Harman/Kardon Citation XXP

Harman Kardon's "absolute" preamp which, like the accompanying power amp you don't see that often. In fact you never do and chances are you never did either :)

Unlike the smaller Citation X-II (and like the Marantz Sc 1000), the XXP doesn't have a built-in MC stage.

The XXP was available with an optional wood-enclosure in the US, a very welcome but even rarer item which you can have a glimpse at right here.

If said crate bears a "Produced by Harman/Kardon, Woodbury NY USA", the rest, the electronic design was handled by Mr Mamoru Sekiya, at Shin Shirasuna (aka Silver), with the engineering recommendations of Dr Matti Ottala naturally included in the final designs.

• Symmetrical and Class-A layout,
• low-noise FET push-pull inputs,
• fully-complementary Darlington outputs,
• epoxy-potted preamp modules,
• active + passive RIAA stages,
• pf adjustements for each phono input,
• gold-plated plugs and ground post,
• 2x rca + 1x balanced outputs,
• low NFB use.


The real technical meat is at hand from but awaits translation from japanese to english, alongwith a 1979 8-page interview with Dr Ottala...