Dan D’Agostino Relentless Preamplifier

The Relentless Preamplifier represents the ultimate preamplifier design — a three-chassis architecture with a dedicated audio chassis for each channel and a separate power supply and control section positioned between them, the three interlocking through special foot mechanisms. The power section employs extensive electrical and magnetic shielding so that nothing it does reaches the circuits doing the listening.

The signal path is unlike anything else in preamplification. All gain is realized in the current domain, using proprietary multiple-output current mirrors with nearly thirty times the linearity of conventional designs. The path is fully complementary and balanced from input to output, on four-layer circuit boards that dramatically reduce distortion, with no negative feedback anywhere — and the response runs flat to 120 kHz. Inputs are balanced XLR only, rejecting common-mode noise across the full bandwidth, into an input stage with greater than 1-megohm impedance and 30-volt signal capability.

The operational details carry the same intent. The dual volume controls are each built from fourteen separate metal components, switching through military-grade high-linearity solid-state switches and discrete precision resistors, displayed either as Swiss-watch-inspired wands or numerically. Two-source, two-zone control is built in, and the optional Digital Streaming Module adds a field-upgradeable, Roon-certified DAC — one converter per channel, to 768 kHz/32-bit and DSD512.

It is on demonstration in the Scottsdale WAMM Room, doing the job that defines it: controlling the Relentless 800 monoblocks beneath the WAMM Master Chronosonic, with the dCS Varèse stack and the Clearaudio Statement V2 upstream. A preamplifier's contribution at this tier can only be heard through a system resolving enough to reveal it — which is exactly what that room exists to provide. Walk in during business hours, or book ahead for an extended session.