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Cornwalls with tubes


jkull

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On ‎11‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 6:58 PM, wdecho said:

I had the Edcor $38 OPT's from another project, the reason I used them. I cannot tell any difference from the $38 vs the $28 ones they sell for the power a SE45 tube amp produces and if I had to buy some it would have been the $28 ones. 

 

Looking at the limited specs, the only difference is one is 10 watts, the other 15 watts. The extra current handling of 100ma versus 80ma might be nice thing...

I may as well buy a pair for the money...I can then build a 45 amp. If I do, I'm springing for raw end bells...the Ford blue bugs me. It seems there should be "STP" sticker on one side, with "43" on the other...

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219ia has arrived....

 

And it sounds..........Absolutely wonderful. The allure of this amp glowing in my listening space alone is mesmerizing. What a cool looking amp. The dynamics that I stated as somewhat lacking in my current setup with the 500watt SS monos, are vastly improved. Drums have totally come alive. Voices have become more natural, and exceptionally SMOOTH. The bass still thick and driving well. The midrange FAR more cutting, present, clear, and clean, while staying smooth. The brightness of the horn tweeters is showing itself now, but it is a nice brightness, because it is smooth and pleasant. Everything just sounds more natural. I have listened for roughly an hour so far, all records. I will get around to more listening later this evening. The slight blanket over the speakers has been lifted. The sound is more inviting, open, and dynamic. Voices are FAR more into focus than they were. This thing makes my emotivas sound very poor...Low listening also remains dynamic and involving. The emotivas sounded like I was burying them in a grave and as I turned the volume down, I was throwing more and more dirt on top.... Volume level makes very little difference in dynamics with this amp.

 

Hum that I was getting before is gone. The signal is dead quiet now, not even the faintest bit of hum. It was obviously the noisy circuits of the emotivas from what I can conclude. 

 

I am still running through my marantz 7701 phono amp. The phono I am most interested in going with is the bottlehead Eros. All tube with a gain of 50db. 

 

Very happy thus far....

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On 11/16/2016 at 9:16 PM, ATLAudio said:

A: Stay away from Audiogon; a bastion of audio pseudoscience woo.

I'm not offering an opinion on tubes vs SS, but I do agree with this point. Audiogon forums have, at times, been a haven for horn bashers who offer purported 'proof' that horn loaded speakers are inferior, the choice of rubes, etc. I found it too annoying to separate the good stuff from the snobbery and garbage and stopped participating several years ago. Just my take.

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25 minutes ago, ChuckAb3 said:

I'm not offering an opinion on tubes vs SS, but I do agree with this point. Audiogon forums have, at times, been a haven for horn bashers who offer purported 'proof' that horn loaded speakers are inferior, the choice of rubes, etc. I found it too annoying to separate the good stuff from the snobbery and garbage and stopped participating several years ago. Just my take.

I dont frequent there. Just had a thread going, but a few of the guys were helpful, pleasant, and supportive of the cornwall with the 219ia. 

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33 minutes ago, wdecho said:

Thanks for sharing. The sound will only improve with some hours. What output tubes are you using?

I am using the stock tubes which are pretty decent tubes. I may just swap the 12AX7's in the near future. I hardly feel the need right now, as things are sounding great, and as you said, these tubes need time to burn in and loosen up. First things first, I need to decide on a new phono amp, and make a move on that. Considering the bottlehead Eros at this time.

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Interesting beast.  Between the different taps and adjustable feedback, you'll probably have quite a bit of variance in sonic signatures to choose from with that thing.  I kind of dig the Eddie Munster science fair project looks on the outside, and the attention to detail and organization under the hood is top notch.

 

I still think you had a ground loop with all the other gear hooked up.  Whatever the case, kudos on eliminating the hum.

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1 hour ago, Ski Bum said:

Interesting beast.  Between the different taps and adjustable feedback, you'll probably have quite a bit of variance in sonic signatures to choose from with that thing.  I kind of dig the Eddie Munster science fair project looks on the outside, and the attention to detail and organization under the hood is top notch.

 

I still think you had a ground loop with all the other gear hooked up.  Whatever the case, kudos on eliminating the hum.

I'm unsure of the recommendation for experimenting with taps. My speaker are rated at 8ohms, thus I am connected to the 8 ohm taps, and that is all I intend to try.  In my many years of experience with guitar and bass valved amps, i am always particular in matching impedance. 4ohm tap would be a big no no. The 16 would probably be okay, but if the speakers are not designed to handle this, it could damage them.  I think I'm best sticking with the 8ohm tap, unless if it is I who is misinformed and not others.  If so, enlighten me.

 

i do not believe their was a ground loop issue. No connects were changed at all in the path aside from speakers.  The cornwalls being far more sensitive... the emotivas were running into a healthy furman conditioner.  I did troubleshoot for ground loops. No luck.

 

I used to think my emotivas sounded good. Now that I have this amp I think they sound flat, dull, noisy, and unnatural. 

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There is no risk to your speakers from trying the different taps, so don't be afraid to give the 4 and 16 ohm a try.  They optimize power into a specific load, but your speaker's impedance is anything but a specific, constant load.  With the actual load your CW's present to the amp, which is all over the map, you may find one particular combo superior to the others, and you'll never know unless you try.  Usually, the impedance load across the woofer's band dictates the optimal output tap to choose.

 

Yeah, I always wanted to try a big power transmitter tube SET.  Color me jealous over here.   

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8 hours ago, jkull said:

I dont frequent there. Just had a thread going, but a few of the guys were helpful, pleasant, and supportive of the cornwall with the 219ia. 

I'm willing to bet that they were more appealed to the magical properties of slapping a tube on anything and it becoming sonic nirvana. 

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7 hours ago, jkull said:

I'm unsure of the recommendation for experimenting with taps. My speaker are rated at 8ohms, thus I am connected to the 8 ohm taps, and that is all I intend to try.  In my many years of experience with guitar and bass valved amps, i am always particular in matching impedance. 4ohm tap would be a big no no. The 16 would probably be okay, but if the speakers are not designed to handle this, it could damage them.  I think I'm best sticking with the 8ohm tap, unless if it is I who is misinformed and not others.  If so, enlighten me.

 

i do not believe their was a ground loop issue. No connects were changed at all in the path aside from speakers.  The cornwalls being far more sensitive... the emotivas were running into a healthy furman conditioner.  I did troubleshoot for ground loops. No luck.

 

I used to think my emotivas sounded good. Now that I have this amp I think they sound flat, dull, noisy, and unnatural. 

Like PWK said, shouldn't flat frequency response be a sought after goal in sound reproduction? Maybe that's why he ditched tubes in the 70s.

 

I had a hum on my Emotiva that went away with a better RCA cable. Also, if anything else uses that circuit, ensure it has a good ground. Ceiling fans are notorious for slowly shaking loose their once good grounds. 

 

Call Emotiva, they can lead you through troubleshooting, something might be wrong with it. 

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35 minutes ago, ATLAudio said:

Like PWK said, shouldn't flat frequency response be a sought after goal in sound reproduction? Maybe that's why he ditched tubes in the 70s.

 

I had a hum on my Emotiva that went away with a better RCA cable. Also, if anything else uses that circuit, ensure it has a good ground. Ceiling fans are notorious for slowly shaking loose their once good grounds. 

 

Call Emotiva, they can lead you through troubleshooting, something might be wrong with it. 

The emotivas did not make any additional hum with my previous b&w towers. Only with the cornwalls. I have decent audioquest and blue jeans rca'a. The emotivas are sold and are driving old planars with their new owner without any additional hum.  I read all of what you type and respect it. I understand the philosophies I've read, and am open minded to all opinions.  

 

Ultimately i dont care what specs say. This amp sounds better than my emotivas did in every way possible. Far more natural. The emotivas sounded fake, or digitally enhanced comparatively.

 

 

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1 hour ago, jkull said:

The emotivas did not make any additional hum with my previous b&w towers. Only with the cornwalls. I have decent audioquest and blue jeans rca'a. The emotivas are sold and are driving old planars with their new owner without any additional hum.  I read all of what you type and respect it. I understand the philosophies I've read, and am open minded to all opinions.  

 

Ultimately i dont care what specs say. This amp sounds better than my emotivas did in every way possible. Far more natural. The emotivas sounded fake, or digitally enhanced comparatively.

 

 

I certainly would feel an amp that hummed would be inferior to one that didn't.

 

Doesn't take specs to figure that out. 

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1 hour ago, jkull said:

Indeed

But did you have to spend $7,500 to have an amp not hum? More on that...

 

Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claim which companies like Line Magnetic are making is that their product produces a quality of sound that is superb, and that this quality of sound also takes $7,500 for you to own. 

 

Does that that not give you pause? 

 

Thats 15 times the cost of the Emotiva. 

 

15 times the cost

 

of the Emotiva

 

which might have been broken, and easily repaired and or replaced many times over for a fraction of the cost of the LM. As there are 100s of amps still a fraction of the cost of the LM, yet more than the Emotiva. 

 

When you asked yourself, why do I have to spend that much money on a product? Are there any cheaper alternatives? Nothing came up? It wasn't just guys on AudioGon Woomart helping you spend your money, right?

 

Thats all I want people to ask, and please show me when they figure it out, when they buy exotic priced audio gear, what's the secret sauce. Why is spending $7,500 the only way? A cheaper option can't possibly exist? 

 

This has nothing to do with using your ears, spec sheets, or any other cliched bs. I'm nearly certain that the LM sounds fantastic, maybe even better than the Emotiva. But, sound quality is not the entirety of the claim here. 

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10 hours ago, jkull said:

The emotivas did not make any additional hum with my previous b&w towers. Only with the cornwalls. I have decent audioquest and blue jeans rca'a. The emotivas are sold and are driving old planars with their new owner without any additional hum.  I read all of what you type and respect it. I understand the philosophies I've read, and am open minded to all opinions.  

 

Ultimately i dont care what specs say. This amp sounds better than my emotivas did in every way possible. Far more natural. The emotivas sounded fake, or digitally enhanced comparatively.

 

 

The Cornwalls are far more efficient than the B&Ws so any hum and noise will be more noticeable.

 

The 219ia is a beautiful amp. Congratulations.

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10 hours ago, ATLAudio said:

But did you have to spend $7,500 to have an amp not hum? More on that...

 

Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claim which companies like Line Magnetic are making is that their product produces a quality of sound that is superb, and that this quality of sound also takes $7,500 for you to own. 

 

Does that that not give you pause? 

 

Thats 15 times the cost of the Emotiva. 

 

15 times the cost

 

of the Emotiva

 

which might have been broken, and easily repaired and or replaced many times over for a fraction of the cost of the LM. As there are 100s of amps still a fraction of the cost of the LM, yet more than the Emotiva. 

 

When you asked yourself, why do I have to spend that much money on a product? Are there any cheaper alternatives? Nothing came up? It wasn't just guys on AudioGon Woomart helping you spend your money, right?

 

Thats all I want people to ask, and please show me when they figure it out, when they buy exotic priced audio gear, what's the secret sauce. Why is spending $7,500 the only way? A cheaper option can't possibly exist? 

 

This has nothing to do with using your ears, spec sheets, or any other cliched bs. I'm nearly certain that the LM sounds fantastic, maybe even better than the Emotiva. But, sound quality is not the entirety of the claim here. 

The amp is not 15X the cost of the Emotiva. The emotivas being $1100 a piece brand new for XPA-1.  Thus $2200 for a pair. So in my particular situation, around 4X the figure.  Perhaps you are speaking in comparison to a multi-channel xpa-5 or 3 something else. Oh lets also in mind, this amp is TWO true monoblocks, as well as a pre amp. So now factor in the cost of the Marantz 7701 when it was new, $1600. Now The price to replace the two emotivas and marantz for the LM was only 2X.  So no, it gives me no pause.

 

When emotiva amps break, buzz, fail etc., half of the time they go to the trash. Half of the time, you're spending $150 each way to emotiva on shipping. When a point to point amplifier breaks, I have a guy up the road who does this for a living, because amps like the mc225 that I considered, or this LM, or many other cleanly laid out P2P tube amps, are much easier to repair. 

 

There are far more expensive amps out there that yield much less of a reward. I did not pay $7500 due to a friend in the industry.

 

The amp does sound better than the emotivas. I assure you of this if not anything else. The sound hardly comparable. There was nothing interesting in the emotiva's sound. It was dull, artificially enhanced, grainy, flat, and so on, in comparison. Would not the even funnier comparison, be spending of the said 15x amount on a macintosh SS amplifier as opposed to an Emotiva SS amplifier? 

I find the sillier pitch in hi-fi to be the bigger and bigger wattage amps with the lower and lower sensitivity speakers. Thus two components arguing with one another for what often tends to result in less than stellar and unnatural sound. Numbers sell. Seeing speakers in lower sensitivity, it opens up the market for amp designers to address this with higher and higher powered amplifiers. The numbers do sell, to some...

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, TubeHiFiNut said:

The Cornwalls are far more efficient than the B&Ws so any hum and noise will be more noticeable.

 

The 219ia is a beautiful amp. Congratulations.

Exactly. There was nothing wrong with my emotivas. They are noisey circuits period. And the cornwalls revealed it. 

 

I have absolute silence with the 219ia into the Cornwalls.

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