DENAFRIPS Athena Preamp

1 used Denafrips Athena preamplifier in great condition, including remote control and original packaging

The Audio Beatnik skriver:

"Housed inside a 17” W x 15” D x 3.75” H fully aluminum chassis is the now-familiar two-tier construction of the unit, which is common to several of the Denafrips products. Internally, a double layer of MU metal sheets bisects the preamp, which creates the top and bottom compartments. The MU metal sheets offer EMI and EMF suppression between the power supply section and the analog circuity above it.

The lower compartment houses the encapsulated and shielded power supply with two transformers, one for the CPU and the digital and relay controls. The other is dedicated to analog circuitry. Multiple stages of Low Drop Out (LDO) voltage regulators and a large capacitors bank provide clean power.

The top compartment houses the analog circuitry that includes both Class A input and output buffers with high speed, low distortion, and a fully discrete module design. Multiple rows of smaller capacitors are used rather than fewer large capacitors, another common Denafrips design feature.

The four white rows are the silver-coated relays that compose the balanced shunt-type relay volume control that uses an optical encoder for the volume pot. Denafrips describe it as an “advanced microprocessor CPLD discrete relay-based 60 steps volume control, coupled with current drive Darlington arrays network and the precision matched Military-specs Metal Film Resistors, yielded perfect channel balance, ultra-low distortion THD+N at 0.000120%.”

Using a shunt-type volume control ensures you only have two resistors in the signal path at any volume level.

The Athena is an active zero gain preamp. That means it has active input and output buffers but does not amplify the signal itself, hence zero gain. There are no capacitors in the signal path, which sports a Class A bipolar output stage with low feedback. The Athena Preamp is fully balanced, including the balanced relay volume control. Typically, the volume control is where balanced circuits go to die and are converted to a single-ended design. It is rare to see the balanced circuity carried through the volume control in a product anywhere near the Athena’s price point.

Moving around to the back of the unit reveals one set of SE inputs and four sets of XLR balanced inputs. The XLR 4 input is a direct pass-thru input, and the selector relay switching has no control over it. It is the purest possible input as it bypasses all relay contacts. The outputs are comprised of two pairs of XLR balanced and one pair of SE connectors. Input impedance is specified at 12.2kHz and output impedance at a very useable 200 ohms.

The front panel has the input selection buttons, volume control, and the combined power/mute button. In the center resides the large dot matrix LED display that shows the input and volume selected. Sharp-eyed readers will note that I previously described five inputs, but there are only four inputs buttons. Since XLR 4 is a direct bypass, there is no selector button for it, and a signal input to XLR 4 will play no matter what input you have selected on the unit.

The remote control is machined from a single block of anodized aluminum and is quite formidable and will come in handy should you feel threatened by anyone in your listening room.

It controls the preamp volume, source selection as well as dims the display to 3 different levels. Unfortunately, it does not allow you to turn the display completely off. Extra buttons are for additional Denafrips products like the companies Avatar CD Transport. I would prefer a simpler remote with fewer buttons as you only use 8 of the buttons on this remote to control the Athena, and they all reside at the top third of the remote.

One last detail. Each Athena is tested on an Audio Precision APx500 Audio Analyzer to ensure it meets spec before shipping."