Jason Todd

Thanks, Stephen. I suppose it depends on the room. My living room is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10ft x 8ft. Pretty tiny for the Forte's.

1. Tom Waits 2. Nina Simone 3. Lee Hazlewood 4. Bill Callahan / Smog 5. The Beatles

Possible sale pending.

Good luck with sale. Great amp, great price.

I'd keep them if I had a bigger room. One of the downsides of city living.

Up for sale is a pair of Klipsch Forte speakers. These particular speakers have had some pricey upgrades: -Crites titanium tweeter -Klipsch titanium midrange horn -SET12 modifications: North Creek Air Core inductors for the woofers, Mundorf Supreme tweeter caps, Mundorf silver / oil for the midrange, German C Core Autotransformers, Kiwame resistors, Obbligato woofer shunt capacitor You can read more about the modifications on Audio Karma: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=516254 Only selling because I bought some Harbeth speakers. They're a better fit for the small size of my apartment. The Forte's need a little more room than I can give them. Local pickup only in NYC

Sold!

Sale pending.

Bump

Thanks, I'm pretty sure the SHL5 plus will be my next pair of speakers to pair with my VRD's.

I've been thinking about getting some Harbeths. Are you powering them with your VRD's? Just curious if they're a good match for each other. Good luck with sale!

Thanks, guys. If I could afford to / had the room to keep it, I would.

I think your prices are fair, it's just top notch, pricey gear so the market for it is small. Good luck with your sale. If I hadn't just purchased and NBS an a pair of VRD's, I'd be all over it.

Thanks! Justin does great work.

Here's the description Justin used to have for the Big Ben on his website: Big Ben – Single Ended Stereo Tube Amp The draw of single ended amps has always been realism and engagement. The Big Ben is setup for clarity over crazy power. Parts selection was crucial during this build and each was chosen not for price, but for quality of synergy between parts. Rectification is Solid State for cool running and reliable performance, again always over spec’d. The amp is configured for ultra linear operation allowing great power output and minimal use of feedback. The sonic signature is deep rich bass, and soundstage to die for. Big Ben makes use of an over specified, extremely stiff power supply. The power supply is significantly larger than needed for primary filtering. In the early days of tube amps, chokes were easier to come by than caps and more reliable. As such, large chokes were utilized for primary filtering. As capacitor production gained reliability and costs lowered, cap filtering and smaller chokes became the norm. In a single ended designs, a regulated ultra quiet power supply is very important. Using a 5 Henry choke is expensive and large, but yields significant improvements in reduction of DC ripple. Output transformers are over spec’d and ultra high quality. We consider the output transformer as important as any other design choice. When buying any tube amp, the weight of output transformer can be directly proportional to the quality of sound. In general, larger outputs have largers cores which are less prone to saturation and have higher inductance. Larger cores and greater inductances allows the transformer to carry a low-end signal with minimal distortion. These transformers are bench tested to perform down to 20hz and up to 20khz. Even if your speakers only go to 50hz like a LS3/5a having an amp with can drive that low impedence signal is pivotal in creating the whole sound stage. Well paired speakers: Big Ben pairs well with most speakers 84db and above. Big Ben is ultra-quiet allowing use of full range or horn loaded speakers with efficiency above 100db. Speakers which can go down cleanly to 30hz really bring out the very best of the amp. Our 3 Speaker suggestions: 1. DIY Econowaves (12” and a 1” compression driver; great sounding 95db efficient). 2. Klipsch horn loaded anything… Preference to Cornscala’s; (15” woofer with elliptical horn/2” compression driver and horn loaded tweeter with 1” compression driver 98db efficient and able to shake the house). 3. DIY/ampsandsound bass reflex cab ~.25cu ft with Fostex 103 4” or audio nirvana 4” ~approximately 89db efficiency. Probably not for a big room, but gives low 50hz response in a crazy small cabinet. Wonderful for near field, offices or small rooms. Tubes: The amp is compatible with all 6l6 family tubes, including 6l6GC, KT66, KT77, KT88, KT90, and EL34s. The driver tube is a 6SL7. My personal favorite currently is new EH6550 paired with new production Tungsol 6SL7 driver. For new old stock tubes, I like RCA 6L6GC clear tops.

I'll have to get back to you on that. I know it's single ended and cathode biased. I believe it's very similar to the Bigger Ben on the website except this one isn't tube rectified. Here's a review from another forum member: https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/149646-big-thanks-to-amps-and-sound-set-wonderment/

I'm in Brooklyn, NY.

Up for sale is an ampsandsound Big Ben tube amplifier. It was purchased about 5 months ago, but I've since upgraded to a pair of NOSValves VRD monoblocks. The amp will come with the following tubes: -Tung Sol 6SU7GTY -5691 RCA Red Base Black Plates NOS 1950 (oldest single) (Purchased from Tube World Express. 20hrs of use by me) -5691 NOS JAN Phillips Black Plate (5691 6SL7) (60 Hours of use by me) -(2) Brand New Genalex KT66 (never used. Only unboxed for the photos) -(2) Tung Sol 6550 (modern version - 50 hours of use by me) The amp has a small blemish on the metal that you can kind of see from the photo. It's really not bad and was sold to me that way by Justin as B-Stock (hence the lowish price). Price includes shipping. It's a great amp, but I need to make room for the VRD's.

Thanks, Tom! Everything turned out great!

Also, thanks for the warm welcome! I like this place.

Prior to the VRD's, I was using an ampsandsound Bigger Ben. It's a great amp, but wasn't the best match for my Forte's. I think it's a much better match with K-Horns and the like. I'm not too worried about having them on the speakers. I asked Craig and he said it really shouldn't cause any damage to the amps. I have a couple of tube bass amps that absolutely get punished sitting on top of an 8x10 or 6x10 speaker cabinet and they've been fine. Not exactly the same thing, but I'm not too worried about it. I also don't have any kids, so no little ones to worry about. The thermostat has been fine so far, but that's a good point. I'll keep my eye on it.

I love living in New York, but apartment living definitely has it's drawbacks. I'll be in the market for a new place in a year or so. Definitely want a living room that's about twice as big. I have a music studio in Bushwick that's a lot more tricked out with GIK panels and much more ideal speaker positioning. Tiny apartments are tough for sure. Craig is awesome. I know he can come off as gruff on the forums, but it doesn't bother me at all. I'm a sound mixer for film and TV in New York. Gruff is standard. He's great, knows his stuff, and is a blast to talk to on the phone.

CECAA850. Yep. Firing into the shelf. I know, I know. My apartment is ridiculously tiny. I've been trying to think of a better place but, at the moment, it's the best that I can do. NYC apartment living isn't the most conducive to setting up good listening rooms.

Thanks, Muel. I have the book and DVD's. Someday I'll get to actualize the principles in it. I live in a one bedroom apartment that's like 550 square feet, so I don't have room for acoustic panels or much experimenting with position. Hopefully when I move to a bigger place in a year or so I can have a larger space that I can really trick out. In the meantime, I have to live with some compromised positioning. Still sounds great!

Hard to take a picture because everything is so spread out. Here goes nothing! The mono blocks are on top of the speakers. The turntable, NBS, Oppo, and Mac mini are on the walnut shelf on the right hand side. The Adam A7 studio monitors are for TV or if I have to do any editing at home. Jason