-recorded « That’s the Way the Whole Thing Ends, » from her The Harrow & the Harvest (AIFF file ripped from CD, Acony ACNY-1109), sounded just perfect in every regard—especially the limber, colorful tone of David Rawlings’s weird old Epiphone Olympic archtop guitar. The natural impact and force of note attacks were acceptably good, but not at the level of quality exhibited by the best tube electronics of my experience.Yet the Octave’s lack of coloration did not, as so often happens, bring with it an absence of texture or timbral richness, both of which qualities I heard in good measure while playing the absolute finest-sounding CD in my collection: the 1998 recording, by Marianne Rônez and Affetti Musicali, of Heinrich Biber’s Mystery Sonatas (Winter & Winter 910 029-2). I could say the same thing about the more accessible, not to mention popular, music on the Electric Light Orchestra’s eponymous debut album (LP, Harvest SHVL 797), where everything from the electric guitar that begins the record to the low C in the stacked cellos at its close was sumptuous and rich and veryengaging.I love Gordon Jenkins’s wonderfully over-the-top arrangements for Frank Sinatra’s September of My Years (LP, Reprise FS 1014), especially the big plunk in the strings that heralds the rest between the intro and the body of « September Song. » The V 40 SE got that pretty well—well enough for a satisfying experience—but not as well, and not with the same electrically intense attack, as my Shindo separates. Similarly, the German amp did a fine job of communicating the sense of force in Bob Cranshaw’s bass playing in « Yesterdays, » from Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins’ Sonny Meets Hawk! (LP, RCA Living Stereo LSP-2712), but it missed the very last word in physicality.I’ve referred already to the Octave’s very good sense of scale—and I noted, while enjoying the stereo selections described above, that it presented those recordings with stage depth and image specificity in abundance. Mono LPs—including Dizzie Gillespie’s New Jazz Sounds (LP, Verve/Clef MGV-8135), The Jazz Soul of Oscar Peterson (LP, Verve MGV-8351), a nice-sounding late Prestige copy of Sonny Rollins’s Tenor Madness (LP, Prestige 7047), and that mono copy of New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass—were enjoyable through the V 40 SE, but the Shindo separates and others of my experience, all of them on the expensive side of the ledger, made even more of the mono experience. I do enjoy electronics that can express all of the sonic flesh and blood that’s hidden in the grooves of so many mono LPs, especially those from Verve; the Octave, while good in most other respects, didn’t have quite enough color and chunk to run with the best.The V 40 SE had exceptionally good bass power and grip, as it exhibited with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony’s 1962 recording of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (CD, JVC JMCXR-0011): a clichéd example, but nonetheless a good one. The Octave also did a magnificent job with the lowest of low-bass pedal notes in a recording, by Torvald Torén, of Franck’s Grande Piäce Symphonique (LP, Lyricon LRC 2-5)—and it impressed me with its ability to untangle and follow the dense melodies and sometimes jarring harmonies throughout that work. (Music for plaiting daisies on a summer afternoon it is not.)The Black BoxBefore my time with the V 40 SE came to a close, I had a chance to try Octave’s Black Box power-supply upgrade, installation of which took little more than a minute. Octave suggests that the Black Box, which increases the V 40 SE’s power-supply storage capacitance fourfold, reduces the impedance interaction of the loudspeaker load, making speaker’s efficiency less critical. While I can’t speak to the technology behind that claim, I can say the Black Box made a distinct improvement in the sound—and while the Black Boxed V 40 SE played no louder for a given volume setting, it did exhibit qualities that I associate with an increase in loudspeaker drivability: The amp’s already good sense of scale got even better, and the sound of stereo recordings took up an even wider portion of my listening room. There was also a much greater sense of touch—the percussive guitar chop following the words « the river may be . . . » in « Hymn 43, » from the nicely recorded Graham Nash/David Crosby (LP, Atlantic/Classic SD 7220), went from noticeable to startling—and textures became more distinct and more deeply drawn, whether it was the distinctive growl of the P90 pickup in Neil Young’s « Old Black, » or the thrum of Jacqueline du Pré’s cello, the Davidov Strad.Conclusions
In use and sound alike, I came to regard Octave Audio’s V 40 SE as a tube amp for people who don’t like tube amps, in the same sense that an appletini is an alcoholic beverage for people who don’t like alcohol, and Blondie is a punk-rock band for people who don’t like punk rock. It’s instantly enjoyable. It’s enduringly enjoyable. And it’s safe. The V 40 SE doesn’t deliver quite as much tube magic as its most expensive, most exotic competitors, but it did deliver hour after trouble-free hour of tactile, colorful, and very involving musical performance.
The trouble with writing product reviews for a living is that, to do it well—to do it honestly—one must bring to the reader’s attention those respects in which the product reviewed falls short of the ideal. That in itself is no crying matter, as long as the reviewer also puts the product reviewed into some sort of meaningful economic context. So it goes here: At $5300, the Octave V 40 SE is only 25% as expensive as the reference components I’ve compared it with. And while $5300 is not exactly pin money, there’s no doubt in my mind that the V 40 SE represents good value, in the quality of its construction and its sound. Especially for those who want tube performance without tube hassle, the Octave V 40 SE Line can be recommended without hesitation. Damn it!
Pour plus d’informations:
Patrick Sareault
Brosseau.ca
patrick.sareault@brosseau.ca
450-678-3430