Grandinote - Technology

Technology & Grandinote's history

I'm Massimiliano Magri, the inventor of Magnetosolid® Technology and the Mach speakers.
For all my friends, my name is Max.
I was born in 1973;
I got the degree in electronic engineering in 1997,
but was in 1996 that I built my first audio amplifier.
Naturally, this my first amp was by tubes:
It's very easy to get a good sound by the tubes...

Already for my first tube amplifier and for all other tube amplifiers that I created, I never purchased an output transformer:
I always designed and made by myself all my output transformers.

My studies on the output transformers will be the foundation for the Magnetosolid® Technology.

Magnetosolid® Technology

Yes... at the end of the last millennium I was very happy for the sound of my tube amps, but in my brain there was an only question:
<<why are the tube amps richer of sound than solid state amps>>

I know perfectly the physics of the tubes and the solid state devices, so I understood that the answer to my question was in the circuits and not in the devices!

In the year 2000 I started my research in my technology:
the first amplifier with this technology was born in 2002.
It's really a TRUE "tube amplifier schematic", WITHOUT the tubes and INSIDE the solid state devices.
His sound was so different from all other amplifiers.
His technology needs a proper name: "Magnetosolid® Technology".

Magnetosolid is the union of MAGNETO and SOLID.
MAGNETO is for ferromagnetic components, so the output transformers.
SOLID is for solid state components.
The transformers are a consequence of our schematics like the tube schematics.

In the practical, what did I?

I created solid state amplifiers with the rich natural sound of the tube amps, but not only:
the frequency response of Magnetosolid® amps are so bigger than tube amps.
The true plus is the damping factor:
our impedence output is very, very lower than tube amplifiers.
This produce a control in the bass frequencies that tubes can't dream!!!

Other very important plus is in refinement of our schematic:
- no capacitances between the stages (only before output transistors);
- only two output transistors (simple push-pool);
- no feedbacks;
- for every device we use a dedicated power supply circuit.

So we use a schematic like tube amp schematics, but improved!

People thinks that tubes play better than solid state components...
Really, tube amplifiers play better than ordinary solid state amplifiers, only for their schematics, not for the tubes.

Magnetosolid-VHP

It's very important to have a very high quality output transformer.
My research has continued to improve this component.
I decided to test a special material to produce the magnetical cores for the output transformers.
The cost of this special core is very, very high, but his performances are incredible:
with the identical wires geometry, with this core, the primary inductance is more than 10 times than ordinary core!
The damping factor is higher, the frequency response is bigger (in low and in high frequencies), the voices are more natural...

The only problem is the cost.
Solution:
I duplicated the Grandinote products,
the Magnetosolid-VHP products were born:

Shinai & Essenza
Prestigio & Divina
Silva & Araldo
Futura & Demone

Preamps and sources

It's easy to think that the "true Magnetosolid" are all products with power outputs, because the origin of the name is "Ferromagnetic" & "Solid state", but like I wrote before, the output transformer presence is only a consequence of the "tube circuits".

Also our pre-amplifiers play like tube pre-amplifiers, but they are solid state...
In other words, all Grandinote devices use solid state components, but their sound is rich and natural, like tube devices.

We find these qualities in our pre-amplifiers,
in our phono pre-amlpifier: Celio
and in our streamer: Volta!

For their qualities and their circuilts, all our devices are Magnetosolid®.

Last products

In the last years I studied a new input circuit.
I started to use this circuit in the preamplifiers.
So Genesi arrived.
I also used this technology in the integrated amp and Supremo arrived.

For completeness:
Domino with these new input circuits is Genesi.
Essenza with these new input circuit is Supremo.
Divina with these new input circuit is Oltre.

Another step towards naturalness.

MACH speakers

To realise these speakers was another important milestone.
It's a lot of years that we tryed to get a great sound from crossover-less speakers.
We have understood that the only way to get this is to use drivers that don't exist...
We tested a lot of full-range and extended-range drivers:
always the sound was "nasal", annoying in the high frequencies.
These problems are caused by the high frequencies brack-up of the drivers.
By the crossover, these brack-up are killed, but the crossover also kills a lot of musicality.

Our solution is to use a "mechanical" crossover.
We optain this by a special treatment behind the drivers membranes.

This treatment kills brack-up, without steal musicality.
Finally we have our drivers to use without crossover:
the best voice that I listened from speakers.

This treatment also modify drivers paramters, expecially the Fs and the Qts.
We created drivers with low Fs and high Qts.
These parameters are not good for Bass reflex configurations:
much better the close box, for these drivers...
Also a dipolar configuration is very good for them.
We tested also the transmission line, but the best performances arrived with another "strange" solution.

Our solution is in the middle between bass reflex and transmission line.
Our cabinet is like a tube, with a larg downward port.
This tube is too short for a transmission line: it's another thing!
We call this solution "Semi Resonance Tube": S.R.T.

In this way, we have very deep, tight, fast basses, very different that all other speakers that I listened.

Grandinote today

Now Grandinote has a lot of customers, in much of the world.
We export our products in 26 countries.
All customers that try our sound don't change brand.
This is the most important thing.

Grandinote future

Today is 10th September of the year 2018.
I turned 45 two months ago.
I still have a lot of ideas... See you! Max