What is Nemesis

Nemesis is a full-analogic, linear and solid-state, high precision, high speed, high damping, high feedback and high efficiency class AB audio power amplifier, designed and produced in Italy. Born from the research of the KRIEG Audio Department to create an amplifier without compromises and with an excellent, perfectly symmetrical, structure: the best electronic and audio performance, in a little board.





The Nemesis ideology


Nemesis is not only the Greek goddess of vengeance but, first of all, of compensation and balance.

The basic idea is that every discrete component is imperfect, however well it can be done or its tolerances are low. If the discrete components were perfect, only one transistor would be enough to produce a totally precise power amplifier. Hence the Nemesis is born, a medium power high speed and high efficiency class AB analog audio amplifier.

Its structure, perfectly symmetrical, is made up of 38 transistors:

  • A double differential with constant GM degeneration and advanced current mirrors, much more precise than the classic Wilson 4 transistor (high correction factor).
  • High impedance constant current generators and cascoding, placed on both the differentials and the VAS (high PSRR).
  • The low compensation, the right current and the unit gain of the differential allows a signal speed so high that it can deliver a swing from positive voltage to negative voltage rail in only 1uS (high slew rate).
  • The output stage is of the CFP type, which, unlike the classic Darlington, requires one tenth of the bias current and is far more linear and thermally more stable (lower crossover distortion).
  • No trimmers on the board: bias regulation is not required and static. Thanks to constant current sources and a constant product Vbe multiplier, the quiescent current is perfectly stable at any supply voltage or temperature.
  • The compensation capacitors are NP0 (C0G) ceramic type, i.e. perfectly immune to voltage or heat variations. The electrolytic capacitors have a very low ESR and long life, this, added to the minimum currents and voltages passing through, allows them to last almost forever.
  • The local feedback of the various stages and the global one guarantees a minimum output impedance, and therefore a high damping factor with only a pair of output power transistor, necessary for the total control of the speakers.
  • The perfectly symmetrical structure not only guarantees an optimal working point regardless of the differences in supply voltage between the positive and negative supply branches, but also a very low output DC offset, a lower noise (-3dB) and higher damping factor.
  • Unlike many other amplifiers, the input impedance and the feedback impedance are the same. Thanks to this, the noise is very low, the DC offset is just as low, and there is no on or off "bumping".
  • Despite the high speed, the amplifier is totally stable even without output networks, inductors or Zobel networks.
  • The only advantage of a tube amp and its delicate sound is thanks to the low thermal distortion: now with the adopted triple cascoding in Nemesis, the thermal / memory distortion is low as tube amps.
  • Nemesis structure is so perfect, which does not change its performance whatever the supply voltage. Not even if this is unbalanced (example: +35V 0 -30V).
All this thanks to its strictly corrective structure: without selecting any component, resulting in very low distortions, total immunity to thermal and voltage variations, total stability without output networks and same identical performance module by module.

The final concept is easy: if you have to select components to reach a result, then with the slightest variation in temperature, voltage or other variables, the result itself will vary. In audio it is not so much achieving a low amount of distortion that is the problem, but also keeping it while running music, with variations of all genres. And this, an amplifier with few transistors simply cannot guarantee it.




Comparison table


Tube ampLinear solid state ampClass D / T ampNemesis
DistortionVery high (> 3%)Low if there is feedback (0.01% - 2%)Variable on amp cost (0.001% - 10%)Very low (< 0.005%)
Damping factorVery low (< 2)High if there is feedback (10 - 400)High if feedback is after LC filter (10 - 400)Very high (3200)
Slew rateVery low (2V/uS)Medium / High (4 - 80V/uS)Very low (< 6V/uS)Very high (60V/uS)
EfficiencyVery low (10 - 25%)Depends on class (25 - 89%)Very high (95%)Medium-high (75%)
BandwidthLow (< 100kHz)Medium (20Hz - 200kHz)Very low (20Hz - 40kHz)Very high (3Hz - 1MHz)
Audio bandwidth linearity+- 1dB (or more)+-0.1dB (normally)-1dB at 20kHz (normally)+- 0.01dB
Bandwidth variability on loadChange with load impedanceLoad-invariant (normally)Change with load impedanceLoad-invariant
Memory / thermal distortionLowHighHighVery low
Clipping typeSoftHardHardSoft
NoiseVery High (< -50dB)Medium / Low (-60dB -> -120dB)Medium / Low (-60dB -> -120dB)Low (-100dB)
Standby powerVery High (> 20W)Medium / High (10W - 80W)Low (< 10W)Low (1.4W)
Output networksTransformerNone / inductor / transformer / Zobel networkLC filterNone

Highlight specifications

  • Linear class AB audio amplifier
  • 100W rated output power
  • Gain of 26.5dB
  • Low power consumption on stand-by (1.4W)
  • High efficiency (75%)
  • High precision (THD+N < 0.005% at max power)
  • High linearity (+-0.05dB in audio spectrum)
  • High bandwidth (3Hz - 1MHz, -3dB)
  • High SNR and very low noise floor (about 100dB)
  • High damping factor (up to 3200)
  • High speed (slew rate of 60V/uS)
  • Very low CrossTalk (-115dB)

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