Citation 12.
Harman Kardon started in the 50's making hi -fi. Their old tube stuff is sought after. Everyone went to transistor in the 60s. One of the first "high power" quality amplifiers was the HK Citation 12. It's preamp partner was the citation 11. That was for a time considered the best preamplifier you could buy.
This is good stuff.
If you open the case of a 12 it is two separate amplifiers from the power plug on. Two transformers two full wave rectifiers and two complete circuits. They called that dual mono. It makes a difference. Each channel is unaffected by what happens in the other. That makes for clarity and good image.
The only compromise in the design was the output transistors. They are quasi-complementary which means they are the same polarity. My big amp is fully complementary where the positive signal is handled by one polarity and the negatives by the opposite type of transistor.
Back when new it was knocking on the door of audio Olympus. So I just got mine back. It has been overhauled and made new again. I am listening to it through the Advents. I am impressed. I am not cranking it as the wife is watching a movie. But at mellow level it sounds good.
I am going to say it is better than the Carver. There is less veil and more clarity. Almost certainly from the dual mono. The Carver brags about it's magnet field power supply, but dual mono with big capacitors is better.
The Advents are sounding better. I may have been unfair to the old beasts. Aside from the source the whole thing is 70s and 80s vintage. The HK 12 the SAE XXX and the A3 Advents.
The source is an iPhone.
The work was done by Innovative Audio. The have a lot of classic stuff for sale. I saw a Citation 11 on a shelf there and got twitchy. It is still there.
