Who are we?
The Komuro Amplifier Company was founded by John DeVore in 2020 with the goal of bringing the legendary and unique vacuum tube amplifier designs of Noriyasu Komuro to the public. For over a quarter century, Komuro’s amps have garnered extraordinary reactions from customers and reviewers alike, yet have remained extremely rare with fewer than a dozen ever built by the man himself. For the first time ever, these designs are going to be serial produced in small batches and available through a select dealer network with full warrantee and support.
Born in Hokkaido Japan, Komuro started building his own amplifiers in primary school from parts scavenged from old electronics. Through high school he did odd jobs repairing neighbor’s televisions and radios, went on to earn an electrical engineering degree in college and worked as an engineer for Nippon Mining. During this time Komuro also played in a rock band with his friend, and in the late 1970’s they decided to move to New York City. Komuro’s interest in audio was reignited in the early 1990’s when he joined a small group of like-minded designers at Fi, a legendary HiFi shop in TriBeCa widely recognized as the birthplace of the low-powered tube amp renaissance in the US. It was during this time that Komuro conceived and perfected the amplifier circuits that would earn him global recognition.
What is a Komuro Amp?
Over the years Komuro has built amps with different power triodes, 300Bs, VT-52s, 845s, even the mighty WE212. He has used both single-ended and push-pull topologies. None of that is unusual. What makes these amplifiers unique is that they are extremely stable, reliable, use only triodes for gain, and they are completely direct coupled from the input to the output transformer. There are no capacitors, resistors or transformers in the signal path. There is absolutely nothing but wire and vacuum tubes from the input jack to the custom wound output transformer.
What does this mean?
In a standard tube amplifier, capacitors are used between the stages to stabilize the circuit and prevent DC from getting amplified along with the music signal. Occasionally small transformers are used instead of these coupling capacitors, but they serve the same purpose. These components have an effect on the signal and sound of the amplifier. So much effect that some companies boast about how good their coupling capacitors sound.
A Komuro Amplifier will never have a circuit board. These amps are entirely hand built using point-to-point construction where the signal and power supply travel only through the circuit components and high-quality custom wire.
The musical signal in a Komuro amplifier passes through no coupling capacitors, transformers, circuit boards, or anything at all other than our silver/copper wire and the vacuum tubes in each stage. The signal enters the input jack, wired directly to the first tube triode, then the second tube triode, directly to the power tube triode, and then to the output transformer which will couple the amplifier output to your speakers. This is why it is called a direct coupled circuit. The genius of the Komuro design is that it does this while remaining utterly stable and reliable over years and years of use.
Contact: info@komuroamp.com
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