Ski Bum

Oh, for surround duty I doubt it will matter at all.

The loss will be below 50 hz or so. The deep bass is still there, just lower in level. The overall sound can be a bit imbalanced toward the strident side as a result. If you had a PEQ to work with, this would be what I would do: a steep high pass filter at 25 hz to protect the speaker; a boost of several db at 35 hz, no more than an octave wide to avoid boosting anything north of 50-60 hz. I have to do this sort of thing for my stand mounted fortes, and it is a delicate balance. Applying boost to reflex enclosures can very easily end up a ringing mess, but fortes seem to be inherently on the over-damped side to begin with, so they have some wiggle room. What sort of eq capability does your front end have to offer?

Unless your room is huge, that AVR should get you by with room to spare. Emo amp may be overkill (unused power simply goes unused). How big is the room?

Prince was notoriously straight edge his whole life. I heard on an interview that he was suffering from arthritis, and the implication was that he had indeed started taking opiates, and as anyone who has used such for pain management knows the risks involved. All conjecture at this point, but I don't think it necessarily means heroin or that he did the Charlie Parker thing. That was never his style, ever.

ATI doesn't kid around. Do these Monoprice versions come with the 7 year warranty?

2B, he's noting that your Emo Stealth DAC/pre may lack sufficient output voltage to drive QS Monos to full power, and if that's so, you never heard what they're fully capable of. Note the lack of disclosure of the output voltage on the Stealth DAC (bizarre oversight for a product marketed as a pre-amp). The Stealth was most likely designed to feed a high gain amp like Emo makes (they typically require <1v for full output). The fellow from QS who "helped" you should have let you know that the QS Horn Monos require that. That he didn't verify compatibility with your existing kit makes me think he prioritizes a sale over your satisfaction. (Such is life in consumerville, and why I prefer DIY over commercial offerings.) You've already returned the QS Monos, correct?

Didn't realize this was still here, left over from the old forum...an old measurement of a SE/ss bi-amp setup. Sure looks to me like room modes are of far greater concern than any tube amp misbehavior (although those harmonics definitely do result in subtle tonal colorations). I'm sure PWK would ridicule this discussion, I can see him asking if we intend to play our records as though they were guitars, but it's his own fault for giving us the speakers amenable to such ridiculous (as well as fun and educational) approaches in the first place. If I didn't own Klipsch speakers first, I would never have gone down the tube rabbit hole. DIY, do it inexpensively, have fun with it. (Not trying to be preachy with that, just sharing experience to help 2B and whoever else navigate the terrain and avoid the puddles.)

Hmm. Some semantic pot holes have appeared in the road. Distortion is not necessarily bad, and often results in an interpretation of being "more realistic" by the user. By objective measures, Maynard's amp with 5% 2nd harmonic undoubtedly measures worse than 2Bmusic's Yamaha in a multitude of ways. So on a certain level I find it impossible to regard single ended tube amps as simply "amplifiers" as they're adding something that wasn't in the recording. That's just a fact. (And yes, I realize that 5% 2nd harmonic is consonant, largely masked by the fundamental, and basically inaudible.) It's also a fact that many who have experienced both prefer the "process" that the tubes apply. Some would posit that the magic of the original performance was bastardized the moment the sound was captured by the mics, in which case a little tube amp processing embellishment on playback is a-ok. Accuracy to the original is a laudable goal, but never achieved. If that's the goal, then go by the book: only use amps with low distortion, low output impedance, and enough power that clipping is never an issue, and enjoy the resulting dry, clinical sound. Or try one of Maynards designs, which definitely add a bit of wetness and real-life-resembling spatial qualities (IME only SE amps do this trickery). Bi-amping may work, provided the amps don't have too much divergence in their sonic character. A lyrical sounding SET up top may audibly clash with a tight, dry ss amp on the woofs. That was my experience, at least. The puny amps weren't as strong down low, but there was a certain roundness of tone from the tubes that was lost with ss. Another experience I've had is that the small tube amps seem to be able to handle eq (bass boost) rather well, with less handicapping of overall power than I expected. Have you tried to simply eq your bass?

The Big Ben uses nfb and is pretty well composed as far as single ended amps go. Maybe a more unruly, zero nfb type would add more tube spice? As the output impedance goes up, so does the undamped peak at woofer resonance. The added boom (and higher distortion overall-referring to that ear-friendly, compressor/loudness type distortion) may be the secret sauce the OP is after.

Nice post, Craig, lot to agree with there. I would say that if the goal is to use your tube amp as some sort of ear-friendly compressor, then the little single ended jobs' monotonic distortion pattern beats the odd predominant pattern of pp amps. It seems to me that 2Bmusic wants more tube coloration, as opposed to your "bigger window" approach that yields less tube coloration, which seems to reflect his tube dabbling thus far.

Don't be too flummoxed. Think of it this way. The Yamaha is a very decent piece of kit. Tube kit comes in a whole spectrum, from the ones engineered to be more linear, and various other types that exhibit a range of misbehaviors. The QS amps are closer to the linear end of the tube amp spectrum, so their relative similarity to the Yamaha shouldn't be too surprising. The single ended amps, on the other hand, are at the other end of the tube zone, and they do impart a rather lyrical "processing" effect via such misbehavior. Maybe that's what you're seeking. (But even so, keep the Yamaha.)

Not any longer. It helps to know what you're weighing. The types with lower efficiency, which includes class a/b, the bulk of amps out there, generate a lot of heat and require appropriate heat sinking to dissipate that, which adds to their weight. So in the case of class a or class a/b amps, weight can be used as a very crude indicator that the amp has enough heat sinking. Compare to a modern class d type like a crown xls, which are very light weight while also being superb amps.

Comparing such speakers, however good they are, to KHorns, is kind of apples to oranges. KHorns can do things that Salks would never be able to do, but the Salks sound excellent at levels within their dynamic capabilities, which are better than the average direct radiator due to using top notch drivers and thoughtful design with the networks. That still may not be enough for truly life-like dynamics, which the KHorns can easily do, with lower distortion to boot. The whole "how would these work in my room" question has to factor in as well, and KHorns and Salks have completely different requirements as far as that goes. Wildly different power requirements, too. KHorns are as amazing as they've ever been, and they are flat out amazing, but I will say this. For conventional direct radiator types, you would be hard pressed to do better than Salk speakers, they're top notch. Similar in approach and performance but even better values would be Philharmonics by Dennis Murphy (same fellow who does the networks for Salk Sound, and he's got some serious chops; top shelf drivers; Salk does the cabs).

Doubtful, unless those are genuine specs and not massaged for marketing purposes. The 88 db speakers are likely less than that in reality, physically smaller, and would require some serious drivers ($$) to have even a prayer of keeping up in the dynamic range department, while requiring gobs more power and exhibiting relatively more distortion in the process.

OT'er beat me to it-those are good corners to work with for fine tuning the bass. Add a sub for modal smoothing, perhaps. Since you're all digitized, check out Chris' "missing octave" thread on remastering your source material in Audacity. Source material will be your biggest hold up with that rig. Nice job! Nice room, too.

If you own high sensitivity speakers, low power via tubes (or ss a la First Watt) is an available option to pursue. Don't let Rod Elliot discourage you, but learn what you can from what he says. It's often more informative to pay attention to the critics than the fanboys when forming your own opinion.

I think he's just trying to be objective about his subjectivity, which is laudable IMO. And frankly, he's being more honest with himself (and his readers) about tube amp behavior than some folks here seem to be in their posts, e.g. Craigs snarky (and off target) response to a brief summary of well supported aspects of human perception. I just don't get the "head in the sand" denialist mentality. Even with a preference for tube distortions, this still holds true: "Music relates to emotion, but its reproduction (including the emotion impact) is as coldly scientific as any other physical science." -PWK

Boy I like you...you just saved me a bunch of money. I'm selling everything and getting me a transistor radio...it all sounds the same... Be sure to use an 8 awg power cord with the transistor radio, in order to get that chocolaty midrange.

You're not dreaming. Maynard has cooked up and posted schematics for exactly what you need and within or close to your budget right here. Flea power, if that will work. Can you scrape together a few more ducats? I've noticed a few of those Dennis Had Inspire amps pop up lately in the $700-$900 range.

Colorado.

Still available.

Any practicing phrenologists here? Just look at the forehead! Dude's frontal cortex must be huge, or maybe it's all just a thick bone plate. Nah, probably brains. I'm with Carl. They won this year in spite of him. Glad he finished up here as a Bronco and retired a champion (although I really kinda hate the Broncos).

Dammit, Matt, will you quit posting pictures of such beautiful work? I'm drooling all over my computer here, it's becoming a huge mess.

Depth, as in bass extension? Or do you mean depth as in depth-of-field of the soundstage? If the first, then look for fortes, as they dig the deepest. If the latter, it's more about mitigating the influence of local acoustics to let the source info dominate, via careful placement and orientation of the speakers, near-field listening, room treatments, etc. Fortes beat Heresies in bass extension. I feel a pair of Heresies with subs would be right on par with fortes, perhaps even better because the subs can be placed optimally, where a pair of nearly full range speakers like fortes wouldn't allow that sort of placement flexibility. The problem is that Heresies require better than average subs in order to keep up with them, so the cost would ramp up quickly going that route.

The Chorus will get the loudest. Not sure where the fortes are relative to Heresies on the sensitivity scale, but probably pretty close. Fortes dig the deepest and IMO are the most even keeled top to bottom, if not as sensitive as Chorus. Heresies would need subs to compete with either Chorus or forte on their own.