bracurrie

I agree as my solid state really punches out the bass. What are you listening with now?

And the fun is when we all learn through the discussion. I knew I was going to get something wrong when I started this thread.

What a great thread! However I was looking for a support group.

What brand or model of crossover is this? I am using a MAC computer running Pure Music. Sound card that does the heavy lifting is a Apogee Quartet. Settings are 500 Hz with 24db slopes. I also have a bit of delay on the horns.

If I have to select one to cover all that I listen to then yes I prefer the push pull. The SET is wonderful for some music and it softens seemingly harsh content to allow for the music to be enjoyed. As you can see its not a simple answer. Didn't mean to be unclear.

Please excuse this lengthy attempt at a review of sorts. I have been lucky enough to have around an ampsandsound.com SE amp Little Ben and an ampsandsound.com push pull Stereo 15. I do not have the technical experience to go into and fully understand what makes these amps different other than the basic differences. I won't go into the specifics of comparing the tube choices that Justin gave me when he sent the amps. My system is a bi-amped active crossover two way consisting of Jubilee clone cabs with Crites drivers on the bottom and Dave Harris's Eliptrac 400 horn with an Faital HF200 on top. The crossover point is 500 Hz with 24db slopes. I had been listening for about a week to the system with the Stereo 15 connected to the Jub cabs and the Little Ben connected to the Eliptrac horns. The arrangement was quite pleasing as my system images well and the SE treated vocals, strings and percussion with a delicacy that let the music be the star. Rock guitar and EDM didn't wow me, but was good enough to keep listening. But I kept playing classical and jazz favorites and was enjoying them a great deal. Yesterday my tech guy came over and we played amp round robin and began to try different configurations. First we took my Audio by Van Alstine Synergy 240 and put it on the Jub cabs and kept the Little Ben on the HF horns. The AVA is a state of the art solid state amp that dampens the bass drivers better and thus the bass is tighter and cleaner when you turn up the volume. I had anticipated it would end up on the bottoms as I had them there before and was quite pleased. Impressions of the Little Ben on the HF remained the same. We then switched out the Little Ben SE for the push pull Stereo 15 on the HF horns. This is where the comparison gets tricky as both are very pleasing. The Stereo 15 seemed to attack transients faster and reveal more detail with percussive sounds, guitar and cymbals. I then played a low definition MP3 that I know irritates my ears and while the Little Ben allowed me to enjoy that track the Stereo 15 revealed the annoyance more. My tech and I agreed that analogue classical and jazz would be quite pleasing with the Little Ben or the Stereo 15. The acid test was when we put the Stereo 15 on the Jubs and put the Synergy 240 on the HF horns. The tech listened for 10 seconds and then said it sounds like almost any decent SS amp but that it was lifeless and thin compared to the either the Little Ben or the Stereo 15. We played rock and classical for only the next ten minutes as we both were eager to get the Stereo 15 back on the HF horns to re immerse ourselves in the warmth of tubes. Then later Saturday night after attending a Vanderbilt men's basketball game against Arkansas where the good guys lost and then going to see my Predators lose to the Ducks I was looking for a music pick me up. I hooked up the Stereo 15 to a pair of KEF 140 monitors that were my #1 speakers before I discovered horns. They are 2 way and very flat but not very efficient. I played a classical piece with a lot of transients and dynamic range where detail and volume are needed to reproduce the piece. The sound was warm, detailed with no irritants. Even my low res MP3 was listenable. I tried the same with my Synergy 240 and while there was nothing wrong, it wasn't as pleasing on the same classical piece and my low res MP3 was again unlistenable. Rock and roll was about the same on both with maybe a slight edge to the Synergy 240 on Led Zep's Celebration Day live concert. But again the Stereo 15 played the Led Zep with great enjoyment as well as EDM and pop. All in all I would say the Stereo 15 plays the breadth of styles very well. And its just plain more fun anyway, I do not write reviews for a living and I didn't stay in an Holiday Inn Express so please excuse my attempt to describe what I heard. If there are any questions I would be happy to answer.

Impossible yes, instructive indeed! There will always be a need to debate, argue and compete. Fortunately we can ignore the noise.

Now you have gone and done it. A canine companion for a family with small children is a commitment. Only advice (from a person who has over the last 25 years of family life had 8 dogs) CRATE train CRATE train CRATE train.

Wow if you are seriously thinking tubes may be for you and like me it was hard to justify the high priced "audiophile" stuff, jump on this. Please don't take advantage of Justin's willingness to do this, but if you are seriously in the market you really have to hear it to believe it. Horns and tubes are naturals.

thanks to everyone that has added something to this thread.

I think Dean is right, and I recall discussing this at length. This sounds like a gain matching issue, and certainly not grounding or the other usual suspects trotted forth when supposedly quiet amps are being accused of being "noisy." Chasing grounding problems when your only dealing with hiss, not buzzes and hum, usually doesn't work. The first thing l'd ask is, can you turn down the gain on the amplifiers? Perhaps the manufacturer designed it to have high gain, not a good idea with horns. The other possible reason is too much gain in the preamp or processor in the circuitry following the volume control. Short of redesigning the pre, turning down the amplifier gain might be a solution here, too. I have tried to prevent gain problems in my equipment over the years, by choosing amps and preamps with low gain. My current preamp has only 11 db or less gain in the line stage, which follows the volume control. This works for me. LarryC - Thanks for jumping in here. The root of the problem is I have high sensitivity 16 ohm drivers mounted on great horns. I cannot adjust the gain on the amps without major surgery or tube changes. I did have a grounding issue that I isolated on and fixed and things are much better. My original issue was with my Manley GY50 and its a beast. We did increase feedback and reduced the gain with a tube switch. That plus an attenuator did the trick. My preamp is really a sound card attached to a computer. Its very quiet and I have the gain throttled way back. You are very correct about watching gain.

Interesting.... I am currently using McIntosh 252 with active dx38 and if would add tubes it would be to the top end. Yeah, I am using ampsandsound.com Little Ben Sorry I should have identified it.

Just found a trail to photos myself. I also found this. http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/altec/plans/1968-plans.htm The photo of yours is labeled as a Valencia and the beast with the bottom port and horn on top was labeled as a A7-500. I will take photos when I see them.

I just connected my ampsandsound.com stereo 15 to my jub clone cabs and I am very pleased with the results. Of course I am active so I am using a different amp on top.

I haven't seen them but the owner says they are furniture grade boxes and I assume that means the horns are enclosed like a Khorn.

All I know is that the horn is in an enclosure that has fabric in front to pretty it up. I haven't yet been able to find photos of that model.

Thanks. Could you speculate on what that suitable enclosure might be?

Here in Nashville Altec A7s were all the rage in studios when they were introduced. I just met an older musician that did a lot of TV and recording from the early 50s here. He has a set of A7s he wants to sell. I would be interested if anyone here has an opinion on them. Thanks all.

Good to hear.

They only added the bottom register several years ago when they did a refurb. Every summer they service and tune the beast. It's glorious.

Been enjoying mine for a few days now. Congrats.

Congrats on pulling out the Fortes and enjoying it. I would suggest that good speaker placement is still the most important thing for good sound. Some of that audiofool stuff about placement and room treatments etc. do make sense so you probably know this already. I just had my Forte IIs in a very large room probably 30 deep and 100 wide. The imaging was spectacular and there was no shortage of bottom end. Enjoy!

You may wish to replace it one day, but if its in good condition its always good to have a reliable SS piece around.

Amen!

Dave, I really appreciate your experience and research into these matters a great deal. I plan to expand my listening of piano and violin based recordings and after taking your posts into consideration I now have a better understanding of why I like what I like. I spend a great deal of time in the summer at Chautauqua listening to live classical and chamber music, maybe as much as 20 hours a week. Most is not amplified in any way, but when it is I tend to not to enjoy it as much. Here Nashville the symphony used to play at TPAC and the acoustics were so bad they had to amplify so the woodwinds could be heard and I hated it. There must be an art to live amplification for classical that I bet doesn't get the attention it should. BTW Chautauqua has one hell of an outdoor organ. You should check it out. Brad