maxg

They are a bit more expensive than $400 - by a factor of 10 in fact. For a chip amp that is outrageous of course - but for a 500 wpc amp that will happily burble at one wpc or less it is not unreasonable. Yes Eric - on and off I have known this amp for a while now. Tony got it 2 years ago or more and it has visited my house several times prior to coming here for the longer haul (been a couple of months now I would guess). Sonically I would say it has quite a soft, rounded sound - in other words the exact opposite of what I was expecting from a digtial amp, although that might be more related to the pre-amp. Whatever impedance load it shows to the pre-amp my ZTPRE doesn't like it - so care may be needed in matching upstream components. The Klimo loves it - but again this is not a cheap component. Basically I would never have spent the money on this combo - but for free till Tony finds them a paying home - I could not resist.

Well......there's chimp amps and chip amps but if you are going to evalutate the breed it is only fair to look at decent examples: Yamaha MX-D1. In conjuntion with a nice tube pre-amp (I am using the Klimo) this produces a sound I do not think anyone could identify as being digital. It also does not suffer from inadequate power as some of the quoted models do - nor does it have any problems with impedance falls down to 2 ohms in the loudspeaker it is driving. They say the sound quality does not change from 16 to 2 ohms which would make this rather a unique amp IME. Will happily drive any speaker in my experience to date.

Fairly sure i have posted this one before but here goes: Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Amsterdam Concertgebouw Anatole Fistourali London K38C 70030 Stereo Japan Super Analogue Recording quality wise - staggering - performance quite good - not that easy to find this copy these days: Otherwise this is a very nice and more balanced recording: Tchaikovsky Swan Lake / Sleeping Beauty Philharmonia Herbert Von Karajan EMI 063-00409 Stereo Greece And you get sleeping beauty at no charge....

Paul, Its not quite the same thing. Same performances - but audiophile pressings - all 200 gram and all that. Oh what can I say? It was a wild moment. On the positive side it is saleable should I ever decide to. A couple of the forum members at least would buy it in an instant.

Leo, I am not Dean but I did build a kit based on those boards. Frankly - it was dreadful sounding - I was supposed to write a review for the supplier but in the end we both agreed it was probably not a good idea. Course he will probably tell you it is my appalling skills as an amp assember that were at fault - he might even be right - but it was not good. The bass was out of control, there was a hole in the mids and the whole thing sounded like a radio rather than an audiophile grade amp. Just my experience of course - which dont really mean didly squat - but the Yamaha MX-D1 trashes it into tiny little pieces.

"Dvorak Symphony #9 Vienna Philharmonic - Herbert Von Karajan Duetsche Grammophen 415-509-2 " I will certainly second that CD choice - I have it in the car - excellent performance, quite surprizing in a way - it is not a piece I would expect Karajan to pace well, yet, he does. Maybe I am just being harsh and it was his Pastoral that was the aberation. Yes - also agree Toscannini's are a bugger to get decent recordings of. I have a favorite Eroica (Mono of course) which is in excellent condition and is a reasonable performance : Beethoven Symphony 3 NBC Symphony Arturo Toscanini RCA Victor Red Seal LM 1042 Mono US I also have a Karajan version which is almost identical stylistically but a better recording - just to prove Kriton wrong I cant lay my hands on the details this minute. I will have to dig them out and post them separately. Actually I also have 2 complete sets of Beethoven's symphonies - one is: Beethoven The Nine Symphonies Cleveland George Szell Colombia M7X 30281 Stereo US 7 record Box Set Good stuff - decent recording too - and cost $1 from a fellow forum member. and this: Beethoven All nine symphonies Royal Philharmonic Rene Leibowitz Analogue Audio Association EPH 05 Stereo Germany 7 record box set Edition Phoenix Which is a stupid set that cost me $500. Ok - it is the best recording of anything I own quality wise. It is also interesting in that it is an attempt to return to the original Beethoven rather than the one that has developed over the couple of hundred years of minor changes with each generation. In other words - a bit like Beethoven was done prior to Toscanini. As for the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 an alternative to the one I posted earlier is: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 1 Philippe Entremont New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein CBS BRG 72048 Mono UK Philippe was a very highly rated pianist in his day - but seems to have fallen by the wayside. I have several of his works and actually love his style of play - particurly for Liszt, but even though he is not Russian this version of Piano Concerto No. 1 is, imho, truely excellent. Recording quality is fine too - record condition is......strictly for the enthusiast. Swan lake: Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Amsterdam Concertgebouw Anatole Fistourali London K38C 70030 Stereo Japan Super Analogue Really really good recording that one...I am still trying to decide if I actually like the performance. Actually this is another work Karajan had a fully reasonable stab at too: Tchaikovsky Swan Lake / Sleeping Beauty Philharmonia Herbert Von Karajan EMI 063-00409 Stereo Greece Of course Swan Lake is wonderful stuff - but I am more of a Nutcracker fan myself (more than a fan - I married one...oh no that's ball bust....never mind) Tchaikovsky / Prokofiev Nutcracker / The Love of 3 Oranges Philharmonia Nicolai Malko EMI MFP 2047 Mono UK Totally average recording - but actually a nice performance - my daughter is a whirling dervish to this record. Hmm - still cant find that Karajan - it is a CD which is why. Simply haven't got around to organizing those. Too many piece posted again - sorry.

Actually, just as a jokey aside on the video - there have been more comments about how cool I drink my coffee than anything else. No-one seems to be able to remember a word I said - but the brief clip of me leaning forward to sip on a coffee had caused a storm.... I should add that in 42 years this is the first ever cool thing I think I ever did - the Fonz I am not.

The forum member that was also a member of the club was Aristidis - posting under the moniker Arco on here. He has since left the club and AFAIK stopped posting altogether on the net. I did meet him briefly at the high end show - he seemed well but somewhat pre-occupied with other issues - I know not what. I dont have Horns - sorry for the confusion Mark - although my tweeters on my home built speakers are horn loaded. I do have the mightly promedia 2.0's on my computer though.... Politicial correctness does not exist in Greece as a concept. Greek men are sexually obsessed, rude and direct - live with it. Greek women are not all that much different come to that....this is a country where apparently size does matter after all.

No Khorners!![:'(] No room for false khorners either - trust me - I have measured that room 50 times!!

Yup - that is the one Paul. For reference I am in the middle of that picture - and there is a picture of SWMBO on the wall. Tony was in the kitchen behind that large door - and Ken is the one with the camera. You want a breakdown of the other club members in the picture? Max

About 9 months ago there was a meeting of the Audiophile Club of Athens at my house. The review has, at last, been posted. http://aca.gr/meet06-3.htm Bare in mind this review was written by Tony - although another member was supposed to write it. Tony is my best friend - so he is a little biased. He also had more than a hand in the construction of the speakers. Anyway - just thought I would post it for anyone that might be interested....

I am not sure this counts as a small set amp - but it could solve all the percieved problems: http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/687/ 211 based / 22 wpc (passing the Paul minimum) and single ended. What more could you want?

Meagain, Yes. Glad you liked it. Yes. Huh, Yes.

Paul already has 6 copies so I cannot imagine he will be heartbroken not to get a 7th. I, on the other hand, am so parsimonious I am making do with only 3 copies....

Simple design - not much to go wrong. DIY'ers dream - cheap to make. Nice mid-range. Not bad I thought.

I have this habit of posting on various forums lists of classical music that I think might entertain a newbie to the genre. More often than not these recs are for pieces that I have not listened to in a long time myself as I tend to drift off into more esoteric offerings just for variation. Well last night with SWMBO and junior having sloped off to bed early I decided to visit some of the real classics. Being a little challenged for volume I concentrated on lighter pieces and culminated with this: Bach Brandenburg Concertos English Chamber Bengamin Britten London K38C 70041 Stereo Japan Super Analogue Oh my God how we forget. What a stunning piece of music the Brandenburg concertos are. Actually these are only concertos 4,5 and 6 but even so the music is simply miraculous. Add to the sublime music the as-good-as-it-gets recording and superb performance and it really cannot get any better than this. As highly recommended as is possible.....

Who, All things being equal those figures might make sense. the problem is - how often are all things equal? In other words - a great system with a perfect source in a dreadful room is gonna sound bad - whatever you do to the system. Changing room, or changing the room could, in that case, make a massive difference well beyond the figures you derived there. As a general rule of thumb I break the sound quality down into 3rds. I/3 - the room. 1/3 - the source material/recording. 1/3 - the system. Beyond that is so hit and miss it is probably not worth attempting to put numbers on it. How would you score synergy in all of this?

It is a Yamaha MX-D1 - there are reviews on line somewhere...

"Collecting classical vinyl is a cheapskate's paradise, with so much available for 10 cents to a dollar. " Its what makes life worth living!!! I go into record shops and everything I like and want is in the bargain section!! Thank god I dont like Jazz - that is always the most expensive rack there. Of course - there is a flip side to everything. Allan's collection is probably worth a million and mine a thousand. Still I wouldnt swap them save to sell his and buy mine back....

Wife and daughter arrived home earlier than expected - so the listening session got caught short - and now SWMBO is watchng a girlie flick so I am back on here. Summary of the soap opera was entirely tongue firmly planted in cheek - no offense to anyone intended (or designed to P off everyone - take your pick). OK - how did I end up with the amp - I have never really explained it all fully - but before anyone panics this is the potted version: The amp and pre-amp are actually not mine. They are Tony's (the pre is a Klimo all tube affair - with a built in phono which I am not using - not impressed with it at all). He bought them having got himself a pair of B&W 802's that he was having difficulty driving. When he finally found the Yamaha he was on cloud nine and claiming it was the best amp in the world - I think he still does. Anyway at some point he brought it round to my house and we tried it on the Decware ZT PRE that I have and it was dreadful - I mean really really bad. He was so gutted and amazed it was almost funny. However - I realized that it really cant be as bad as that - there must be an impedance mismatch with the pre. Some time later I found myself reviewing a pre (Hawk Audio) for ACA. During that process Tony again brought round the Yamaha for me to evaluate in conjunction with this new pre. The results were stunning. Quite the best I had ever heard my system play. So good that Tony sat through the entire Traviata WITHOUT speaking. First time I ever got him to listen to an opera - and the longest period of time in history that he has sat and not spoken. It was a fairly earth shattering event for both of us. We simply did not know that the other components in the chain were capable of such sound. The only complaint about the whole system was that "it couldn't dance". somewhere along the line we had lost the system's speed. Play classical and you simply die - it was that good. Play something with beat and you die of boredom. Tony reckoned that his pre - the Klimo would give the best of all worlds - but we left it there as it was installed in his system and he did not want to be left without music. Fast forward another 6 months and Tony has sold his B&W's (that he said he never would) and is stuck with amp and pre-amp and nothing to play. As he is now working all the hours he cant be bothered hunting for new speakers so he gives me the amp and the pre to play with. Simply put - about as stunning as the Hawk audio pre - but it can still dance. Only problem is that I need extreme care with the volume control. It is way too sensitive and my speakers are only rated to 100 wpc. I can get to about 9 pm on the dial before I am blasted from the room (although it does start at 6 precisely so it is not quite as bad as it appears). I did have a ground loop hum - but I have now solved that one - and I now have a static problem on the TT - source unknown but I suspect the weather. The net result of all of this is that I have a system that plays better than ever before with fairly linear response where I want it and the character I like where I want that. In other words: Cartidge and phono - flat 20 Hz to 20 KHz, Pre-amp full of flavour, amp pretty neutral near as I can tell, speakers horned. Bass effortless, mids full, highs a little extended but I dont mind that. That live sound thing again. All together with enough power to part your hair with a blast from a trombone. and that is all I have to say about that....

So the upshot of this thread plus the previous one is: Craig is not talking to Mark. Mark is not talking to Craig, Rigma is not talking to Craig, Gilbert is not talking to Rigma. Craig is therefore talking to Gilbert but presumably not Rigma. Dean is not talking to Mark but he is talking to Craig. Mark shall not be talking to Dean except in the language of diplomacy. Paul is still talking to everyone (well possibly except Edmund - but that wasnt from this thread). Jeff's deaf but he is talking to everyone. Jackson's bored. All fairly par for the course for an amp debate. I am going to do something radical now - and listen to some music on vinyl and on my 500 wpc digital amp so ya boo sucks to the lot of you. Could somebody keep notes as to the rest of the fights that break out and email my an uptodate list for the morning. Ta muchly.

I kept meaning to ask you why you had an Omega as a picture. I thought your admiration for Greece was growing....

I am finding huge difficulty in phrasing this response to say what I want it to say. In the meantime - whilst I ponder it I would just like to thank everyone for largely getting back on topic and to thank Paul for an excellent and well thought out response. Particularly good twist on the volume / deafness approach I thought - although I have no idea how much water it actually holds. OK - over the last few years I have, fairly consistently, beat the drum of synergy. I think it interesting that we happily take a given amp and discuss its sound largely out of context - in other words without a detailed look at the supporting gear that goes to make the whole. I cannot help wondering, therefore, that if we were to take the 2 amps recently discussed (Marantz and Mac) and then go about building a system around these - that we might not, in the end, result in similar sounding systems. Obviously, on a Klipsch forum we can largely take it as read that the speakers are relatively consistent across the discussions - but I think I would stress the relatively and also point out the large disparity in listening rooms, chosen musical genre and, of course, ulitmate aim of the system owner. We all want to spend our money creating a system that sounds good to us (presumably) but what comprises that good sound will vary from one individual to another. I would also like to add that I think the concept of building a system around an amp is probably one of the rarer methods of developing your system. Most people I know have started with the speakers and worked backwards - or the source and worked forwards. The net result - however, need not be that different. Starting from the point - I chose my speakers after a demonstration of them (when I bought the Heresies for example). Got them home - connected them to my existing system (an old Yamaha surround sound amp) and listened. This was a massively disappointing result. The next step was to make them sound as good as they did in the demo. This was achieved with a new integrated power amp (an Accuphase E211 at the time) - and from then on it was a case of how much further I could go - beyond the point that had convinced me to buy the Heresies in the first place. When I replaced the Accuphase with a pair of monoblock tube amps and a pre-amp I did so having heard them driving (well almost driving) a pair of Magnepans (small ones). That demo inspired me to race home, grab my Heresies, bundle them into the car and head back to the shop to try them out. The tone of that system (amp plus Heresies) was massively different from the original demo (amp plus Magnepans). I prefered it. When I got home the tone of the system in my living room was massively different again. In other words - from that short version (but still too long - sorry) one amp - multiple "tones" depending on a variety of other factors.

Nil contribution to the subject at hand on this page then..... FWIW - Mark - I detected a quite well hidden smiley face in Dean's post - I don't think he was really offended - he was teasing you. FWIW - Craig - Glad to see that you shall continue to promote Mark's pre on the basis of its sonic capabilities rather than not promote it on the basis of a thread in a discussion board. Choosing amps on the basis of tone anyone? I will even accept others who score 86.1 on the music test thing [8]

Well Coda I just took the test too and scored - 86.1 Me thinks it might not be working properly...or is it just coincidence?