Are you familiar with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five parts of Douglas Adams’ four-volume trilogy? In this amusing science-fiction parody, the computer "Deep Thought" calculated the number 42 as result to the question for “Life, the Universe and Everything". Does Rolf Becker therefore consider his phono preamp as the answer to the question for the best way to amplify phono signals, to obtain the maximum level of euphony, and everything else? If yes, then happily with a twinkle in his eye, as the chosen product name reveals: Douglas Adams made the computer do its calculation so mushrooming long that no one could remember the exact wording of the question to the answer 42...

When we talk about symmetry, then clearly without letting the eyes twinkle around. In the end that leads to the fact, that all Blue Amp models have to get along without a ground terminal. Well, the static charging of records and turntables can also be carried off via a respective terminal at the preamplifier, if available. Upon request, Rolf Becker also manufactures his own cables to connect tonearm and phono preamp – by avoiding any shielding, which in his opinion would lead to an increase of the capacitance in the signal conductors and thus to an albeit slight impairment of the cartridge’s already vulnerable output signal. In order to go through my own experience – and perhaps to show that even without all the usual noble cabling my audio chain is capable of playing very good music – he supplied a self-made cable with his 42, though equipped with a five-pole SME respectively DIN connector. But both my Thales Simplicity II and my Acoustical Systems Aquilar, that I already had set up for a review, have got an end-to-end wiring. And the Black Beauty on the Kronos Pro provides its signals via RCA plugs. So, there is no choice rather than pointing this out as an alternative to the extremely high-priced cables offered by the respective manufacturers, and perhaps writing a little supplement later on, in case when the SME V takes operation over again, the 42 will still be with me.

As animated discussions with Rolf Becker can get – and not just about music and hi-fi – as reserved he comports himself when it comes to reveal constructive details of his amplifiers. It is not even a matter of priority that he wants to protect his know-how against imitators. Upon my first query I got the slangy response: "The amplifiers should not be judged by their technology, they should allow you listening to nice La-La." Translated into marketing compatible words, this reads as follows: "My amplifiers should not catch attention for their own sake, but solely and exclusively offer musical enjoyment.” In the end it was my Westphalian insistence, to avoid the term “stubbornness” here, that made me succeed in obtaining a ten-year old product information, in which Rolf Becker attested his 42 a high channel separation through the implementation of a double mono concept, and revealed that four reference voltage sources provide highest temperature stability, while the auxiliary functions are fed by an independent power supply, the relay contacts run a self-cleaning sequence each time the power is switched on, the outputs feature a time delay after switch-on and the input section of the amplifier is protected against static charge.

In the case of the capacity-compensated output stage, the designer becomes quite a bit more talkative. With his measuring station, he is able to demonstrate that a square-wave signal remains a perfect square-wave signal, if capacitors are connected in parallel up to a capacity of 40 nanofarads. And that means that even a high-capacitance cable connected to the output doesn’t have a negative effect either on the signal behaviour or the sound. His amplifiers therefore don’t need any special cables to show their advantages.