Instruction manual

27
ON TESTON TEST
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Modwright KWI 200 Integrated Amplifi er
which is short for ‘Total Silent Protection’. In
the event that the TSP circuitry determines
that something is amiss, the amplifi er will
shut itself down automatically and a rather
cheeky ‘OOPS’ message will display for
around 8 seconds.* If you’re unlucky enough
to see this message, you should disconnect
the mains power, check that your speakers
are connected correctly, and that you don’t
have a stray speaker wire bridging the (+)
and (–) terminals, and then re-start the
amplifi er. Modwright also provides good
old-fashioned analogue fuses as a back-up for
the TSP circuitry, but they’re located inside
the amplifi er and should be replaced only by
qualifi ed technicians. (*The four letters are
actually spread across the two displays, so the
left-most display shows ‘00’ at the same time
that the right-most one shows ‘05’, so unless
you’ve read the manual—or this review—you
might miss the humour.)
Once you have fi red-up the amplifi er, and
it has stabilised and switched itself on, you
can use the left-most rotary control knob to
toggle through all the available inputs on
your particular amplifi er. On mine, it went
progressively through CD, L1, L2, L3. If you
have the optional phono stage installed, it
will then go through P1 and P2 as well. If you
also have the optional DAC installed, you can
also add D1 and D2 to that list of available
inputs. After having chosen an input, you
can then use the rightmost rotary control to
adjust volume, which is accomplished in 99
discrete steps. Our review sample was one
of the fi rst off the line, and I was initially
a little unhappy with the size of the steps,
particularly at lower settings of the control.
When I emailed Modwright, about this, Dan
Wright replied and advised that he’d chosen
the steps following listening sessions
with speakers rated at 87dBSPL and
98dBSPL, and that following our
concerns, he was re-calibrating the
MODWRIGHT KWI 200
INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER
Brand: Modwright
Model: KWI 200
Category: Integrated Amplifi er
RRP: $5,999*
Warranty: One Year
Distributor: Absolute Hi End
Address: PO Box 370
Ormond
VIC 3204
[phone]
[e-mail]
www.absolutehiend.com
*(With standard remote, see copy).
Readers interested in a full technical
appraisal of the performance of the
Modwright KWI 200 Integrated Amplifi er
should continue on and read the
LABORATORY REPORT published on
page 90. Readers should note that
the results mentioned in the report,
tabulated in performance charts and/
or displayed using graphs
and/or photographs should
be construed as applying only
to the specifi c sample tested.
Lab Report on page 90
• High power
• Mute function
• Valve warmth
• Display dimming
• Plastic remote
• Owners Manual
LAB REPORT
on the PCB, so I suspect that at some stage
in the future, we might see an ‘SE’ version of
the KWI 200 appear in ModWright’s product
line-up.
Firing-up the KWI 200 will require a
considerable degree of patience on the part of
owners, because it takes almost a full minute
for the amplifi er to stabilise itself before it
becomes operational, during which time you
can’t do anything at all, not even change
the input source. (Modwright says it takes
45 seconds, but I clocked my unit at a fairly
consistent 53 seconds, so not quite a minute,
to be entirely accurate.) To keep you occupied
while you’re waiting—and more importantly
to show that something is happening!—
two horizontal bars in the blue digital
volume display fl ash on and off. What the
amplifi er is doing during this initialisation
period is checking for damaging d.c. at
the input and output and also checking
the temperatures registered by the various
internal thermocouples, as well as for short-
circuits across the speaker outputs. According
to Dan Wright, the protection circuitry he
uses is unique to Modwright and sits entirely
outside the signal path. He calls it ‘TSP’
Power Output: Both channels driven into 8-ohm,
4-ohm and 2-ohm non-inductive loads at 20Hz,
1kHz and 20kHz. [Modwright KWI 200]