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Introduction These amplifiers are being gobbled up so fast, it took me a long time to get one. But it was worth the wait. The Theta Dreadnaught has been around to to the point that it is called "venerable", but this is the first time I have had one in our lab for extensive listening. Like other Theta products, the Dreadnaught is configurable for individual needs and tastes. It can have up to 10 channels at 100 watts per channel, or 5 channels at 200 watts per channel. If you need to upgrade your Dreadnaught to more modules or different modules, the old ones just get removed and the new ones plugged in. Our review unit arrived with five 200 watt fully balanced modules installed. Layout The front of the amplifier comes in either satin aluminum or black. There is an On/Off button and Surround button. Three LEDs indicate Surround, Thermal, and Standby. The amplifier is biased well into Class A, probably about 15 watts on each channel, so it runs very warm. As a result, the Surround button is used to activate or inactivate the surround channel amplifier modules when you are using the system just to play two-channel music or sound. The Thermal LED comes on if the amplifier gets too hot, such as when using a low impedance speaker at high volume. Standby keeps the modules warm with a trickle current, so that they are ready to go instantly when you turn on the sound system.
The rear panel, shown in the photo above, has the input jacks and speaker terminals. A main power toggle is also there, along with the main fuse, triggers for turning it on with another component, such as your surround sound processor, and a grounded AC connection.
Photo 3 shows the LEDs for indicating that the module has shut down because it is too hot (Thermal) and if one of the rail fuses has blown. The speaker binding post is shown in photo 4. It appears to be designed primarily for use with spade lugs, but I managed to fit two banana plugs
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An
amplifier module is shown in the photo to the right. Everything
is in the module except for the power transformer, which is in the
main chassis and serves all the modules. In photo 2 below, you can
see a close-up of the input jacks, and the presence of one toggle
for switching between RCA and XLR inputs, as well as a toggle for
assigning the module to the front stereo or surround buss. If it
is Stereo, it is on all the time, while if it is Buss, it gets turned
off when the front panel buttons are used to select two-channel
listening. This saves electricity and therefore, the consumer's
money.
