„We ’re an engineering company“ – That’s where it all begins.

At SAE, a product is born in engineering, not marketing. It starts as an idea about sound. A way to do something that has never been done before. Something that will furter the art of sonic reproduction.

That’s why we made the first fully complementary amplifier, which inherently reduces distortion.

That’s why we introduced the digital readout tuner to audio, also recognizing its inherent advantages and expanding upon them.

That’s why we developed the graphic equalizer for consumer use. And later the parametric equalizer.

That’s why we invented the Impulse Noise Reduction System, the first device of its kind to go beyond surface noise elimination and into more complex dimensions.

But we didn’t just develop these products. We developed a way to manufacture them.

We’ve always felt it was okay to design audio with one eye on the stars, as long as you’ve got the other on the punch press. In other words, you have to be able to manufacture what you imagine.

So we integrated the entire assembly process right here. In our new plant. Chassis construction, parts inspection, testing, everything.

It’s the ideal marriage of technology and skill. Our workers are better because our product is better. There’s something at the end of the line to be proud of. The chassis is taken from raw material to its MIL-SPEC black anodized finish. Every front panel is hand polished. It’s meticulous, one-of-a-kind type of job. But there isn’t a better way to do it.

Inside an SAE product you’ll find a staggering array of the best parts in the world. We have an entire staff of professionals that spend each and every day searching the globe for that better transistor. Or capacitor. Or switch.

And when they’ve found it, our Quality Assurance department tests it. And re-tests it. You see, it has more than its own specifications to meet. It has ours.

When we make a circuit, we use materials like Fr4 glass epoxy boards, metal film resistors, and computer grade connectors.(We’ve minimized the amount of hand wiring because it’s not as consistent or repeatable as circuit boards.)

After completion the board is run through a gamut of tests and inspections to ensure that it meets a long list of strictly defined parameters.

And ultimately, final assembly.

Trained hands carefully place all components in position. Dimensions are checked. By tool. And by eye.

Then it gets tough. We call it “burn-in”. Every component must operate under actual working conditions for up to 24 hours. (Power amps are operated at full music power.)

And if there are no inadequacies, if every part of every assembly of every unit measures up, it’s readied for the final and most difficult test: the human ear. Quality Control listens. They check every input and output. Every switch and slider. When they’re satisfied – and only then – the component is placed in a carefully designed SAE container and sent to you.

And that’s when the magic begins. That’s when you unpack the box. Connect the cables. And discover some thing new. Something you never thought could be done with sound. We are an engineering company. But it is for that moment of discovery, that small bit of wonderment, the we do everything

SAE manufacturing

The SAE ATP 8500 is a com­po­nent of tre­men­dous fle­xi­bi­li­ty with se­veral fea­tures that make it par­ti­cu­lar­ly attrac­tive to my way of thin­king. In par­ti­cu­lar I refer to the great num­ber and va­rie­ty of in­puts [but in par­ti­cu­lar]:

– a di­gi­tal XLR [AES EBU] input, used in pro­fes­sio­nal ap­p­li­ca­ti­ons and found on the fi­nest con­su­mer pro­ducts;

– a ba­lan­ced ana­log input that can be con­fi­gu­red so as to by­pass the en­code/de­co­de sec­tion (i.e., the AD – DA cir­cuits);

– 7.1 chan­nel out­puts in both RCA and ba­lan­ced XLR con­fi­gu­ra­ti­ons.

The XLR in­puts offer con­nec­tion to a com­ple­te­ly ba­lan­ced cir­cuit, which means a du­pli­ca­ti­on of all com­po­n­ents.   Such an ap­proach is nor­mal­ly found only in pro­fes­sio­nal pro­ducts and at a con­sider­ab­ly hig­her cost.

We could say that this pro­duct seems to have been born with all the right an­s­wers, and with the aim in mind of in­du­cing even the most de­man­ding au­dio­phi­le to con­sider home thea­t­re.

Wi­t­hin the chas­sis it is evi­dent that much ef­fort went into se­pa­ra­ting the audio cir­cui­try from video. We can see that the un­ba­lan­ced out­put sec­tion is com­ple­te­ly in­de­pen­dent of the main out­put. This is ano­ther clear sign of healthy ar­chi­tec­tu­re wi­thout easy sa­vings.   In all sin­ce­ri­ty I have ra­re­ly seen a pro­duct ma­nu­fac­tu­red so well.

From the point of view of er­go­no­mics, ease of use, and func­tio­na­li­ty, the SAE 8500 is very re­mi­nis­cent of a home thea­t­re pream­pli­fier as I would have de­si­gned it.

After the in­iti­al setup was com­ple­ted, the ATP 8500 of­fe­red ex­tra­or­di­na­ry ver­sa­ti­li­ty. It is true that with my Le­xi­con MC-1 this is so­me­thing sadly lacking, but in this case [and now] it is a thing of the past.

Audio Re­view, 8/04

SAE ATP 8500 & AT 3000

In the realm of am­pli­fi­ca­ti­on, the 5-chan­nel SAE AT 3000 (5x300W) ope­ra­tes in ra­re­fied air. It strikes a de­li­ca­te ba­lan­ce bet­ween brute force and ele­gan­ce. In many ways it is the con­sum­ma­te ar­bi­ter of de­tail while har­bo­ring huge amounts of re­ser­ve power. It is ca­pa­ble of re­sol­ving the most de­li­ca­te inner de­tail yet de­li­ver­ing the gran­dest for­tis­si­mo with com­ple­te com­mand and aut­ho­ri­ty. This is all ac­com­plis­hed in the stag­ge­ring­ly dif­fi­cult, and usual­ly com­pro­mi­sed, world of 5.1 audio.

SAE (Sci­en­ti­fic Audio Elec­tro­nics) is a name not wi­thout me­mo­ries. To those whose per­so­nal af­fec­tion for music goes back to the seven­ties and eigh­ties, SAE as a com­pa­ny re­pres­ents a com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence, re­mem­be­red but not for­got­ten. For all those au­dio­phi­les of that great time, the name SAE evo­kes more than nost­al­gia; it talks to things such as qua­li­ty of ma­nu­fac­tu­re, at­ten­ti­on to de­tail-things that in­spi­re con­fi­dence.
SAE is also re­mem­be­red for gra­phic and pa­ra­metric equa­li­zers. They were be­au­ti­ful­ly ma­nu­fac­tu­red, well con­cei­ved, and ex­am­ples of re­lia­bi­li­ty. They found their way not only into the homes of the dis­cerning, but the la­bo­ra­to­ries, test fa­ci­li­ties, and stu­di­os of pro­fes­sio­nals around the world.

With new and cur­rent pro­ducts, all con­cei­ved in the United Sta­tes, SAE over­sees and or­ches­tra­tes a so­phis­ti­ca­ted ma­nu­fac­tu­ring fa­ci­li­ty to en­su­re pro­duct con­sis­ten­cy and re­lia­bi­li­ty on a large scale basis. Qua­li­ty of ma­nu­fac­tu­re is ex­em­pla­ry; very much true to the SAE tra­di­ti­on of ex­cel­lence. SAE pro­ducts are de­si­gned and built to the ex­ac­ting stan­dards usual­ly re­ser­ved only for the pro­fes­sio­nal mar­ket.

The five chan­nel AT 3000 is a true case in point. With mo­du­lar con­struc­tion, this am­pli­fier em­ploys two very sub­stan­ti­al to­ro­idal trans­for­mers (18.5 cm in dia­me­ter) and five mo­du­les of 300 Watts of pure ba­lan­ced power. Each mo­du­le is equip­ped with its own de­di­ca­ted rec­tifi­ca­ti­on cir­cuit, power fil­te­ring, and an out­put stage made up of 12 tran­sis­tors.

Lis­ten­ing cri­ti­cal­ly in two chan­nel ste­reo, a fa­mi­li­ar bench­mark for us all, the im­pres­si­on of power and pu­ri­ty was un­mis­ta­ke­able. Cri­tics have tested and lis­teners have com­men­ted, but whe­ther high ef­fi­ci­en­cy mo­ni­tor loud­spea­kers, or dif­fi­cult to drive low ef­fi­ci­en­cy elec­tro­sta­tics the cri­te­ri­on, the re­sult was pheno­me­nal en­er­gy, mu­si­ca­li­ty, and a sense of vivid rea­lism.

The SAE pro­mi­se pro­ved all­u­ring, but most im­port­ant­ly it was de­li­ve­r­ed in the case of the AT 3000. The am­pli­fier de­mons­tra­ted an abili­ty to be­au­ti­ful­ly re­sol­ve the de­li­ca­cy of tim­bre. Ad­mit­ting to a cer­tain ex­pec­ta­ti­on be­cau­se of the me­cha­ni­cal con­struc­tion and the over­all look of the pro­duct, we were ex­pec­ting an ar­ti­fi­ci­al­ly me­cha­ni­cal sonic pre­sen­ta­ti­on, vi­ri­le and mus­cu­lar, but not one ne­ces­sa­ri­ly ideal in terms of its abili­ty to re­sol­ve subt­le and de­li­ca­te nu­an­ces. Howe­ver, the story was quite dif­fe­rent.

Low level de­tail was ex­cep­tio­nal. It is rare that such a power­ful am­pli­fier could prove ca­pa­ble of such a mea­su­re of con­trol and ba­lan­ce at low vo­lu­mes. There was no sense of le­thar­gy—no fee­ling of “samp­le and hold”-to ba­lan­ce the bot­tom re­gis­ters with the hig­hest fre­quen­cies. As to per­for­mance at low le­vels, har­mo­nic in­te­gri­ty was ex­cel­lent; bass was deep and well de­fi­ned. Emo­ti­on was very much pre­sent. This am­pli­fier dis­play­ed re­mar­ka­ble mu­si­ca­li­ty.

In the 5.1 ci­ne­ma mode, the sonic re­so­lu­ti­on of the SAE ATP 8500 unit was quite sim­ply fa­bu­lous.
The vi­brant and na­tu­ral cha­rac­ter of the ATP 8500 plus AT 3000 was truly plea­sura­ble. Our „ci­ne­ma in the home“ ses­si­ons ac­qui­red a rea­lis­tic di­men­si­on that prac­tical­ly im­po­sed the pre­sence of a large screen image. In­de­ed, the sound and the image must be co­he­rent, pro­por­tio­ned; and the sound of the SAE sys­tem was so „ma­gni­fi­cent“ that it beg­ged for an image the height and width of a large screen.

Si­mi­lar­ly in terms of its dy­na­mics, or in what we would de­scri­be in image terms as mo­ti­on-a sense of mo­ve­ment-whe­re sound de­scri­bes tra­jec­to­ries pre­cise­ly iden­ti­cal to what is ob­ser­ved on the screen, mo­ve­ment was exe­cu­ted in a smooth and pro­gres­si­ve man­ner, wi­thout the ef­fects of sud­den jumps from one spea­ker to the other. The sound ef­fects were of a sei­zing rea­lism; we com­ple­te­ly for­got the elec­tro­nics and the spea­kers.

In Con­clu­si­on

Ha­ving just been in­tro­du­ced, the SAE units have in­stant­ly po­si­tio­ned them­sel­ves as one of the most power­ful home ci­ne­ma sys­tems on the mar­ket. Alt­hough one could per­haps re­g­ret a litt­le of the ab­sence of THX ho­mo­lo­ga­ti­on, there was not­hing mis­sing in this am­pli­fier other­wi­se to prevent it from being added to the short list of the three or four mul­tichan­nel pro­ducts of true „au­dio­phi­le“ qua­li­ty on the mar­ket. All in all what we have here is a very im­pres­si­ve am­pli­fier –power­ful, ex­ac­ting, and very mu­si­cal –and one which will no doubt gar­ner much ink. We urge you to dis­co­ver what we mean wi­thout delay.

Audio Video Pres­ti­ge, 12/03