HPower

"Oh winchester21! - You Gotta Lotta 'Splainin To Do" That is, after you get a chance to play with all the different audition pieces that you are amassing. I know that I want to hear your thoughts.

winchester, Without doing anymore research and if I had to buy a higher powered tube amp right today, it would be a toss up between a pair of Craig's VRDs and the MC-275. But I don't have a spare 2Gr right now and I promised myself I would wait until the CND/USD exchange rate got a little closer to par, like last summer. Before the Welbornes, I was using a Jolida 300B at 8-9 wpc and that amp could rock pretty good but it had a bit of noise, hum at idle that bothered me. When I had my Cornwalls I used a pair of Quicksilver Mid Monos that were very nice but I think I would prefer trying an amp with the KT88, vs the EL34s in the Quickies. My buddy is using a HK Citation II (60 wpc KT88 from the 1960's) on his Altec Model 19s, I have been meaning to talk him into bringing it up to my place and try it on the KHorns. His Citation II sounds much nicer on his 19s than his HK Citation 12 (60 wpc SS from the 1970's) even with it in need of a bit of a rebuild... of which he has bought a parts kit and tubes from Jim McShane.

Hey winchester, Please give us an update after your Peach arrives, I would be very interested to get your impressions with the Peach in front of your MC2105. You are approaching your system in the opposite direction as I am, but I am guessing we may end up at the same spot. I have been running my KHorns with a pair of Welborne DRD45s, Peach II, JD-100, and am VERY satisfied with the sound. The 1.8 wpc are more than enough when I am sitting in the sweet spot, but like you, when I am elsewhere in the house I would like to be able to ask for a few more db. I was thinking, when I can swing it financially, of adding a SS amp to look after those occasions. Maybe an older Mac (2155, 2125, 7150, etc) or Classe (DR-9, Fifteen, CA-100, CA-150, etc). After reading your last statement, maybe a higher powered valve amp would be the way to go?

"Ahhhh, Bach..." Is that you, Radar?

Hey pythagore, Here are a couple of AGon amp listings that caught my eye: http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1242340707&/NOS-Valves-VRDs- http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1243031617&/Welborne-Labs-Laurel-300B-S And a couple of Preamp listings: http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1241835979&/Juicy-Music-Audio-Peach-Beauti http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1242775107&/Juicy-Music-Audio-Peach-II-

Hey Pete, "Bryston 4B . . Problem identified." I am not a Bryston hater, but the 4B is where I would 1st point my finger. My last non klipsch system consisted of: Musical Fidelity CDP... Modwight Pre... Bryston 14B... PMC OB1 speakers. It took me a while and $$$ to dial that rig into what turned out to be a very nice sounding system. Some NOS tubes for the SWL 9.0, Cardas Golden Ref ICs, Black Sands PCs. It wasn't until I logged several 100 hours on the Mod Preamp that the system sounded very good. Initially I was bothered by a lot of sibilance, but once the caps in Dan's great preamp had time to properly burn in it was all good. Bryston makes some great amps, but not for everybody's system and / or ear.

Pete, Your thread title very accurately describes a good friend of mine. A year or so ago he took the plunge back into vinyl after a 10 year hiatus from having a turntable. He got (what I think is) a pretty good table, a VPI Scout, can't remember the cartridge. The rest of his system: Classe CDP... Copland 301 tube pre... Bryston 4B... KEF 107s... these were originally my speaker that I sold to him a number of years ago. This is a fairly decent system, but, to my ears I can not take listening to it for any length of time. I am not sure what is cause, but it very fatiguing to me. My friend has let to get up and listen to my system, I am very interested to get his impressions compared to how he hears his system. As per your title, my friend will always points out to anyone and everyone how vinyl sounds so much better than any digital playback. I have heard some outstanding vinyl playback... but just because there is a TT in his system does not automatically mean superior sound... as my snobby friend believes. [^o)]

According to the discription... "Compress files by up to 98% of their original size."

I am guessing Greg used:

Hi Paul, welcome to the forum. Ovation Audio, is where I originally saw the Audio Space gear... Mike is a great guy to deal with. I ended up going with a Jolida JD-300B (9 wpc, SET, integrated) and have since changed to a pair of Welborne DRD 45s with a Juicy Music Peach II pre. The Novas look like very nice amps, is there a discernible difference in the sound when you switch between triode and ultralinear? Timmikid, Mallette... With this thread being over a year old, it is with much sadness as I re-read the string of posts. OB, gone but not forgotten.

I didn't really have a problem with him deciding to change the price, I was a little miffed at him turning his classified ad (traditionally the format on CAM) into a bidding situation. FleaBay would be a more appropriate venue for an auction.

Hey tnt95, I was looking at the same pair but was a little put off by the seller when after I inquired about the speakers he raised his price by $120. The seller said in his email back to me "the person to offer most over $xxx can have them". I thought this was suppose to be a classified, not a FleaBay auction. [*-)]

For anybody that would like to jump into the deep end with Claude and Mark, I just noticed this ad over on FeaBay: Item # 180321480387 For someone close by in Texas this could be a nice find... As part of a church system, I am sure they were driven by an old lady, Sundays only.

Doh

Hey Claude, Ya, that Shelby Lynne has some spooky good sound to it... glad you are enjoying it. If I find myself down in your neck of the woods I will make sure I try to drop in for a listen. Great work on your system... [Y]

All kidding aside Claude, I hope that I have the chance to get back down to Claude's place some day and hear the new set-up. When I was down last summer to pick- up that hot, single blonde... I mean La Scalla, I got a quick demo down in the man cave and it was VERY impressive! And that was still while it was a "work in progress" Congratulations Doctor, on another successful operation.

Then Claude found himself on the couch discussing his situation with a professional...

"Everyone else thinks I'm nuts but I'm in good company here, eh?" I have had the pleasure to meet Claude several times and own 3 of his speakers that I was fortunate to get when he started make room in his laboratory (Man Cave) for this CRAZY project. I even have a photo of Claude from one of my visits that does give some credibility to some thinking he is nuts.

Hey Peeper, That is a nice looking system with some great people behind your upgrades. After looking at you pics, I realize it might be difficult to make it work in your room but if you could find a way to try your Forte IIs on the long wall it might be worth trying. I was reasonably happy with the way my system was sounding, but then I tried my speakers on the long wall. What I thought sounded pretty good on the short wall has been greatly surpassed with the sound on the long wall. See my thread: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/111977.aspx Now my imaging is much better, the sound stage is huge. With the new ratio, the music fills the whole wall and at times it seems to be actually wider than the room. Now when playing Queen's "Fat Bottom Girls", it seems a little wider than I remembered.[] My brother was over at Xmas and after listening for a bit, he asked how I was driving the center La Scalla. I informed him that it was just the 2 corner speakers playing and he couldn't believe it. The vocals usually play close to centre and then all the accompanying instruments spread out along the rest of the wall and maybe a bit beyond. Positioning is the best (and most affordable) upgrade I have come across, try a couple of radical changes and then fine tune the position after you hear something that is a noticeable change for the better.

I made a few changes this year, probably more than I could justify to the financial planner: - added a pair of Heresy IIs, in place of a pair Paradigm outdoor speakers for rears in the HT. - swapped out a Definitive Technology CLR for a single La Scalla for centre channel duties. - moved a Denon DVD player to strictly movie playback and added a Jolida JD-100A for music playback. - replace a Jolida JD-300B integrated with a JM Peach II and a pair of Welborne DRD 45 amps. BUT BY FAR the best gear change I did was change the location of my KHorns, from the short wall, to the long wall. As much as I love the new electronics (specially the Welbornes), moving the speakers to the long wall and having them 20' apart vs. 15' by far made the biggest improvement to the way my system sounds!

And new Left channel, with the new wall... Still need to add some trim at top of new wall and ceiling and hang a picture.

New center...

Well, it took a little longer than expected... I should know better than to start a project at this time of year. Here is the new right side of the room...

I agree, they will not sound bad at all on the short wall. What got me thinking about moving to the long wall was when I got my "new to me" JM Peach pre I was fine tuning the balance gains. I would make a quick adjustment and step back to about the middle of the room instead of going all the way back to my main listening spot, listen, go make another gain adjustment...did this a few times to get the balance and gain dialed in. While in the middle of the room, I noticed that everything sounded much better in this location. This prompted me to look a little closer at the geometry of the room and thought why not drag one of the KHorns to the other corner and see how it sounds. When you do move the horns to the other room, let us know what you think / hear. I would be interested to see if you get the same results as I did... it pleasantly [] me.

pythagore, The Khorns look very nice in your room. It looks like from your pics that the speakers are on your short wall, I realize that this may be the better configuration for HT but you should see if there is any chance that you can move things around so that you get the KHorns on the long wall. My room is 15' x 20' and I up until last week had my speakers on the 15' wall. This worked very well for HT and not bad for 2 channel but I tried the KHorns on the 20' wall and was shocked at how much better things sounded. See my thread for my situation: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/111977.aspx?PageIndex=1 I have everything done except for a bit of trim (chair rail, baseboard, etc) and will be posting a couple of pics when I get home from work tonight. I don't know if this would be the best for you, but I am glad I tried it. Just a thought.