Hafler returns.

Radial a Canadian company known for making direct boxes for the sound reinforcement industry, was the Hafler distributor in Canada and is relaunching the brand.  It looks like they are starting with esoteric hifi (?) products like a MC phono preamp, etc.

Interesting times....

JR

I'd like to buy a vowel ............or a name, or a company!

i would like to send them a couple amps.

but that's probably not why they started back up.

Radial appears to have a pretty good brand reputation in its own right. It strikes me as curious that they'd go to the hassle of buying the Hafler trademark in light of this (when one considers, as this appears, that it's a badging exercise, which few of the target audience will be influence by, right?).

Can someone refresh my memory as to what Hafler's claim to fame was? Did they have an inventive topology?

The Mosfet power amps was the more recent Hafler best seller I believe
Radial has a good distribution network so I'd expect a cheaper produced chinese version
[ look for the knock offs soon too ! ] of the transova pwr amps

thermionic said:

Radial appears to have a pretty good brand reputation in its own right. It strikes me as curious that they'd go to the hassle of buying the Hafler trademark in light of this (when one considers, as this appears, that it's a badging exercise, which few of the target audience will be influence by, right?).

Can someone refresh my memory as to what Hafler's claim to fame was? Did they have an inventive topology?

Click to expand...

David Hafler has a pretty good rep in the hifi business for his early Dynaco products and later Hafler Mosfet power amps. The relaunch selling MM and MC phono preamps strikes me as an esoteric niche market and not as mainstream as the Radial products. Perhaps the Radial owner is a closet audiophile and just having fun with the new vinyl lovers resurgence.

JR

PS: Hafler is also know for promoting a poor man's surround system where another pair of rear channel speakers were connected in series across the Left and Right amp channel hot outputs.  This passive L-R rear signal was light on bass content and heavy with room ambiance for true stereo mic'd recordings. (The primary difference between this and early Dolby surround, was the Dolby added some delay so you didn't hear the rear channel as a discrete source, and some dolby NF.)

thermionic said:

Can someone refresh my memory as to what Hafler's claim to fame was? Did they have an inventive topology?

Click to expand...

He's a co-inventor of Ultralinear Valve Output Transformers so is the direct instigator for most of the Classic Valve Amps of the previous Millenium.

He started Dynaco and later sold it.  During his time he made some very nice speakers too from his association & friendships in Denmark.

His innovations are too numerous to list.  Try google.

A good bit ago (and im talking years here) I remember those Hafler rackmountable bassamps were everywhere and as I recall pretty indestructible.  Significantly better than a Di many clubs I had done sound in as well as played had them as they were very affordable.

ricardo said:

thermionic said:

Can someone refresh my memory as to what Hafler's claim to fame was? Did they have an inventive topology?

Click to expand...

He's a co-inventor of Ultralinear Valve Output Transformers so is the direct instigator for most of the Classic Valve Amps of the previous Millenium.

He started Dynaco and later sold it.  During his time he made some very nice speakers too from his association & friendships in Denmark.

His innovations are too numerous to list.  Try google.

Click to expand...

I've made a few valve hi-fi amps with Hafler's early (joint venture) Acrosound Ultralinear OPTs, as well as those from the Dynaco MkIIs (50W) and MkIIIs (60W). I still have a decent-sized stash of them, along with a couple pairs of HK Citation II 60W OPTs (supposedly the ultimate in high power OPT design). I think by the mid-1960s just about every amp manufacturer was using 'ultralinear' OPTs (i.e., the output tube screens were connected to a tap off a certain percentage of each half of the secondary winding).

Dave (shaggy)

The Transnova technology in the later Hafler power amplifiers was a real step up in magnitude of the quality of solod state power amplifiers. Radial is working on the power amplifiers for production in North America. While some parts will have come from Asia, as much as possible will be done in Canada and the USA. However sourcing of the original power transformers and heatsinks will take some time. The schematics and board layouts of the original products have all been supplied by Hafler to Radial and they will used as close as possible considering tht some prts may no longer be available

In the mean time they are coming out with products like a pair of quite good quality headphone amplifiers including one with a tube front end. Both headphone amps are 100% through hole discrete. To the current team, this means no ICs at all in the signal path. The audio circuitry, even the differential inputs are all discrete transistor. The only ICs are voltage regulators and some required logic.  Therefore the audio circuits have open loop gain bandwidth products into the 10s to 100s of MHz.

These units are assembled in Canada. On the tube unit, as an experiment they are offering it with a loudness switch. With two different loudness settings. And this is done the old fashioned way with a tapped volume pot.

As well, the designer could not decide how much overall feedback to use in the product. Therefore it has a `feedback`control. The user can set it for no feedback and a tubey sound (and more gain), to full feedback (and less gain) for a crisp clear sound or to any setting in between. This product was shown at AES last fall and will also be at NAMM in Anaheim

The team working on this are audio people who care about sound quality and reliability. They have an acoustically corrected studio as part of their lab to make serious listening a part of the development process.