Nec A-11
(1983 - 1985)

After a first series of mid-end separates ("Authentic") in the late 1970s, Nec went all out with the new decade and new format : the CD-803 was among the top CD players in 1982/83. Then, the original A-10 amp was engineered to cope with said new format's dynamic range - its many subsequent versions were biased toward that : POWER !

It wasn't high-end audio, though, and Nec never went there, except with its three top CD players (CD-803 ('82), CD-903 ('86) and CD-10 ('89)) and a couple of discretely distributed amplifiers just before vanishing from the consumer audio landscape in the mid 1990s.
But the A-11 sure was built like few mid-end amplifiers were in those early digital days : all steel, all metal, three mutha toroidal trafos and a special audio engineering slant which was kept until the last version of the series in the very early 1990s : A-10 Type V.

The two main transformers are dedicated to the left and right channels with separate windings for their respective section ; the third transformer (the one that embodies the "Reserve" tag) comes in whenever more current is necessary. While in a regular power supply, tension coming out of a transformer is rectified then filtered, in the Reserve II scheme, a second double-winding transformer kicks in after the rectifying and before the filtering, to smooth out the two rectifying phases.
Power filtering is done by eight 8200µF/50V caps ; preamp filtering is done by six 2200µF/56V caps. HifT power transistors, pure complementary DC circuits, low-noise componentry.

Like a few other amps at that time, the A-11 can be separated in two, used as an amp or as an integrated amp/preamp. If separated, only one input is accessible and the two volume pots act as volume & balance. Said system thus circumvents everything but the two pots and the power amp section ; the power amp's swift rise time is however slightly hampered when using the CD Direct path as a LPF filter was added to that input... Square wave response remains truly excellent throughout the audible bandwidth which the A-11 extends to 300kHz btw - very harman/kardon like.
The ad image above shows a pre-production sample which hadn't yet written "CD" next to the operation switch ; the images to the right show it as finally produced.

Although Nec constantly upgraded its A-10 sibling, the A-11 remained as it was produced in '83/84 and is very rare.