My objective is to duplicate the sound of a good jazz venue as best I can. I'll never match it but getting close is fine. I've had various audio components through the years and tubes particularly DHT tubes/ASSET have gotten me the closest. So this is where I will settle down and appreciate.
Balanced AC power is fantastic !! 1800va balanced isolation transformer/conditioner. All aspects of music reproduction are improved for every single component.
Tripoint Tripoint Troy.
A wonderful grounding box component. When added to my system it increased the sense of natural sound quality and emotional engagement. The Troy has a humanistic and “soulful “ quality to it.
Coincident Speaker Tech Total eclipse 2
This wonderful speaker is transparent,open and involving. It`s large yet completely disappears as the source of sound within the room. Very easy to drive,94db and 14 0hm impedance (Minimum 10 ohm). I replaced the stock Solens capacitor with the Duelund CAST in the crossover.
Coincident Statement linestage
Superb performance. In my opinion , a masterpiece by Israel Blume. As would be expected, a wonderful match with its sibling the Frankenstein MK II.
Coincident Speaker Tech Frankenstein mark 2
A terrific 300b SET amplifier that is the foundation of my system. The EML XLS 300b tubes are a superb match with this amplifier.
Acquiring these 300b SET mono blocks changed the course of my music listening experience. They elevated the emotional engagement, tactility and “breath of life “ realism.
Yamamoto YDA-01
Wonderful music lover's DAC that has a very natural/organic sound quality. Duelund CAST addition(output coupling capacitors) makes it sound even better. It has a very minimalist circuit/design that was implemented well.
Ocellia Silver Reference IC
Very natural and pure sounding with excellent tone and timbre preservation.
Ocellia Silver Reference Speaker Cable
Same qualities/ comments as the IC.
Star Sound Technologies Sistrum Apprentice component platforms..
These Star Sound platforms are mandatory in my system. Effectively managing resonance and vibration leads to a very noticeable sound improvement with every component and especially the speakers. Excellent product.
High Fidelity CT1 Ultimate Digital cable
A highly impressive digital cable that mates beautifully into my system. Contributes to the natural sound presentation.
Pro-Ject Audio Systems CD Box RS2T
This is a superb Redbook CD playback transport. It’s both high resolution and impressively natural.
. I’m using the excellent Fidelizer Nikola II LPS. Splendid pairing.
Lavricables Grand and Master series Power Cables.
Pure silver wire and unshielded power cables. These are used with all of my audio components. They are very open, transparent, high resolution with beautiful natural tone and timbre presentation.
Abbas Esoteric Audio 3.2SE
Built by renown Ukrainian Abbas Zulfugarov. NOS DAC utilizing the classic Phillips TDA 1541 multi bit chip. Two 6080 tubes in the analog stage. 5 various rectifier tubes in the power supplies.
3 separate toroidal transformers (And 2 chokes ) for the power supplies.A very serious and successful upper tier DAC implementation. Using with the Abbas SPDIF and power cable.
Long time since I've posted in your thread. The Spatial M4's continue to sing with the Audio Note Kits "Kit 1" 300B SET amp. What a great (and cost effective) match for single-ended amplification. Highly recommended!
Map, I had a Manley Mahi tube pre with a Bel Canto S300 Class D amp sometime ago... used it with my Ohm speakers, in fact. It was a pretty good combo. But I built an integrated amp because at this stage of things I got tired of having to flip 6 or 7 switches just to play a CD. I might migrate back to separates at some future time, but at this point simplicity is most appealing.
Thanks so much to all of you for chiming in I love you guys. :-)
Charles: If the Coincident Triumph Extreme II happened to be about $1000 less expensive that is to say, a more or less even swap for my the De Capo's on the used market, I would jump at it. I may talk to Israel anyway just to see what he thinks. Now, for what it's worth, Brian really thinks that his EL34 push-pull amp is a spectacular example of what push-pull can be when implemented with extreme care and top-flight parts. Where I am at the moment and this varies throughout the day :-) is that the Kit 1 is pretty fabulous and I'd be better off finding a pair of speakers that really allow the amp to show what it can do.
Dazzling It's interesting what you said about the power cord. The Kit 1 doesn't even include a power cord in the kit. I'm guessing that Brian figures that at this level, people are going to go out and try a boutique power cord, anyway. I've never tried a fancy power cord and I, too, don't want to get involved in debates about the efficacy of "wires." I will say, however, that I believe that at least speaker cables sound different. Audio Advisor has their Pangaea line of very reasonably priced power cord upgrades and I might try one of those. Right now I am running the amp with a power cord cannibalized from an old computer, I think. (Please don't start throwing things.)
Jet I would love to try Audio Note speakers I would even try building one of their kits. The problem is that corner placement just isn't an option in my current room. It might be, one day, but right now it's not a dedicated listening room and I don't have that kind of speaker placement flexibility.
Al I completely and totally agree with you. And in all the exploration I had done on various forums about this, I couldn't remember who it was or where it was that someone (you) posted the National Research Council measurements. The other day I googled something like "De Capo sensitivity measurement graph" and I found it. And yes, you are correct, in their measurements (I don't have enough of a technical background to understand why their measurements are so much different than the ones that John Atkinson did years ago) the De Capo is only 92 dB efficient across a very narrow frequency band from about 1000-2000 Hz! Averaged, it's only 86 db. That, I think, has to be a lot of the issue.
Thaluza Thanks for chiming in. The Kit 1 does sound better as it breaks in, no doubt about that. I was listening to some of my favorite music last night and it sounded breathtaking I mean, really, I was mesmerized. The material that is giving me trouble, again, is pop music with what is probably "pipe organ" frequency synthesized bass. With that music, unless I listen at levels lower than what energize the room, some pretty ugly clipping distortion sets in.
One other question, guys: I know a lot of people turn their noses up at Klipsch, but do any of you know anything about their current lineup?
Again, thanks for the brilliant comments and suggestions.
Hello Charles and fellow SET-heads, Okay, it's time to seek your advice. My Audio Note Kit 1 300B SET is completed and making music! I want to thank you all for your guidance and inspiration and ask your advice. The amp sounds beautiful, increasingly so as it breaks in. The words that most come to mind are "pure" and "clear." There is a pristine, crystalline quality to the music that is really something. In fact, I would not describe this amp as "tubey"romantic or rolled off in any way. It sounds fast, clean and modern. Additionally, its ability to suggest ambience and spatial relationships is through the roof. I was listening to a live album with which I am intimately familiar and was shocked by how much more live it sounded than my old Manley push-pull amp. Tonality is great, too. And this is with the entry level, stock Chinese 300B's! So in sum, this amp is a MAJOR sonic improvement over my old gear. Yay! Now for the dilemma and advice. For much of my music, the amp sounds beautiful. But for some of the pop music that I like to listen to, especially anything with VERY deep, sustained, hip-hop style synth bass, the amp will clip very noticeably when played at room energizing levels. Bass breaks up and the singer sounds like they're gargling. For example, Lorde's album "Pure Heroine" is full of this kind of material, and so is Sade's "Soldier Of Love." Played at lower than normal listening levels, they sound great. But by 11 o'clock on the volume pot, which is about where I'd be for my typical listening levels with this amp, clipping sets in on those CD's. By the way, most of my LP's sound fantastic. I am running Reference 3A De Capo speakers. They are rated at 92 db efficient, but I am beginning to think that this rating is "optimistic." Granted, the Kit 1 will drive the De Capo's to more than satisfying volume levels in my 11 x 16 x 8 foot room, but with some music, such as the aforementioned, I have to dial the volume back to avoid clipping. I see my options as follows: 1) Stick with my current gear and accept that a 300B SET amp paired with the De Capo's has limitations. I spoke to Tash Goka at Reference 3A, by the way, and this is essentially what he confirmed. 2) Stick with the Kit 1 and look for more efficient speakers. I've thought of Omega's or Tekton Lore's. The problem here is that I cannot lay out money that I don't have in hand, so I'd have to take a leap of faith and sell the De Capo's to finance any new speaker purchase. Your thoughts here? Let's say I could get between $1500 to $2000 for the De Capo's. What would you look at? 3) Brian has offered to take the Kit 1 back if I'm not entirely happy and get me their L4 EL34i push-pull integrated kit with the C-Core transformers, which is supposed combine the virtues of SET the gutsiness of push-pull. It puts out 35 watts per side and would certainly drive my De Capo's well. Eager to hear your thoughts...
Charles, You're most welcome. I'm getting there with the build. Got some more wiring to finish and, with any luck, it'll be done by early next week, depending on my work schedule. A few of my tubes were back-ordered when the kit shipped. Those just shipped out to me today from Canada! Hooray!
Any of you fine folks ever hear any of the Spatial Hologram OB models with a SET amp? They are 95 db efficient but a 4 ohm load... reviews have been ecstatic.
Charles, thank you! Well, found out from Brian yesterday that shipping was delayed a day. Anyway, I finally have a tracking number today for one of the two boxes the really heavy one that contains all four of the transformers. The other box will ship out tomorrow, containing the tubes and all the lighter parts. My impression is that Brian, himself, along with at least one other person, personally packs all the kits before shipping. One cool thing about the way these are packed is that there are baggies corresponding to each build step of the instruction manual. In other words, rather than simply getting a bag full of resistors, or a bag full of capacitors, you get the mixed parts for each step. This sounds very thoughtfully done to me, which I am hoping is an indicator of potential quality of the final product. We shall see :-)
Charles, Thanks for your help on the "Greatest Bargain in SET" thread for getting me on the road to what I hope will be a more musical and engaging listening experience. I appreciate your advice and patience. Audio Note Kit 1 should be here in a week or so!
I heard Wynton many years ago at Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center in NYC. He played the Haydn B-flat Trumpet Concerto, which is a war horse of the trumpet repertoire that - as a former player - I knew by heart. Wynton made a few mistakes that night - I remember him cracking notes here and there - but truthfully, his mistakes sounded better than my playing the correct notes! After the concert, I got to meet him in the "green room" and he signed my copy of that first classical LP, the year he won Grammy's for both best jazz and best classical album. I still have that record! He was only in his early 20th back then...
I am still coming to understand the various terms like DHT and pentode. If I wanted to go DHT SET I could build the Bottlehead Paramount mono blocks for around $1700, or if I get enough for my Manley Shrimp, I could perhaps even swing the entry level Audio Note 300b kit - but that would still leave me short for a line stage. Perhaps, in the end, the Decware or Dynamo is still the way to go.
Charles, As the resident SET guru and in my never-ending quest to make myself nuts choosing a SET amp, let me ask you a question... Do you know anything about Wright Audio in Oregon? They have two integrated SET amps that are good looking, made in USA and very reasonably priced: http://www.wrightaudio.us/lolita.htm http://www.wrightaudio.us/royale_series_2.htm But I am unable to find anything substantive about these amps outside the company web site. Hmmmmmm....
