Deang

I'm not suprised that you can hear them breaking in -- very common with the Reference line up. Throwing your tube amp into the mix will be a substantial improvement. I also moved from planars to horns. It's been about 3 years now. Consensus here is that horns benefit from active preamps. Eventually, you might want to move to that over the passive you are using now. Placement wise, I would move them back a little, about three feet from the back walls, and toe them in so those horns are pointed right at your head. This will minimize side reflections, and get you closer to a 3D image.

Character of the tube will largely be determined by the circuit. Whether the amp sounds somewhat lush and romantic versus a more incisive and dynamic sound will depend on several factors, especially whether it's tube rectified or not. EL-84 and EL-34 are both good tubes. Personally, I favor the KT-88 over the EL-34. I've never heard the 6550, but I know Kelly doesn't think to much of it. I would concentrate on circuit types first -- triode, pentode, ultralinear, or SET -- get that narrowed down first. Figure out your power requiements based on sensitivity of the speakers, room size, and listening habits. Whatcha been looking at ?

Dayton, Ohio We just did this around 4 months ago, and Justin was building a database. Guess we can ask him about it after he gets well and comes back.

I tried to make it through that other thread last night about 2 in the morning -- I gave up. What the hell happened over there? Checked out the Rockets last night. They look like very good speakers for the money. They certainly appear to have that in common with Klipsch. The Vifa ring tweeter is pretty sweet -- it would sound better with a nice horn wrapped around it though.

Yes, Grandma's are cool -- especially when they pull double duty. Bummer Crash. I'm sorry for your loss.

Craig, I always wondered how that 'grounding' thing worked. Dude, you are right! When I first got the Apollos, I had them both grounded, and man, the hum was awful. Kelly mentioned lifting the grounds, and so I went and got some nice adapters. I'm telling you, the hum was cut in more than half. I've been tempted into going with some 1 prong plugs. I'm thinking this will probably get rid of the remaining hum - what do you think?:)

Arco, she's beautiful. Now THIS, is an amplifier!

Let's hear it for lame *** cords!!

The Cardas Golden Ratio method is cool, but you really need a dedicated room to do it. Really though, one can get 90% there if they just make sure the distance from adjacent walls are of unequal distance.

You've probably guessed by now that no one wants to touch this one, and for good reason. I can accept the ability of audio cables, which carry with them the actual audio signals between components and speakers, to have an audible effect due to variances in resistance, capacitance, inductance, and the various distortion types. However, "sound" being effected by raw AC coming from a wall socket into the beginning of a components power supply path is a bit much for me to handle. Of course, you're hearing something! I know Kelly believes they make a difference, maybe he'll chime in at some point. In the meantime -- I'll do some surfing on it. I just haven't gotten to this point yet.

Removed my post, because it wasn't any of my damn business to begin with.

Sorry Kelly, I actually missed your post after Dales, as I had my edit window up for a while here at work before I posted. Thanks for answering the questions. Strange about the 5692's, I just couldn't hear any difference -- kind of like I couldn't hear any difference with the cables.

What works best is totally room dependant. We use some general guidelines, but since no two rooms are the same -- you just have to experiment. Also consider that the character of bass can change drastically from one recording to the next. So, perfection is ever allusive. Kelly is right in that typically, moving speakers closer to walls and corners isn't going to tighten up the bass, as a matter of fact -- it sould get worse. Bass, by it's very nature is 'slow'. Of course, we know the speed of sound is a constant, but bass involves long pressure waves, and to the ears -- the more bass, the 'slower' everything sounds. When you move closer to the walls/corners and floors, you 'grow', or increase the output of the bass. In fact, you can get to a point where the bass is discontinuous (discontinuity) from the rest of the sound. Going the other direction will attenuate the output, and though this may seem somewhat 'tighter' or 'faster' -- you may be robbing yourself of some decent output down in the 35HZ area. The key here is balance, I wouldn't get too hung up on 'tightness' and 'loosness' right now, but instead -- try to bring the bass into a proper relationship with what the rest of the speaker is doing. Remember, you want the music to draw you in to the point that you are no longer paying specific attention to the various interplay between the drivers -- what you are after is seamlessness. Once you achieve this, you will find that any feeling of inadequacy you have regarding the bass will diminish. At this point, you can move towards Allan's solution -- which is really the best. I think using risers with the Cornwalls are the best solution towards actually changing the CHARACTER of the bass signature. Here is why: Though I've never owned or heard Cornwalls, I have some strong feelings regarding woofers being coupled, or in close proximity to the floor. Walls, and intersecting walls (corners) are not in the direct line of fire of the woofer's output. Walls are behind, and adjacent to the drivers. The floor however, is between you and the speakers. With floors, I think more is going on than simply coupling. I have extensive experience with the Dahlquist DQ-10, which was originally sold with itty bitty legs, that coupled the woofer to the floor. Raising the DQ's only 4 inches higher had a profound impact on the perceived quickness of the drivers. I found through experimentation -- that moving the speakers up and down -- had far greater impact on the character of the bass sound then when moving them forward and backward. I'm not an expert on theories of wave propagation, so I can't really explain what is going on here -- I just know from what I've experienced first hand. I could increase the perceived output of the bass with the walls and corner, but moving the speaker up and down impacted what I would call 'pace'.

I don't expect any CD player to move me closer to the 'vinyl' experience, I think they simply occupy two completely separate realms. What I want my CD player to do is sound GRAIN FREE -- which as far as I'm concerned, is what separates the good ones from the average ones. At that $350 mark, you could pick up a nice Cambridge Audio player from www.audioadvisor.com, or hit the used market. Personally, a CD player is just something I wouldn't buy used. As a matter of fact, it is the ONLY component I would never buy used -- especially off of eBay. If you go used, go to www.audiogon.com, where most from this site are prone to taking care of their equipment. However, I would ask a lot of questions regarding any used CD player. Cambridge Audio D-300 SE CD Player http://www.audioadvisor.com/images/products/CAMBD300SEa.jpg'>

I personally believe all the 5692's were made by RCA. I've had three different versions of this tube, and outside of the color of the base, they are completely identical in construction. More importantly, I couldn't tell a squat of difference in the sound -- and hated all three equally. I think they sound thick and plodding through the RF-7's. My favorite 6SN7, at least in the AE-3 DJH -- is the Sylvania 6SN7WGT Chrome-top. What I was wondering...is if the Pantheon uses fully regulated power supplies and/or direct coupling between the gain and output stages (no capacitor)?

Unreal. I presume you read about my son, Austin, who was almost killed in a car wreck two weeks ago. Now get this: My wife, who likes to hang out on a forum of her own -- just found out that another Mom on that same forum, just lost her son, also named 'Austin' -- in a car wreck last night. I was thinking last night as I went to bed -- that these things come in 'threes' -- and man, I hope Justin is O.K. Can't remember the last time I woke up at 4 A.M. in the morning to cruise through this forum. Too wierd.

If I only had a brain. Thanks Mike. That will do nicely.

That's really true, technically, I'm always "broke", unless I sell something -- then I'm off and running again. Usually, I can manage to throw a few hundred towards a deal, since I wait a few months or so before trading gear around. Sometimes, I even sell off an item from my other 'hobby'. These amps were out of my reach unless the Apollos went first.

Oh crap, TB -- I'm supposed to give him money before the end of the month for some really cool tweets. Seems like I can never sell things off fast enough to get the new things I want. Another good deal down the tubes. Tom would chuckle at these "JBLs". I don't know, he might get nauseous, since they cross over at 5K. Actually, a "fluke" meter would be great, I didn't realize something like that was so affordable. I was thinking I needed something like what's sitting on Al K's workbench. I'm sure the caps have dried out some, but hey -- close would be better than a SWAG. Where do I get one of these things?

Dave, that made my whole day...oh gosh...that's funny. Jim, you are not in heaven. If you were, you would be dead.

...caps? Well, they are either caps, or old Russian toilet paper rolls left over from one of their numerous shortages. What's up with the wires on those things? Unfortunately, the values are not marked on the caps, and if you read anything from the link -- you learned that the geniuses at JBL managed to lose just about every scrap of data from the project. So...suggestions anyone? Can I send these caps to someone who can tell me what they are?

O.K. loons. Anyone remember these? Time to tap into that old gray matter. http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/jbl/aquarius.htm These are my Dad's. They've been out of service for about a decade. Since I'm already working on two sets of speakers, and have enough drivers, caps, resistors, and wire laying around to trip and strangle myself on-- I thought it fitting I take these on as well. I caught a hair a week or so ago, and decided to tear one of these down. I came away surprised with the quality of build. Real wood, with drivers that weigh about as much as an average bowling ball. Cool design really. The low frequency driver is a LE8T, which is actually a full range driver, and the tweeter is the LE20. The LE8T is slot loaded by using a radial horn, which is built into the endcap. It's very well done, being totally integrated into the wooden cap piece. The idea here is kind of 'Ohmish' if you know what I mean, with the idea being 360 degree sound -- which is what appealed to my Dad. Physically, the speakers are in great shape. Both drivers are fine, with the exception of the woofers having succumbed to very bad cases of foam rot. Until I started on this DIY thing, I had just assumed the awful sound was due to blown speakers. So, not the case, and I have already located replacement surrounds for the LE8T's. I just redid the surrounds on the DQ-10 woofers this weekend, and I don't anticipate any problems doing these. As a side note, if you ever decide to do this -- be sure to use test tones to ensure the voice coil is properly aligned in its magnetic gap -- bouncing the driver doesn't count. At any rate, Dad is going to rub out the wood with a kit, and I'm doing the drivers and crossovers. Of course, same old same old here. The resistor values are clearly marked, but the caps...well...I guess they're caps... Scroll down please...

The monoblocks are/were his personal amps. He only sold them to finance his next project -- which is to build the Pantheon amp. Tony got a hell of a deal, and I'm still tearing the feathers out of my pillows for not muscling my way into them. Buy hey, I AM a gentleman, and of course -- I'm flat broke at the moment. These amps had it all, and if I had to ballpark a figure -- I'd say they could be built again for a mere $3500. What do you think Kelly? As far as the preamp goes -- get real. This guy obviously knows what he's doing, and his attention to detail goes a LONG way to showing how much thought, time, and effort has gone into the design. The underside of his preamps makes my AE-3 DJH look like a complete clusterphuck.

I sure wish I could understand what the hell you guys are talking about.

Thank goodness I didn't end up with these, as there isn't near enough wire to satisfy my current fetish.