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make analog an art
that serves digital

Bert Vogt

All analog stages of the AKDesign products are developed by Bert Vogt, a young German engineer. He is not only an audiophile with years of listening experience in several recording studios, but being a musician himself he also brings lots of enthusiasm to his work with audio products. After his medical studies, which gave him a deep insight into the human anatomy, including the functionality of the ear and its analyzing part that we call the brain, he received a diploma in electrical engineering – together a perfect combination for building high end audio gear.

In 2004, working together with Andreas Koch for the first time during his semester as an intern, he embarked on creating a digital format converter. After finishing his studies in 2005 he started building his own products, foremost the analog pre-amplifier puralio, which he showed at the High-End show in Munich in 2007. As a lucky coincidence, Andreas Koch also visited this show and became enamored with the impressive sound of the puralio. Once Andreas decided to start AKDesign, Andreas brought in Bert to design all analog circuitry for the AKDesign products.

With its discrete filtering and discrete output stage without any chips or OP-amps Bert’s analog circuitry fits well into the discrete architecture of AKDesign's D/A converter designs. By carefully selecting each individual component Bert has total control over each single parameter of the analog signal processing path which utilizes his CCB technology (constant current biasing) developed for the puralio. The extremely high bandwidth and zero-phase design far beyond the audible range reveal all aspects coming from the digital domain giving the AKDesign products tremendous image and richness of detail. With its low output impedance the highly neutral sounding amplifier can drive all kinds of wires, therefore minimizing the influence of cable characteristics on the sonic performance.

Special care is taken in the linear analog power supply which is totally isolated, giving the output stages the “3-dimensional” characteristics.

Bert is also responsible for all layouts of the analog and digital circuit boards while paying special attention to creating not only the shortest but most expedient signal paths. With his huge experience in HF-analog and BGA multi-layer layout he treats the routing as more than mere wires...