“Since it’s inception back in 2011 and first Pondera iteration, the NOIES technology was kept in the idea vault, until the time was right. I think that times is now.” - Stavros Danos, Designer
 
 
NOIES technology
 
Our NOIES proprietery technology stands for Negative Output Impedance Energy Source. This ground breaking circuit can be implemented using small, medium or big tubes, or even combined with our TriodeFet and Inverted Triode technologies. More details on this technology in our dedicated page .
 
The Pondera circuit, is simply put, the combination of our NOIES tech using small signal supertubes, like the E280F and family of tubes.
 
The Design Concept
 
As in the original Pondera, the circuit is consisted of a NOIES circuit applied to a Single Ended stage, using triodes.
 
Where are the original Pondera used 814 tubes, the Pondera Mk2 uses the small E280F tube, which is our favorite weapon of choice for line level designs.
 
The circuit is a single stage single ended triode stage, using the NOIES modulator as the PSU.
 
What is NOIES
 
Pondera means to-balance-out, to counterweight, and is in short, the principle behind the NOIES technology. Or rather was we call it, Pondera-tech.
Regardless of when the name might suggest, the NOIES is not a method of over-regulating a voltage source, to act as a very low impedance power supply.
 
In general. A power supply presents a finite impedance. When the active stage (line stage, amp,etc) swings positive, the PSU will present a sag, and when the stage swings negative, the PSU will present a re-bounce. The level and characteristics of the sag/re-bounce will depend on the parameters of the PSU, and is always present. This sagging and re-bounce effect, is what smears the transient response, and blurs the signal, killing the soul of music.
 
The NOIES system, comprises of the signal stage, and it’s mirror modulator, which feeds power/energy to the stage. The modulator tracks the music signal in real time(it is not reactive of after-the-fact feed, like feedback but real time ) but is in sync with the signal feed to the stage. When the active stage needs to swing positive,(where as ,a PSU would try to be kept as stable as possible), the modulator feeding the stage would swings positive, at the same rate as the stage itself.
 
This way, the stage , by “looking” back in to it’s power source, it would appear as the PSU has negative output impedance, and it’s level of output impedance would be the same as the native impedance of the stage itself.
 
In layman’s terms, the more power/energy it is needed, the more the PSU is providing. In fact, the overcompensation is as much as the active stage’s contribution to the load.
 
This operation has quite some technical and sonic effects and side effects. One of them is, distortion cancellation. A specific SET circuit can present 20 times less distortion for same output level, when fed by the NOIES modulator. It’s transient behavior and bandwidth are vastly improved. However the biggest improvement is how this circuit sounds. The clarity, dynamics and transparency are at a quite higher level than the (still great in level) improvements in technical performance numbers would suggest.
 
More details for this groundbreaking technology will be presented, as we implement and integrate further to our existing technology portfolio.
 
Practically maintenance free, or not?
 
The PSU chassis , is a dual mono design, and each channel has dual! rectifier banks, which can be switched .
 
Each channel has one tube rectified psu using dual 6AU4 tube damper diodes, and one solid state psu. Four psu in total are used. The user can switch between the two PSUs on the fly.
 
In our opinion, the tube rectified has an edge on performance, on the cost of maintenance, as in all tube rectified designs. However you can switch to SS rectification for everyday background music use, to save your favorite tube rectifiers life.
 
All four power supplies are multi-choke filtered for ultra low noise floor.
 
Tube rectified or solid state?
 
The user can switch on the fly and choose between the vacuum state and solid state PSU, or use both depending on occasion.
 
Gain options, high flexibility
 
The Pondera comes in various gain versions, and is also fitted with -6db gain switches. 
Even on low/med gain configurations, it has very high output voltage capabilities/ dynamic headroom. The Pondera is a swiss army knife of a preamp, as it can drive both low gain amplifiers as well as high gain amplifiers.