Mission 776

Albeit produced, tested here and there and even receiving a Best Product Stereo Sound tag in Japan, this second Mission component is now clearly in Invisibilia domain : invisible & unfindable.

The only obvious feature lies in its design which really belongs more to the bold 1970s (ie. 1972-76) than the colorful year of 1982 : a one-piece diecast aluminium chassis which forms the name of the brand... alongside acting as heatsink !
Slightly overdone indeed but the brand wasn't Anybody or Whatever, it was MISSION :)

Said heatsink / enclosure / motto hides a peculiar kind of power-supply, years before Technics got to fit such exotic items in its penultimate and ultimate high-fidelity components !

Two sealed batteries provide 25V DC at 1.5A /hour ; the supply voltage is filtered by 10,000µF then by 2,200µF, is then split in two channels, each bypassed by 4,7µF polyester-film caps.
Charging up to 97% happens when the 776 is turned off, the remainder of the charge while in use ; a full charge provides twenty hours of continuous use.

Extra-select parts are used throughout : 1% metal-film resistors, gold-plated contacts, dual-sided circuit tracks etc

The phono stage is a low-noise differential amp followed by a current-dumping, voltage-amp stage ; NFb is limited at 10dB at 20Hz.

The RIAA eq is not rolled-off down under and since there is no subsonic filter... beware of 5Hz LP warps !

The line amp is a common-emitter stage with a current-dumping amp ; NFb is also limited at 10dB for an output impedance of 200 Ohm.

The overall gain is of 54dB, thus allowing all MM and some (high-output) MC cartridges to be used ; there is no balance knob but a switch was planned at the back (!), allowing +4dB in 1dB steps on either sides by switching resistors in the feedback loop.
(apparently, while the switch was present it was not actually wired)

Speaking of knobs and switches... the 776 has very few of them : two knobs and threes switches. No frills. At all.

Alphabetically, or from L to R, or inside the first arch of the M, the first knob switches the (unlabeled) sources ; the second one, in the second M arch, is the volume attenuator (apparently cutom made... or a customed ALPS ?).

Switch to the other side of the name and, inside the N, is the power-on LED , tape-monitor switch (unlabeled) and mono/stereo switch (unlabeled). That's it - we're in England allright !

Leonard Feldman, reviewing the 776 in the june 1982 issue of Audio (USA) didn't have to 777 mate... but found the 776 to be sound-wise on par with the manufacturer's claims and bold, large, sculpted and heavily diecast name.

The wood enclosure shown here, from a (the) japanese catalog was Japan-only, like seemingly a full-tilt MM/MC phono stage probably developed by the japanese distributor.
It cost the exorbitant sum of 120,000¥ !

(When I compare local and japanese import prices, I realize that some in Japan must have gotten stinking rich selling european components.)

(Never mind, they lost it all in the '87 crash. And if not, then in the '91 crash)

Now : how about finding a 776... and spare batteries ?



You can read and see more more about this diecast duet at Stan Curtis' own website.