Instruction manual

28
Australian
Modwright KWI 200 Integrated Amplifi er
ON TEST
Hi End, supplied our review amplifi er with
the metal remote control… and what an
object of beauty it is! Either of the two
remotes will allow you to select input source,
adjust volume and select HT/BP. Additionally,
they’ll allow you to adjust display brightness
(three brightness levels, plus Off), as well as
mute and un-mute the output. As you can
see on our photo, the remote has ‘Phase’,
‘Mon’, and ‘Bal’ buttons, but none of these
apply to the KWI 200: they’re for use with
other ModWright products. The ‘Trig’ button
activates the two 12V d.c. trigger outputs on
the KWI 200’s rear panel. Beautiful though
this remote is, it will cost you an additional
$229 on top of the base price of the amplifi er.
The rear panel sports gold-plated unbal-
anced RCA terminals for the CD, L1, L2 and
HT/BP inputs, while the L3 input is serviced
via balanced XLR connectors. The speaker
binding posts are multi-way and gold-plated,
and there’s also a pre-amplifi er output, via
gold-plated RCA terminals. The 12V trigger
terminals (and note that both are OUTPUTS,
not inputs) are the usual 3.5mm phone types.
The 240V a.c. mains power socket is a stand-
ard IEC three-pin type, and is not integrally
fused.
Physically, the KWI 200 is neither small,
nor is it lightweight. It’s 432mm wide,
153mm high and 432mm deep and weighs a
shade over 28kg. This is fi ne if you’re putting
it on the fl oor, but means you’ll need a fairly
large, heavy-duty stand or rack if you’re not.
In common with all Modwright products,
the KWI 200 is made by hand entirely on
the West Coast of the USA, at Modwright’s
own private facility in the idyllic rural
environment of Amboy, Washington.
IN USE AND LISTENING
SESSIONS
Having heard from another reviewer that
Modwright likes its amplifi ers to have a 200-
hour warm-up, I obliged, but I found that as
night fell, the display was ‘way too bright.
‘No worries’, I thought, I’ll just turn the dis-
plays off via the remote. So I turned the dis-
plays off… only to discover that those huge
engraved ‘MW’ initials on the front panel are
back-lit, and that they don’t turn off (or even
dim) in concert with the two digital displays.
In retrospect, I can see that this enables you
to see that the amplifi er is switched on, but at
the time it seemed a little weird.
Once the 200-hours had elapsed, I
rushed to fi re up one of my current favourite
albums, the curiously titled ‘From the House
of Master Böhm’ from Melba Recordings,
which features one of Australia’s best-known
harpsichordists, John O’Donnell, playing
works by Georg Böhm (1661–1733). Initially,
I was embarrassed that I’d never heard of
Böhm, much less listened to anything he’d
written which, when I read the liner notes,
proved even more embarrassing when it
turned out he’d been a major infl uence on
my all-time musical hero, Johann Sebastian
Bach. Indeed it appears that J.S.B. may for a
time have been apprenticed to Böhm and for
a time in his teens actually lived in the Böhm
household. But as I read the notes further, I
realised I had heard of Böhm and indeed as a
child played one of his most popular works,
the Menuet in G, because it’s included in the
Clavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach,
which I had learned from beginning to end
as a young piano student.
Although the Menuet in G (Track 7) is my
sentimental favourite on this disc, and I’m
Power Output: Single and both channels
driven into 8-ohm, 4-ohm and 2-ohm
non-inductive loads at 20Hz,1kHz and 20kHz.
volume controls so that there was a more
useable range in the lower range of the
volume control, rather than simply 1dB per
step, as it had been previously. Following
this review, all KWI 200 models available will
have their volume control settings adjusted
so they correspond to the following output
levels, referenced to rated output:
1 = –111.5dB
2 = –100.5dB
3 = –92dB
4 = –85dB
5 = –78dB
6 = –73dB
7 = –68dB
8 = –65dB
9 = –63dB
10 = –61dB
20 = –51dB
30 = –41dB
40 = –31dB
45 = –28.5dB
50 = –26dB
60 = –19.5dB
70 = –14.5dB
80 = –9.5dB
90 = –4.5dB
(Note that in order to keep the above
list shorter, I have abbreviated it so that it
does not include all 99 possible volume level
settings for the KWI 200’s volume control!).
There are two buttons on the front
panel of the KWI 200. The one on the left
is the power switch. The one on the right
is a ‘Home Theatre Bypass Switch’ that,
if activated, disconnects the KWI 200’s
preamplifi er circuitry and sends whatever
signal is connected to the HT/BP terminals
on the rear panel directly to the KWI 200’s
power amplifi er stage. Because of this, I
would recommend that you DO NOT attempt
to use the HT/BP terminals as an extra ‘input’
and instead connect them only to a separate
pre-amp or home theatre processor. This is
also Modwright’s recommendation, which
it makes clear in LARGE BLACK TYPE in
its instruction manual. (Speaking of which,
although the information in the manual is
good, it’s not very well written, displaying a
decided lack of the
defi nite article.)
Modwright
provides extra features
for the KWI 200, but
they’re only accessible
via the remote
control(s). What?
There’s more than one
remote control? Yep.
Modwright gives you
the choice of either a
plastic remote control
or a metal one.
The local Australian
distributor, Absolute