The End Of Ear Fatigue

Aside from the unnatural headphone ambiance there are further disadvantages with fatigue when mixing or listening with headphones. First, some headphones can be very uncomfortable to wear... 

Conventional headphone amplifiers can also be a contributing factor to premature ear fatigue. Almost without exception, present-day headphone amplifiers employ comparatively undemanding IC’s. In the best cases they might work with symmetrical voltages of +/-15V to +/-18V, and in less favorable cases, with only a simple supply of 9 or 12V from cheaper external “wall-wart“ power supplies. But the voltage level acts in circuitry much like the cubic inch capacity to the productive power of a combustion engine: Cubic inch capacity is replaceable with nothing but more cubic inch capacity – and in the productive power of electronics, voltage level functions similarly. 

For some years, now, SPL has addressed this issue in with its mastering series of products through its own specifically developed 120 volt technology. Consoles and signal processors of the SPL Mastering Series appear as central elements in installations of today’s most renowned mastering houses (z. B. Bob Ludwig’s Gateway Mastering & DVD in the USA, Simon Heyworth’s Super Audio Mastering in Great Britain or the Galaxy Studios in Belgium).
This 120 volt technology is based on discrete operation amplifiers from SPL’s own production, developed and perfected over many years by SPL’s co-founder and chief developer, Wolfgang Neumann. These SUPRA OPs work with high-performance semiconductors in Class A technology at a symmetrical voltage of +/-60V. 
In the Phonitor nine SUPRA OPs are employed. The SUPRA OPs have a Signal To Noise Ratio of 116dB and offer a nearly 34dB headroom – that yields an unequalled 150dB dynamic range.

The musical result cannot be mistaken: Regardless of the monitoring means, regardless of how loud you monitor – the Phonitor always remains a distant, impartial factor unaffected when used to capacity and beyond being overloaded. 

The phase stability is always perfect and its THD is next to immeasurable. The Phonitor’s SUPRA OPs cannot be stressed even in the most stressful circumstances, and for precisely this reason its musical sound is always relaxed and spacious. All frequencies are reproduced in balance, basses are stable and tight, mids are clear and differentiated and highs remain transparent and soft.

Such supreme and heretofore unreachable neutrality in audio reproduction is the direct consequence of our technical approach and basis in 120 volt technology: Possible disturbances from such as noise or distortion are so slight that we even arrive at the boundaries of the best measuring equipment, and what remains is quite simply unaltered musical sound.