The Black Ice Audio F85A is the next level of Black Ice Audio and is built in Maryland. We have gathered and tested components for the last 10 years to find the best combination to supercharge our beloved F35.

THE BLACK ICE AUDIO F85A

The F85A is built by Jerred in our Maryland workshop. The F85A is built using hand picked upgraded parts purchased from U.S. companies. The F85A is a massive upgrade over the already exceptional standard F35 amplifier. The F85A is sonically superior in, detail, speed, holographics, sound stage, separation, and bass. Hidden behind the captive touch glass front panned is our proprietary Odyssey Circuit, designed in 2015, a dual-phase balanced V-drive tube circuit. The F85A features four inputs, two are shared XLR for a pure signal path to your components. Using the Exact Biasing Vu meter you always know exactly what your tubes are doing with the turn of a knob.

The F85A is a legendary tube headphone amp with a direct output from the tubes, no solid state devices or OP-AMP adding gain to the signal path only a resistor to protect your headphones. The F85A can make any headphones sing no matter how hard to drive. The F85A includes a substantial metal remote to harness the power of the F85A.

The F85A can run many power tubes and equivalents with the Exact Bias: You are just choosing the tubes we bundle with your amplifier.

Here are the peak power levels with the tubes we offer.

• The Tung Sol 6550 power tubes: 85 WPC. The 6550 is a classic. Extremely smooth and strong mid range. Great soundstage and the most classic sounding of our tubes. It can’t achieve the detail or bass of the KT88. A great smooth and forgiving tube. We are now on our last stock of TunSol 6550s, (Limited Supply)

  
  

• The Mullard KT88(Platinum ReIssue): 85 WPC. The Mullard KT88 is an excellent tube, providing deep bass, with a focus on the midrange, and an excellent soundstage. The Mullard is great at making poor recording sound richer.The Mullard sound tube sounds clean, detailed, fast, with a great and smooth midrange. Great detail and a 3D soundstage. This is our most recommended tube. It works for all types of music and picky speakers.

  
  

• The Tung Sol KT170 tubes: 95 WPC. The K170 is the big gun it has massive power and sonic weight. It has excellent detail in the highs but doesn’t quite match the KT77. The KT170 has a weight in the mid range that equals the detail of the KT88 but has more musicality, soulful, and organic feel. The KT170 has the most powerful bass of all the tubes, without sacrificing any detail or becoming muddy. It has a unique smoked glass and gold base look. It is an unusual tube because it has power and detail, but is organic and full, it has all of the extended highs and never gets grainy. The KT170 doesn’t share its unique properties with any tube and is something everyone should put into their amplifier at some point..

  
  

BUILT IN MARYLAND

The signature sound of the F85A is a fine line of transparency and musicality that results in an accurate, yet organic & natural washing-over effect. Because of this wonderful mix, choosing the right tube will have a major impact on the overall sound of the amplifier. Unlike other manufacturers where the circuits in their equipment require you to use a certain type of tube and brand with their products, the Black Ice Audio amplifiers make it easy for you to roll different types and brands. With the use of the onboard meter and the tuning wand provided with the product, you’re able to bias accordingly. It’s that easy.

AMAZING CONTROL

The Odyssey Circuit gives our pure tube amplifiers the bass performance of solid state. You get all the smooth detail in the highs and 3D holographic mid range of tubes but maintain that tightly controlled bass that solid state amplifiers are known for. No other pure tube amp can compete with our Odyssey Circuit.

LOW NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

We only need 4.5 dB of negative feedback to control any oscillation in our circuit because we only use 2 gain stages in our amplifiers. Less negative feedback means a cleaner signal and better sound reproduction. Typical tube amplifiers can use up to 6 gain stages which add magnitudes of distortion to the signal and need as much as 20dB of negative feedback to control. Negative feedback in amplifiers is like scrubbing a stained white T-shirt. The darker the stain the harder it is to remove, if you have a light stain(2 gain stages) you can remove all of it easily(4.5 dB). A really dark stain(6 gain stages) and you have to scrub it very hard(20 dB), you won’t totally remove it, and you will likely damage the fibers of the T-shirt in the process.

EXACT TUBE BIASING

Bias our tubes in under 30 seconds with the centralized backlit Vu Meter and the Biasing selector switch which makes checking the bias amperage in real time simple with a turn off the knob. Using the provided tuning wand and the backlit Vu Meter each tube can be biased exactly where you want it. We design our amplifiers to run at the exact setting for the user selected power tubes, we do not feel any auto-bias that operate within a range is superior to the user dialing in the correct setting for the specific tube. We admit that Auto Biasing is a cool tagline, but Black Ice Audio prioritizes audio purity and tube life and Exact Tube Biasing is the only way to achieve that goal without compromise.

MAXIMUM DYNAMICS and CLASS A CURRENT

We design all of our amplifiers to have full dynamics at low power. Current is what drives speakers! To maximize available current we designed the circuit to exploit the Triode side of the tube with maximum efficiency producing the most Class A current possible before we leverage the Pentode and push/pull for overdrive. Our amplifiers can drive inefficient speakers with ease and our watts per channel rating is not a reflection of our true power.

ULTRA FAST CIRCUIT TRACES

Our PCBs are specially designed by us and built with traces which are superior to P2P wiring: The control board and signal/power supply board are integrated to lower the chance of failure and shorten the path for electrons to flow. A shorter path means that there is less opportunity for interference or noise to be introduced into the signal.

JUPITER CONDENSOR CAPS

Increase the speed, air between notes, resolution, and bass extension. It reveals everything an artist intended in the recording. Uncluttering complex sections of music and minimizing the time to get the signal to your speakers. Finally, it enhances the smooth character that makes a poor recording sound better.

VISHAY NAKED Z FOIL RESISTORS

Improves detail, definition, transparency, accuracy, and lowers the noise floor. It extends the noise floor and black background and gives more separation to each note, creating a more detailed presentation. Because of their extremely accurate tolerances, they bring back the frequencies that other resistors filter out and lower distortion. Naked Z Foil Resistors induce the least noise possible in a circuit.

OCC WIRE(Single Crystal Cast 12 Ga):

Improves dynamics and microdynamics. Crescendos will explode with power and the smallest background detail will become noticeable giving you the information between the notes.

WELLS DC FILTRATION:

Filters AC noise and is like having a small power condition in your amplifier. It lowers the noise floor up to 45 dB creates an inky black background and creates a huge 3D soundstage not possible without this technology.

ISO ACOUSTIC FEET

Isolates the chassis from the material your amplifier is placed on making sure it doesn’t affect the sonic signature of the F85A and creating a neutral background. The feet also dampen unwanted extremal vibration such as the sound waves from your speakers on the chassis and also minimize the transfer of internal micro vibration to your other equipment.

STEREO SUBWOOFER OUTPUT

Stereo left/right sub outputs(not mono) RCA subwwoofer output for maximum versatility.

BLACK ICE AUDIO TECHNOLOGY

INCLUDED IN THE BOX

• F85A Integrated Amplifier

  
  

• F85A Remote Control

  
  

• 4 Power Tubes

  
  

• 4 Pre-Amp Tubes: 12AX7

  
  

• Bias Tuning Wand

  
  

• Power Cord

  
  

• Dust Cover Bag