California Audio Labs SLC-1

 California Audio Labs SLC-1 is a new reference standard for Compact Disc throughput to your amplifier and speakers. Eliminating the often substandard high level stages of today's preamps and the inevitable frequency variance problem with potentiometers and so-called line stages, we/ve created the inevitable next wave in Compact Disc performance. The Stereo Line Control One.

World-wide acceptance of the Tempest and Aria established CAL as the manufacturer of choice in producing reference standard CD players. Realizing that many people have made a complete transition from records to compact disc's, and that they want something better than a preamplifier to pass information along to their amplifier and speakers, we began investigating the effects on sonic quality that preamplifiers, potentiometers and gain stages have on compact disc performance.

We established that when you plug your CD player into a preamp your sound is degraded due to the design of the preamp's line stages. That they are designed in lesser preamps, to compensate for the problems that exist in the phono stage, or, in even the best of preamps to compliment the tonal character of the phone stage, thus in using any preamplifier you are altering the quality of information available from CD . Moreover, components used in line stages were inferior, and invariably altered and sonic quality at great cost to dimensionality and tonal character. Also, that the preamp's volume controls often added as much coloration as the gain stages themselves.

To solve these problems we designed the SLC-1. signal is first routed directly to the source selector, the (SLC offers inputs for your CD, VCR, Tape Deck, Tuner and Aux) then to a buffer, optionally bt passing the mode selector and gain stage, then to the volume and balance control to another buffer and out to your amp. Our use of dual buffers gives you the advantage of running as long a set of cables from your CD or other source input as needed to the SLC-1.