Walt Koch

The Jensen caps are the bumb! Installed them on the upper branch of the crossover networks and with just a few hours of burn-in they sound great! In one word SMOOTH! My Khorns never sounded better, a 10 on the old mod scale. Try it you'll like it. Walt

Vacuum Tube Valley did a article on PWK and modifying Khorn in there most recent issue. http://www.vacuumtube.com/

Les, I've removed the entire tweeter protection network of my AK-3 crossover inductors, caps, etc. Replaced it with a simple arrangement of two Hovland caps 2.0uf and 1.5uf wired in parallel giving a value of 3.5uf. Not sure if this is for everyone, but I like the way it sounds and the simplicity. The Hovland caps required about 30 hours of burn in and in my system produce a cleaner more detailed sound. As for the tweeter protection I've had it cranked up pretty good and the tweeters are still alive. Good luck! Can't wait to hear all about it. Walt

HMS, Sounds like you already have a nice combo, but check out Spectral Audio's pre-amps. They are not tube pre-amps, however they work very well with tube amps. I listen to the Spectral DMC 20 coupled with a pair of VLT 185's it was amazing very quite and open. The Spectral stuff is also very expensive. At the moment I am using a dual passive attenuator from Reference Line more of a purest approach, I guess, but I sure would like to try a Spectral in my system, which I am sure would put the passive right out the door for good. Walt quote: Originally posted by HMS: Walt, I've used the 125's for the last six months. (purchased new) I love them!! Right now I'm using an Audio Reasearch LS3 and a Rega Planet. AR dropped the gain on the LS-3 by 10db for me and that helped lower the noise floor and make the gain control useable. I love the LS3 too but would be willing to try a good (quiet!!) tube preamp. Any recommendations? Thanks HMS

Dear Gentlemen: I asked, George Cardas to weigh-in on the question of soldered or crimped connection, which is the best? The following is his reply. Well Walt, I would say that most crimped connections are better than most Soldered connections however the best connections are soldered connections -- the problem is that there is only one type of solder connection that is truly a joint most are as the word stated a connection. Most solders such as the most popular 60/40 are a slurred mixture of tin and lead in making the joint the tin-lead mixture is melted but as it solidifies it does so one metal at a time, so it goes into a slurry state and one metal is liquid and the other is solid very small particles sort of like wet cement. next the other metal solidifies and what you are left with is a, million little connections. This type of Connection is not particularly, good and not permanent. When the phone company that had to survive with this type of solders on their main frames every joint had to be, reheated once a year to insure reliability and even at that, the, "cold joint" was a regular thing. Bad and noisy joints were the main cause of failure in early printed circuit boards and electronic equipment until some time in the mid sixties or, early seventies someone figured out that eutectic joints were perfectly reliable and I do mean perfectly. BY the mid seventies or early eighties most electronic equipment was being soldered with eutectic solder (63/37) and the reliability of printed circuit boards went up about 1000% and solid-state gear began to sound almost tolerable -- Today all printed circuit Boards use 63/37 eutectic solder. Eutectic solder is a very special mixture. The melting point of a eutectic solder is LOWER that ANY of its component parts so there is no slurry state in these solders, they solidify as one piece and make a true solder joint not a connection. Now -- provided that the parts being soldered are made of a metal that is incorporated in the solder (tin plate in the case of the printed circuit boards and the leads on the components and the 63/37 tin/lead eutectic solder used the solder baths) you will have a perfect joint. These joints are easy to see. Most solders are very shiny when molten and get a haze on the surface as they solidify, eutectic joints are shiny all the way to the metal being soldered if the metal being soldered is of the same parent group as any of the components parts of the solder. The connectors I use are basically silver with a rhodium flash and the only wires used in high-end audio are copper and silver so I developed a tin-lead-silver-copper eutectic or QUADEUTECTIC solder. I have NEVER had or heard of a single failure of one of these joints this solder is now used in the vast majority of all cable and equipment in the high-end. Properly done Quadeutectic joints provide the best sound lowest noise and contact resistance with absolute reliability. cheers George

Les, For years I used a Mac 240, but recently purchased a use pair of VTL MB-125 monoblocks. They use the EL 34 tubes and in the preferred triode mode make 60 watts, that's way more than needed, however they have a very sweet sound and nice bottom end punch. The Cardas conductors are stranded urethane enamel litz wire. It is recommended the ends be tined in a solder pot and the connection be solder with Quadeutectic solder and rosin flux. Walt

Dear Fellow Enthusiast: Last weekend, I replaced the Monster Cable hook-up wire on the crossover networks and drivers of my 1983 Klipschorns with Cardas hook-up wire. This mod cost about 100 bucks for the three sizes of conductors and solder, but it's a 10 on the cost affective meter. Cardas recommend 11.5 awg for the woofers and inputs, 15.5 awg for the squawkers and 20.5 awg for the tweeters. This mod was not a cheep one, but for me a very worthwhile one, that brought a new level of musical realism reproduction to my system. The wire took about four hours to burn in and I've had a big smile ever since.