Rogue Audio Cronus Amplifier
It seems that the creators of Rogue Audio Cronus did not think much of design. The protective cover is missing, lamps, transformers and power capacitors are open to everyone. The case is assembled of only three parts - the chassis, the top cover and the polished front panel. Everything is simple but thought out. There are a headphone output, a built-in equalizer and even the simplest remote control. A plastic screwdriver is fixed on special clamps to set the offset, and for its control there is a round vintage milliammeter. It is switched by the toggles under the lid. Switching from 4 to 8 ohm load is extremely simple - you need to throw the leads of the output transformers at the acoustic terminals. This is it - not a single extra detail. Terminal cascade is four Russian-made EL34. The input stage is built on two 12AX7, the driver is on 12AU7.
Rogua Audio Cronus surprised by its immediate readiness for work - it didn't need a standard hour for warming up before testing. About ten minutes after switching on, we slightly corrected the current of each lamp, tried to turn on the test program, and understood - you can listen! A special feature of Cronus is its hyper-realistic bass. To be honest, I have never heard such bass in lamp devices. It sounds so powerful, accurate and focused, that the contours of percussion instruments are carefully drawn in space. Another valuable quality is amazing intelligibility in high register. Discants are not colored, their origin is perfectly distinguishable. Thanks to all these features, Rogue Audio Cronus, despite its not very impressive 55 watts per channel, effortlessly copes with music of any genre - even modern rock phonograms that require monstrous energy sound dynamically and expressively. As for minuses, I note only the simplicity of the middle. The amplifier transmits this part of the range vividly and plastically, with good articulation, but the subtlest details seem to be stuck somewhere in the path. But this does not spoil the musicality of Cronus at all. The amp reproduces important nuances flawlessly.
