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  Stereo Products > GCC Control Amplifier More Information Starting at just $2,795.00!  There it sits on your shelf. A single beautifully sculpted piece of electronics. You remember back to the time there were multiple pieces of equipment here; with wires and tangle and power cables aplenty. But now there is a single, simple and pure piece that softly glows blue across the curvaceous front panel. The music plays, you close your eyes, life's good. The music is pure. You own a PS Control Amplifier™. Imagine the idea of just plugging a source directly into your power amp with no preamp involved. How pure is that? It's as pure as a PS Control Amp™. We've elminated the preamp yet you have complete control over volume and balance in as fine as 1/10th dB steps. Awesome. A Variable Gain Power Amplifier. It's revolutionary and it will revolutionize the way we think of our audio systems. Separates are a thing of the past now that we have the Control Amplifier. The history of the integrated In the mid 1970’s PS Audio designed and produced the world’s first and only high-end integrated amplifier, the PS Elite. Until the advent of the Elite, integrated amplifiers were primarily made by the large Japanese consumer electro  nic firms and were nothing more than a cheap low-end receiver without the built in radio tuner. High end they were not.At the time we reasoned that it should be possible to place a high end preamplifier in front of a high end power amplifier and create a no compromise integrated and that notion was the inspiration for the Elite. Now, some 30 years later, PS Audio reinvents the integrated in the world’s first Control Amplifier, the GCC series. What’s inside a typical integrated? An integrated amplifier is traditionally the marriage of a preamp and a power amp in one box. Convenient yes, but usually a bit compromised from the more expensive separates the integrated was built from. Not quite a Frankenstein but close. Power amplifiers have a fixed gain or volume. If you were to plug your CD player’s output directly into a power amplifier, the resulting audio signal to your speakers would be extremely loud and there would be no way to reduce the volume. Add a preamplifier between the power amp and the CD player and you can control the volume level to whatever you want. Place those two elements in a single box and you have an integrated. Many customers would prefer not to have so many boxes and interconnecting cables to deal with, so a few high-end companies have built integrateds: power amps that integrate a preamp into the same box. The potential for an integrated to outperform separates has always been there. If for no other reason than the elimination of the interconnecting audio cables between the preamp and the amplifier. Theoretically an integrated could sound better than separate chassis performing the same functi  on. That potential has rarely been taken advantage of as designers have traditionally treated the integrated as a second thought, relative to the more expensive separates.The GCC series of Control Amplifiers With the invention and subsequent introduction of the PS Audio Gain Cell™, the idea of a Varibale Gain Power Amplifier, superior to separates, has become a reality. Not only can we eliminate the interconnecting cable, we can also eliminate the addition of volume and balance controls as well! Imagine a pure dual mono power amplifier with adjustable gain. Then imagine that the gain of the amplifier can be adjusted without the addition of any extra components. In fact, imagine a power amplifier that you can control the gain with either a remote control or a front panel knob and introduce no additional circuitry of any kind. You are imagining the new GCC series of Control Amplifiers. So revolutionary is this concept that we felt it necessary to eschew the title “integrated” and replace it with “Control Amplifier™”. In point of fact, we are not “integrating” components to form a new product, we are simply controlling what already exists inside of our new GCA amplifier series. So you can see that “Control Amplifier” is much more fitting a title than “integrated”. We don't 'throw away' the signal to control the volume How many integrateds or preamps do you know of with no attenuators inside? We'd wager to say 'none' because the GCC Control Amp and our GCP preamp are the only devices in the world that can make that claim. Now, we don't mean you can't control the volume. Certainly the Control Amp has full control over the volume and balance with either the front panel knob or the remote control. What we mean is that we have eliminated the volume element itself: the potentiometer, the stepped attentuator that normally controls the volume.  The new GCC Control Amplifier has no old fashioned volume element or attenuator inside. That’s right, no pots, no stepped attenuator, no ladder DAC’s, no Burr Brown or Crystal CMOS electronic stepped attenuators, no balance control. None, nada, nothing. We do not attenuate or 'throw away' volume, we change the amplifier's gain to produce the exact volume you want in your system. It's a very different concept and one important to understand if you are to appreciate the beauty of the Gain Cell. Why do we say 'throwing away volume'? In a typical preamplifier or integrated, once the input has been selected, the unit's internal gain stage amplifies the signal at a constant level. You then need to add a volume control or attenuator, either before or after this stage to “throw away” whatever signal you don’t want. All volume controls, regardless of their design, attenuate or lower the signal level by redirecting the audio to ground. When they do this they add a sonic signature that is undesirable. Even the finest volume controls add distortion and sonic grunge to the signal because they introduce another element in the signal path. The GCC series, using our Gain Cell, is the world’s first and only Variable Gain Power Amplifier (Control Amplifier) with no attenuation of the signal. Instead, the GCC changes gain: more or less amplification as a means of controlling volume. The difference in sound between this revolutionary new approach and any other is huge. Traditional volume and balance controls do nothing but degrade the audio signal. Without this degradation the amount and quality of musical information is staggering. You have no idea what you were missing until you hear it reproduced by the GCC Control Amp. The Gain Cell is the key  The revolutionary new PS Gain Cell is the heart of the GCC Control Amplifier and companion GCA power amplifiers. Inside every new GCA power amplifier is a Gain Cell. Each Gain Cell can be set for a fixed gain or a variable gain without changing any parameters inside the Gain cell. PS Engineering simply instructs the Gain Cell to remain at a stationary gain and you have a GCA power amplifier. If we wish to build a GCC Integrated amplifier, engineering instructs the Gain Cell to vary its gain in accordance with the user’s commands through the front panel or remote control. It’s that simple. The Control Amplifier is a shorter, purer path than even our own GCP preamplifier and GCA amplifier combination. The GCC Control Amplifier is the shortest, purest audio path in the world and provides complete control over every source in your system. HT Bypass feature You can assign any input as a Home Theater Bypass so you can plug the left and right front speaker feeds from your surround processor into the PCP-200 preamplifier. Using your remote control, simply press 'HT bypass' and the Control Amp goes into its fixed amplifier mode enabling your surround processor to control the volume. The models  The GCC Series of Control Amplifiers has three models, each with a different power output, each a 100% independent 2-channel power amplifier and Gain Cell with regulated power supply for true dual mono operation. Each GCC Amplifier has 4 RCA style inputs and one XLR balanced input per channel that can accommodate any source such as a CD player, DVD player, tuner, outboard phono stage or D to A converter, etc. Other features include a unique auxilliary output that is a fully isolated and buffered high level output designed to feed a second power amplifier to bi-amp, or a subwoofer or long cable. This output has the full frequency range of the GCC Amplifier and used to drive a long length of audio interconnect it will not degrade the performance of the GCC Control Amplifier. It is common knowledge that long lengths of audio interconnect cable will “bog down” the performance of a preamplifier or integrated. PS Engineering devised a clever solution to this problem with the introduction of the separate output jacks found on the back of both the GCC Control Amplifier and the GCP preamplifier. You can run interconnect cables as long as you wish to feed your amplifier or subwoofer and suffer no  degradation whatsoever.Speaker outputs are via a single set of high-end gold binding posts that accept either spade or banana plugs. If banana plugs are used, these unique connectors can be tightened down to clamp and hold a standard banana plug so it will lock in place. The connectors are designed by PS Engineering and are the finest bindings posts we know of. Volume and input selection is controlled either through the front panel controls or the supplied remote control. The GCC-100 is a stereo, 100 watt per channel Control Amplifier that produces 200 watt per channel into 4 Ohms and drives speaker loads as low as 1.5 Ohms. It has a damping factor that exceeds 1000 and is capable of driving any moderate loudspeaker to live orchestral crescendo levels. The GCC-100 has an input impedance of 47K Ohms, and features 4 RCA and 1 XLR balanced input and an auxilliary output to drive another amplifier or a subwoofer. It can be remotely turned on/off with a simple 12 volt trigger or the supplied remote control, is a fully balanced amplifier with noise levels low enough that you’ll have to place your ear next to the tweeter to even hear if it’s working. The GCC-100 is a perfect music center for the most discerning stereo system and has the best midrange and top end of any of the three models (although they're all great). Comes complete with remote control. The GCC-250 is a stereo, 250 watt per channel Control Amplifier that produces 500 watt per channel into 4 Ohms and drives down to <1.5 Ohms. It has a damping factor that exceeds 1000 and is the Control Amplifier most people will want to own as its 500 watt per channel rating is more than enough for any loudspeaker system we know of, period. The GCC 250 has an input impedance of 47K Ohms, 4 RCA and 1 XLR inputs, can be remotely turned on/off with a simple 12 volt trigger or the supplied remo  te control, is a fully balanced amplifier, and like the GCC-100, it’s ear in the tweeter to hear any hiss out of this beauty. Distortion levels below 0.1%. The GCC-250 is the music center of choice for any system and represents one of the all around amplifiers of all times.Combined with a GCA-100 in a bi-amp solution, the combination even further enhances performance. The GCC-500 is the highest power Variable Gain Power Amplifier we know of. It is one of the most powerful amplifiers available at any price from any manufacturer in the world. The GCC-500 is a no holds barred stereo, 500 watt per channel Control Amplifier that produces an incredible 1000 watt per channel, both channels driven into 4 Ohms and is drives down to <1.5 Ohms! It has a damping factor that exceeds 1000 and is the music center you will want to choose if you never want to worry about headroom or dynamic capabilities in your system ever again. The GCA-500 has an input impedance of 47K Ohms, 4 RCA and 1 XLR balanced input, auxilliary output and can be remotely turned on/off with a simple 12 volt trigger or the supplied remote co  ntrol. It is a fully balanced amplifier, and like the GCC 100 and 250, it’s ear in the tweeter to hear any hiss out of this amplifier. Distortion levels below 0.1%.The GCA-500 is the king, the biggest, baddest Control Amp around that can play the sweetest softest passage to the loudest rock and roll, T-Rex stomping audio experience this side of the planet. If you’ve never witnessed true audio power with limitless headroom and breath sucking performance, this is the one. Why go with a Control Amplifier? Why not? Unless you need the extra inputs, outputs, flexibility and separate chassis of the GCP preamplifier, then there’s no reason whatsoever to not consider a Control Amplifier. There are simply zero compromises. The PS Control Amplifier series provides the cleanest, lowest distortion purest audio path in the world today. No intrusive volume controls are used, no extra stages of gain, no stepped attenuators, digital ladder networks, CMOS switches, nothing. The GCC Amplifiers take advantage of the most innovative and technologically advanced audio product in the world, the PS Gain Cell. Utterly reliable, built like the proverbial tank and sculpted by master industrial designer Alex Ras  mussen, this is truly a work of art from PS Engineering and one you would be proud to own and enjoy for many years to come.Instead of compromising with separates, think different. Think short, sweet, pure and uncompromised. The GCC Series of Control Amplifiers may be the answer to cleaning up your entire audio/video chain and pushing the envelope towards Pure Resolution™. Now there’s nothing stopping you. See your local PS dealer for a demonstration soon, or buy direct from either PS or one our on-line E-tailer partners and enjoy the benefits of a no hassle 30-day return privledge. |
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