SET12

Romak, Congrats on your Forte purchase! Yes a capacitor upgrade can do wonders! And I have recently upgraded my outboard crossovers from Hovland capacitors to Mundorfs. An easy thing for me to do because I designed my networks to be able to audition any brand easily. The expense of my project was more than twice what you paid for your Forte's but I'll tell you I wouldn't trade my Forte's for any other Klipsch for what I'm hearing from mine right now! As far as upgrading there are any number of people that can help you as I'm sure youv'e read on the forum. Below is a picture of the stock network vs. my network. SET12

Hello all, The VT25 is the equivalent to the 10 which is good for about 1.6 watts according to its 1930's data sheet. Its close enough to a 45 IMO which is good for 2 watts. "I was looking at the globe one which I guess doesn't have the Thoriated filament" which is less power out! I like 300B's I have a close friend that uses them for 7 watts with his La Scala's which use a DIY ALK crossover he also uses Western Electric 300B's and likes them very much! As for a preamp needed I disagree. I have a 572-10/811-10 SET amp making 10 watts with 500 millivolt sensitivity for full power used with modified Forte's. I drive my mono block amps CD direct from my variable outs from a Sony X77ES player which can drive the amps to clipping at about 2/3 plus or so depending on the recording just fine. I have no need for additional gain, I could use a linestage if I want to but I find that they get in the way for me! Its an additional gain stage or gain stages in the signal path which depending on the preamp can compress music dynamics as well lower a systems resolve, I have a huge soundscape as well as striking transparency with very,very good dynamics from just two voltage gain stages in the system. But I'm open minded to trying a preamp out and I'm hoping SWL will be able to make a get together at my place on March 22nd to try out his Peach II as it has been a while since I have had a preamp in my system and he will be listening to a very powerful SET amp as well. It should be interesting. I might point out that I to am a major DIY designer and if I like what I hear I guess I'd have to consider designing a line stage but it would have to have considerable performance for me to consider designing and building one. SET12 The set amps I had sounded good with some preamps but when I added the high gain George Wright preamp I found the sound was vastly improved. Is it possible that this was due to the 6SN7 tubes in the pre and not the high gain? I hadn't that about this before but the change was drastic. I'd love to hear an 811 based SET. Thank you Seti, I have some experiance with 6SN7's several friends of mine own them a very fine sounding tube! Some of them don't like the 6SN7's microphonic tendencies but the tube is very transparent with 2 out of 3 people I know loving them. They are using Cary line stages. I think the secret to getting by without a line stage is having sufficient gain in a power amp and having a strong full bodied CD player. With gain if your set up at a 2 volt input sensitivity and I'm at 500 milli volts or .5 volts in thats 12 db difference, Theres the line stage gain! Most of my listening is midway on my Sonys volume control this puts its output impedance at 5k but its not an issue with short cables and a 500K input impedance of my poweramps. Now think of this if your using a preamp with an audio taper volume control and its at a midway setting your thinking I'm at the halfway mark I must be using half of the signal coming in! No your actually using 20% of the signal coming in! Thats 14 db attenuation of the original signal! Which means your close to what is called unity gain meaning the signal coming in is equal to the signal coming out! And thats the part that kills me! Some people need the flexibility in their systems I guess. And some would argue that they need the life that a line stage brings. And that maybe so for them but its not my in my case and I just as soon put the funds into the front end source componets that can drive direct the difference is not subtle for some as well! As for the 811 the tube is very nice especially its glow one of the prettiest around! with its thoriated yellow filament glow! Its sound is very full and musical. But the 572 is another story! Its not as pretty to look at but its job is to sing and sing it does! Since the addition of Bottle Heads C4S current source to my 6EM7 driver tube for my SET amp the differences have become greater between the 811 and the 572 with the 572 hands down the clear winner in my book! The tubes designers ment it to compete with the 845 or the 211 and I think they really have suceeded even though it is not as popular as they have hoped it would be. Its smaller than the 811 or the 211/845 tubes and I think that had an impact. but it has the capacity to make 40 watts on a 1000 volt B+ and I have as of late been thinking of raising the amps power output even though it not necessarily needed but on extremely demanding peaks its useful. The 572 has nauce capacity that the 811 only hints at. And right now they are directly inter changeable. If you live in the midwest and you'd like a listen give me a PM SET12

Hello all, The VT25 is the equivalent to the 10 which is good for about 1.6 watts according to its 1930's data sheet. Its close enough to a 45 IMO which is good for 2 watts. "I was looking at the globe one which I guess doesn't have the Thoriated filament" which is less power out! I like 300B's I have a close friend that uses them for 7 watts with his La Scala's which use a DIY ALK crossover he also uses Western Electric 300B's and likes them very much! As for a preamp needed I disagree. I have a 572-10/811-10 SET amp making 10 watts with 500 millivolt sensitivity for full power used with modified Forte's. I drive my mono block amps CD direct from my variable outs from a Sony X77ES player which can drive the amps to clipping at about 2/3 plus or so depending on the recording just fine. I have no need for additional gain, I could use a linestage if I want to but I find that they get in the way for me! Its an additional gain stage or gain stages in the signal path which depending on the preamp can compress music dynamics as well lower a systems resolve, I have a huge soundscape as well as striking transparency with very,very good dynamics from just two voltage gain stages in the system. But I'm open minded to trying a preamp out and I'm hoping SWL will be able to make a get together at my place on March 22nd to try out his Peach II as it has been a while since I have had a preamp in my system and he will be listening to a very powerful SET amp as well. It should be interesting. I might point out that I to am a major DIY designer and if I like what I hear I guess I'd have to consider designing a line stage but it would have to have considerable performance for me to consider designing and building one. SET12

I started with tubes as a kid going to the drug store testing my TV's tubes by the time I was in Junior High I had my first tube FM console bare metal chassis sitting on a piece of wood so I could watch it glow late into the night listening to headphones I believe it was a Single-Ended EL84 reciever producing 4-5 watts/channel. By the time the seventies rolled around I was into big SS power to the tune of 400 watts/channel I went through EQ's, DBX's, 3 head cassette Decks, you name it. By the 80's I saw some light and sold all the gizmo stuff I had and went with some very good quailty basic electronics with substantially less power and discovered that quality is better than quanity. In the early 90's surround sound showed up and I was into the HT racket I complained to a friend that my two channel sound was terrible and he pointed at all the wiring and said get rid of all that stuff. And he was right. In the late 90's I started building a SS buffered preamp out of a Stereophile Magazine project. My good friend raised his voice to me and asked what are you doing wasting your time with that? You should be working with tubes!! I studied an RCA tube manual and learned enough theory to build a simple tube buffered line stage and I have never looked back. I also ran into a project in Glass Audio and built my own version of a Thoriated 811 Single-Ended Tube power amp for 10 watts of SET power. It has enough sensitivity that I run my Sony X77ES players variable out direct to the amps of course this is very controversial but I was shocked at the resulting sound and the expensive FET line stage is still in the closet. My Speakers are Heavily modified Forte's and 100 db plus peaks are more than enough for me. I occasionally run my DVD player direct also, I need no sub as the Forte's go low enough for me and my Thoriated Transmitting Tube amplifiers have way more punch then any AV reciever I have heard. Ever since I saw my first amp which was equipped with such a tube with its yellow light I have been hooked to the life,drama,soundscape of them but beware not all SET's are equal. This particular amp is 40 watts. So it can be "Simple" May The Glow be With You! SET12

I posted this quite awhile back since I started using these my listening sessions are far more consistent! I am using a pair Furman Power Factor Correctors the cheapest verison retails 315$ I paid just 196$ for my last one from Full Compass a pro sound cataolog company. On their web site it goes for 260$ with a phone call I got it for the 196$ This a unique design as some designers feel this is a more important issue to go after this device can source current up to 45 amps peak it is ratted for 8 amps continous unlike many others that use current limited transformer couplings and other tactics. Power Factor Correction in now mandatory on all computer power supplies in Euroupe and Japan due to largely poor quality power cause by line becomeing highly inductive which is bad for sourceing current needs for music! Nagra Electronics has designed this into their Referance Power Amps. Furman uses this in their referance conditioner retailing for 2500$ and this is available for 200$! A no brainer for me! Here is some comments on my experiances with my second Furman. SET NEWAS Exhalted GURU SET Gender: Posts: 355 Re: Furman Power Factor Correc « Reply #25 on: 25.08.2006 at 16:18:51 » Quote Modify Remove Well people I have purchased a second Furman! I was not prepared for its benefits! and I have been impressed enough that I will purchase another one for my front end componets! The best way I think to describe its effect on my system is to say that it enhances the effect of having monoblocks to a larger degree then I have previously ever heard puting more isolation between them perhaps preventing crosstalk on the AC line and of course each amp has its own AC current sourceing of up to 45 amps each! Way over kill but it is very audiable! This further enhanced the systems lateral imageing expanding more of the stage size bringing more recorded room ambiance out. It also makes everything more solid and rounder. SET

My DIY Phono Stage power supply above Gain stage below with more supply below This is a MC phono stage with 66db of gain. Yes its a Giant no doubt! But its resulting sound is nothing less than many of these stellar Tables and Cartridges. SET12

No your wrong. What it would do is drive quality american companies out of business if they try to compete on price because $ for $ competition with China is absolutely impossible. The American companies can only survive by selling quality above these Chinese products. There is no way in hell an American company can produce one of those amps with the cost of doing business and the materials in Amerca. Either of the amps above sell for a pretty good margin below what it would cost in materials for any american company to build even if they did use the cheapest garbage they could find to build it. I won't even get into the labor cost and working conditions....... Why do you think this country is losing so many manufacturing jobs? Want to know just how cheap those amp really are? .........I can buy similar amps in lots of 30 for about $275 each............ Parts express is making some good cheese off these amps trust me. I get bombarded with dealership offers from Chinese tube amp manufacturers all the time. Craig He's right here! I lost my manufacturing job of 27 yrs to foreign competition and now earn barely 2/3 of what I once use to. On occasion I have heard good sound such as the Tulip by Antique Sound but as a rule the Chinese amps are about price not quality! My 10 watt SET amps are a 1000$ in parts alone no way could I build them any cheaper without seriously compromising their quality. SET12 Yup your making 2/3 of what you made and the poor chump that is doing your old job over seas is making 1/10 of what you originally made. Soon we will all be making 1/2 what we made ten years ago if the US consumers keep buying any cheap POS just because it saves them a few bucks in the short term. I'm afriad It's a little late to change the trend now. Craig Actually having gone thru a divorce I am living on just 1/2 of what I once made but thats ok my daughter is priceless!

No your wrong. What it would do is drive quality american companies out of business if they try to compete on price because $ for $ competition with China is absolutely impossible. The American companies can only survive by selling quality above these Chinese products. There is no way in hell an American company can produce one of those amps with the cost of doing business and the materials in Amerca. Either of the amps above sell for a pretty good margin below what it would cost in materials for any american company to build even if they did use the cheapest garbage they could find to build it. I won't even get into the labor cost and working conditions....... Why do you think this country is losing so many manufacturing jobs? Want to know just how cheap those amp really are? .........I can buy similar amps in lots of 30 for about $275 each............ Parts express is making some good cheese off these amps trust me. I get bombarded with dealership offers from Chinese tube amp manufacturers all the time. Craig He's right here! I lost my manufacturing job of 27 yrs to foreign competition and now earn barely 2/3 of what I once use to. On occasion I have heard good sound such as the Tulip by Antique Sound but as a rule the Chinese amps are about price not quality! My 10 watt SET amps are a 1000$ in parts alone no way could I build them any cheaper without seriously compromising their quality. SET12

Chris, I to have struggled with some sites and this one is no different! Are you using a host site? Its usually easist for me I use this one! Click on the yellow image shack http://d3vmax.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!1pG9JUCZPzr_xPSf3UMkJf4A!1687.entry SET12 BTW nice system!

Its a great book he actually published two books the second covers his patent for OTL's and has schematics for projects if you go to www.diyaudio.com you'll find a forum with some 60,000 members world wide and plenty of imformation and experiance to support any project SET12

For some people it's about music sounding better. Price wasn't mentioned, but a cheap 100WPC reciever is usually not the path to better sound, regardless of which qualities one favors. Which people insisted they know more than the people who design and build these things? I do know this - I've heard high power Crowns (Micro-tech 1200 and Power Base 2) that sound like chewing glass compared to my Mc30 or $75 Teac Tripath amp. Did they have more "grunt"? I guess so, but I like to listen to music. I did crank the system up to 110dB at the listening position earlier this week just to remind myself what it was like. With Klipschorns just over 2m from my head, do you think my Mc30 were clipping? That's about 4W average, so 40W peaks? That's be on paper and disregarding all sorts of things that matter like room gain and possible miscalibration of my Radio Shack meter. My normal listening SPL is under 80dB average and I get plenty of musical satisfaction that way. I wasn't suggesting that high power has no place or is the wrong choice, only that it often leads to compromises in sound quality that I and many others here choose to avoid. IMO, YMMV, etc.... That was very well put Ben! I recently had the pleasure of listening to 3 watts from Antique Sounds Tulip! A great looking amp and sounds as nice as it looks we were doing a flea amp shoot out up against a 7 watt Cary 300B kit amp power house listening with LaScala's rated at 104db/watt. Using a Radio Shack meter we were at 95db levels at our chair at 1 watt peaks! I find that in alot of circumstances I can use a rule of a 10db loss from the 1 meter reading of a loudspeaker to the 3 meter reading at my chair. I also measured average voltage which was usaully under a volt and not much higher than a 1 1/2 volts translated to watts thats 125 - 280 milliwatts average power for those one watt peaks. These are Single-Ended amps that can respone with burst power that often goes well beyond their continuous power ratings this sometimes can be as high as 5 x their continuous rating and PP can be as high as 2 1/2 times their rating as well so clipping with these amps is much different than SS which has been shown to be like hitting a brick wall at clipping in other words don't expect the overhead that tubes can give. Now whats interesting is my own setup in contrast to the LaScala arrangement. I have 10 watts with my Fortes rated at 98db/watt with the volumes that I reach which is in excess of 100db at my chair. Now when taking the LaScala's into consideration for the same levels that I reach with my 10 watt amps and Fortes the LaScala's can reach my same levels with just 2 1/2 watts! Thats pretty amazing in my book! And no wonder we never ran into any issues of not enough volume with 3 watts. Now lets take a typical 88db efficient speaker 10 watts gets to 88db at the chair! 100watts gets to 98db at the chair and 200watts gets to 101db at your chair and if it could take it 1000watts would get to the 108db level at the chair! No wonder why I love these Klipsch's with Single-Ended amps that have a wealth of harmonic imformation that just bloom's with Klipsch's and if your into Transmitting Triodes as I am you can have even more grunt that can be competitive with SS! So how was the Bass in the flea power setup? Very,very good! for tube bass none of us had any desire for the last bit of grunt that SS can give! In fact the owner of the LaScala's said who needs a Sub? With the performance that we were hearing! Although I like great bass as much as alot of people! I am more concern about 100-20000hz than 20-100hz although I have my limits of poor performance. And I have no issues with what I have in my systems performance. I get an even deeper response and low end grunt down into the low 30's that I can feel in my chair from the Fortes with my own outboard crossovers but I had to agree the LaScalas were very good with bass! I might add that he is using a DIY crossover based on the ALK which is a huge factor in the ability of the LaScalas bass performance IMO. SET12

Brendan, I can't imagine any real obstacles to building a great tube amp, I lost my job after a plant closing so I elected to go back to school at the age of 46 for an Associate Degree in Electronics Technology. I used my tube electronics and speaker crossovers for school projects not only for my electronics classes but even for a written communications class! I even demonstrated my whole system to the Communications class for a paper that I wrote "The Joy of Vaccuum Tube Audio" They loved it! I choose the Titanic soundtrack of which afterwards a couple of young guys asked where my sub woofer was? Of course I replied I have none! They where even more shocked at the fact that I was using just 10 watts! In my paper I covered the movie industry history of the use of the Western Electric Model 91 300B amplifiers and an article on how to build one from scratch! Needless to say I got an "A" from that class. My one of my Electronics instructors even developed an elective course credit for my crossover project which I had to document the crossovers performance and demonstrate it. I have a pair of Forte's rated at 98db/watt like your RF82's rated the same!

Yeah! My Forte's are 98db/watt and I get in excess of 100db listening levels in a 14ftx18ft room from 10 watts of single-ended tube power easy! So you shouldn't have any issues unless something is wrong with your amp! SET12

The EQ I use is cheap and good for what it does for a 100$ or less. but it is not going to do anything for a good refined presentation that good Digital can give. In other words slop going in is slop going out! The EQ will make things a little more tolerable at best in my experiance. I have a Sony X77ES this is a top of the line model which is extreamly well built and weighs in at 37lbs I bought this player new for 600$ in a box because my dealer got a special from another dealer this player or newer models sells for 5-700$ used I've had mine for 15 yrs and only once has it gone to the shop for minnor repairs the player retails for nearly 2000$ And I intend to replace it with another high end Sony in the future when this one quits or is unrepairable I find its sound still very competitive with many new 1000$ plus players But there are some options you might want to consider! But for 200$ you maybe able to find a used outboard D to A converter and use your DVD as a transport. I have an Adcom that is pretty good! I bought it for 250$ new in a box because the dealer just never sold it it went new for maybe 800$ Heck you might check on a Mccormack possibly even! I read some very good opinions of your amps and they deserve a front end that serves justice to them! Of course all this is just my 2 cents worth! SET12

Great! Now were getting somewhere! Absoulutely you can point your finger to the player! I use them myself not really caring for home theater much! The audio is very bad but some are better then others some even have EQ built in to them check its audio settings. I bought a Radio Shack EQ made pretty decent for under a 100$ it may be on sale last I saw it. It has15 bands / channel for use with my DVD player works great but even with a decent EQ don't expect good bass lines and lots of defination mine I still get a very decent sound stage from with the EQ which surprised me! SET12

They are suppose to be pretty good!

AZNracerx1989, Just what are you useing for a CD player? I noticed that you asked about your amp under amplifier questions you have to remember that your system is only as good as your weakest link! I hope its not a buget player as that would explain alot!

Thats ok! Its a preference thats all! Out of a dozen or so people that I know only one my best friend uses tone controls and a loudness switch for audio I use a graphic EQ for my cheap 30$ DVD player as it is very thin sounding my CD player is 2000$ and I do use the EQ for my factory car stereo otherwise I'd gag!

It would be nice if you had a schematic for the Jolida. There should be less feedback subing the 12AU7 if its global or local feedback. the 12AU7 has a mu of 20 and the 12AT7 is 60 I believe. The coupling caps are they Wima's? Glad your happy!

LMAO !!!!!! Stormin I agree here! Thats why I take profuse enjoyment in pointing out to lay audio people that I have no tone controls! The great bass I have from 10 watts doesn't use any kind of EQ and the statement I hear from Rap lovers is "how can that do that?" While LMAO !!!!! I'll have you know sir I was laughing with him not at him. And I find no enjoyment in rappers bass whatsoever. Also my bones are jarred with the bass I enjoy and I'm happy to hear you are happy as well with yours! Not a problem! Sir I'm glad you enjoy your system! I don't care for Rap either its the car stereo kids I demo for! As I said to each our own!

Rock'em! The only tubes that are soldered are ones that are setup with a 50-100,000 hr life these tubes that your using are good for 6000 hrs or more depending on the circuit and sometimes yes that can be alot of yrs even decades but even still I can't see them soldered!

LMAO !!!!!! Stormin I agree here! Thats why I take profuse enjoyment in pointing out to lay audio people that I have no tone controls! The great bass I have from 10 watts doesn't use any kind of EQ and the statement I hear from Rap lovers is "how can that do that?" While LMAO !!!!!

Yeah! but their is a cost to do that in sonics, It has a good reputation for SS! What are you using for a source? and your experiance with harshness is why I and others prefer tubes with Klipschs!

I can't imagine them not coming out, they don't last forever! perhaps they are just tight as heck did you try rocking them? What tubes does it use? SET12

Sounds like your turning the pre off first on shut down when the power amp should be first off then the pre. Your right 370 watts is alot of power but as you may be learning power isn't everything! It is for some people though! but not me especially with Klipsch's and I got to tell you I just listened to LaScala's this weekend with a 3 watt amp called the Tulip it was just gorgeous and the price for it is a 1000$ worth every penny if I do say so myself. We had a shoot out up against a 300B amp that made a powerhouse of 7 watts the 3 watter easly played into the mid ninties db which is fairly loud for most but not all people and I might add that the preamps volume control ran between 11 and maybe 1 o'clock at the most. I myself don't use a preamp just CD direct from my variable outs I have just a strong 10 watts and my CD volume control will clip my amps between 2 and 3 o'clock most of my listening is in the 10 to 12 o'clock range my players volume control is a linear type which means at the 12 o'clock position I am at 50% of the control. So let me tell you that since you likely have an audio tapper control you are likely only using just 5-!0% of the your preamps volume control or in other words your only feeding just 5-10% of the incoming signal to your preamp and thats not good in my book. The 12 o'clock position maybe between 15 and 20% at most and I have measured a few. If your serious about two channel you could do CD direct but you need a high input impedance maybe 50k ohms if its lower you could use a buffer such as Musical Fidelity's X-10 buffer it is for just this issue and it has a Class A rating all for 399$ and its tube! As for loudness controls its hard for people that use them alot to walk away from some never will but there are rewards simple circuitry such as my own with just two gainstages has its merits vs a 1/2 dozen or more that most SS has. There are many things that you can try! I guess its what your needs are! Good Luck! SET12