Harman/Kardon Citation X-II

preliminary

The other harman/kardon last stand for super high-end - only 150,000¥ cheaper. And prettier, too.

Unveiled after the Citation XX and Citation XX-P statement monsters, the X-II preamp did make it easy on the owner by offering an integrated MC input and even tone controls !
Easier still : it also offered a D.A.D. input :)

Same basic technology as the XX-P, housed within a tidier build quality - more "industrial" and less hand-made if you like.
Toroidal transformer, Low-NFB, dual-RIAA EQ stage, strict square-wave behaviour, quick rise-time, high slew-rate, wide bandwidth and low impedance output.
3 sets of outputs for convenience, an [C1]XLR set among them, pF trim pots, input attenuators and a dedicated amp for the headphones.

The Citation XX, XXP, X-I and X-II were designed and built in Japan by the Shin Shirasuna company, aka Silver, in Aichi prefecture.
Said Shirasuna company provided OEM services for the Harman Group before and after the Citation XX series as well.

The electronic design was handled by Mr Mamoru Sekiya, at Shirasuna, with the engineering recommendations of Dr Matti Ottala naturally included in the final designs. Mr Sekiya holds today a senior position at Onkyo.

The proof lies in the T-Tag which japanese units have : the Shin Shirasuna logo (two "S" facing each other's base) is present on all of them :)

(Thanks to Joel in Tokyo for confirming what I always suspected but couldn't get the details of.)

Even if advertised at length in Japan (they were made there), the X-II and its accompanying X-I power amplifier are still quite rare nowadays.