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Cornwalls with tubes


jkull

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Well I've got the cornwalls home and setup. Hooked up to my emotiva mono blocks and marantz 7701 for now to test them out.  They are 1980's Horizontal Cornwall 1's.  

 

First impression- I expected them to maybe be shrill or a bit bright with my SS amps. Polar opposite. They are very dark, almost a 'blanket over' effect. To be honest, they are FAR more listenable than my cm10's were, with my other components. The sometimes buzz sawing guitars and highs through the cm10's are gone. These sound extremely smooth in comparison. The bass has more character, is more present, and is more defined. From album to album I notice the difference in different bass tones which I sometimes lacked the ability to do with the cm10's. It's as if they artificialized the bass. My ears adjusted to these a little, and they were great for late night low level listening , (till 3:30am last night).  They are dark though.  Very dark. Not as dynamic. I'm surprised about that?  I thought these would be very hard hitting and dynamic, and a little bright. Perhaps I was wrong to assume that. There is nothing fatiguing about these in this setup. I am just wondering if my dark sound is the result of the speakers being more sensitive thus I am hearing my other components and the marantz is a darker sound so that is what I am hearing.  

 

Perhaps these 500watt SS mono's do not pair at all well with the cornwalls and things will becomes more dynamic and 'alive' once my big SET amp is driving them instead?

 

 I have listened to exclusively to records so far, which is a VPI classic 2 with soundsmith zephyr 2 through my marantz phono.

IMG_8639.JPG

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14 minutes ago, pbphoto said:

Are the tweeters working?  Were you able to audition them at the previous owner's home and if so, how did they sound there?

Yes they're working. Yes we listened to them at sellers house and I don't recall thinking they were dark.  Smooth. Not dark. Very revealing and natural, more dynamic maybe even.  He is moving and had most of his Lp's already packed up.  

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When I owned Corns and Belles at the same time and would substitute one for the other I thought the CW's were dark, dead sounding in comparison to Belles. So much so I thought something was astray with the newer Crites crossovers that I sent them to Bob to be checked, all was fine. From that point I lost my ears for CW's. Depending on the listeners frame of reference speakers can take on a different impression than to those who listen exclusivly to one speaker only. I doubt there is a thing wrong with the new CW, give it time to adjust. You may find they are not your cup of tea at the end of the day.

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1 minute ago, richieb said:

When I owned Corns and Belles at the same time and would substitute one for the other I thought the CW's were dark, dead sounding in comparison to Belles. So much so I thought something was astray with the newer Crites crossovers that I sent them to Bob to be checked, all was fine. From that point I lost my ears for CW's. Depending on the listeners frame of reference speakers can take on a different impression than to those who listen exclusivly to one speaker only. I doubt there is a thing wrong with the new CW, give it time to adjust. You may find they are not your cup of tea at the end of the day.

I'm thinking they're probably fine. Very dark! However honestly, without forcing it or trying to make myself like something, I found myself wanting to listen last night. With my cm10's I didn't feel that. I felt like I was being attacked or something.  The cornwalls are a more inviting sound. 

 

I am about to plug my pre up to a monitor and do two things. First off, have i still have 'bi-amp' enabled, as I was running my amps bi amped with the cm10's, and second I may set the cornwalls to 'Large' as the cm10's were on small..

 

 

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I would run the Cornwalls full range.  My opinion is to let them do their job.  

I'm wondering about the age of the caps.  I had some originals that after 40 years were sounding pretty dull.  I also had a similar experience with lousy interconnects that caused similar symptoms.

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So I've set the cornwalls to 'large' and dropped the subwoofers crossover to 40Hz.  I am enjoying what I'm hearing at the moment. I DO have hum. My pre amp has its volume gauge on a 0-98 scale.  Once I get to around 40 or so the hum is pretty audible. 

 

I assume this hum would likely disappear once I swap line magnetic integrated in replacement for the marantz 7701 which has a lot going on with all of its video processing stuff and features for a 2 channel setup, and these two large emotiva monoblocks which do have high noise ratings... thoughts?

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1 hour ago, muel said:

I would run the Cornwalls full range.  My opinion is to let them do their job.  

I'm wondering about the age of the caps.  I had some originals that after 40 years were sounding pretty dull.  I also had a similar experience with lousy interconnects that caused similar symptoms.

 

26 minutes ago, jkull said:

So I've set the cornwalls to 'large' and dropped the subwoofers crossover to 40Hz.  I am enjoying what I'm hearing at the moment. I DO have hum. My pre amp has its volume gauge on a 0-98 scale.  Once I get to around 40 or so the hum is pretty audible. 

 

I assume this hum would likely disappear once I swap line magnetic integrated in replacement for the marantz 7701 which has a lot going on with all of its video processing stuff and features for a 2 channel setup, and these two large emotiva monoblocks which do have high noise ratings... thoughts?

Agree with muel. I run my La Scalas full range. 

 

@jkull - In my opinion, run your Cornwalls full range with the Line Magnetic amp. Get things as simple and direct as possible and evaluate your system on that basis. Once you have your baseline system sound, then you can add the electronic crossover, amps and subs to biamp. 

 

That way you will know if biamping adds or detracts from your overall enjoyment of your system. :)

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25 minutes ago, TubeHiFiNut said:

 

Agree with muel. I run my La Scalas full range. 

 

@jkull - In my opinion, run your Cornwalls full range with the Line Magnetic amp. Get things as simple and direct as possible and evaluate your system on that basis. Once you have your baseline system sound, then you can add the electronic crossover, amps and subs to biamp. 

 

That way you will know if biamping adds or detracts from your overall enjoyment of your system. :)

Yup I hear ya. I like the idea of trying to simplify things.  Thus why I went to an integrated SET amp. 

 

Will follow up

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24 minutes ago, Ski Bum said:

Those Emo amps do sport high gain, but I don't think that's to blame.  High gain would result in the amplification of the noise floor (hiss), where it seems you're experiencing a ground loop issue (60/120 hz hum). 

Yes I have a humm/light buzz 

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4 hours ago, jkull said:

Well I've got the cornwalls home and setup. Hooked up to my emotiva mono blocks and marantz 7701 for now to test them out.  They are 1980's Horizontal Cornwall 1's.  

 

First impression- I expected them to maybe be shrill or a bit bright with my SS amps. Polar opposite. They are very dark, almost a 'blanket over' effect. To be honest, they are FAR more listenable than my cm10's were, with my other components. The sometimes buzz sawing guitars and highs through the cm10's are gone. These sound extremely smooth in comparison. The bass has more character, is more present, and is more defined. From album to album I notice the difference in different bass tones which I sometimes lacked the ability to do with the cm10's. It's as if they artificialized the bass. My ears adjusted to these a little, and they were great for late night low level listening , (till 3:30am last night).  They are dark though.  Very dark. Not as dynamic. I'm surprised about that?  I thought these would be very hard hitting and dynamic, and a little bright. Perhaps I was wrong to assume that. There is nothing fatiguing about these in this setup. I am just wondering if my dark sound is the result of the speakers being more sensitive thus I am hearing my other components and the marantz is a darker sound so that is what I am hearing.  

 

Perhaps these 500watt SS mono's do not pair at all well with the cornwalls and things will becomes more dynamic and 'alive' once my big SET amp is driving them instead?

 

 I have listened to exclusively to records so far, which is a VPI classic 2 with soundsmith zephyr 2 through my marantz phono.

IMG_8639.JPG

With no toe in your taming the highs and I'm surprised tour tonearm will track anything being out front in between

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On 11/17/2016 at 1:55 PM, muel said:

The only "proof" I need is in the listening.  I am capable of imagining there might exist a few or many SS amps that would bring me as much bliss as tubes but I have already arrived at a happy place with my tube amps.  Tubes going bad has been extremely rare (one rectifier) for me and power tubes have lasted many thousands of hours.   I can happily move to fixing more pressing issues such as improving my room, tweaking speaker and seat placement.   Perhaps I could have arrived at a similar state of happiness at less cost.   I know I've saved a ton through the sharing that occurs here!

 

These "My dad's boat is better than your dad's boat" type of arguments get old.

 

 

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6 hours ago, mkane said:

With no toe in your taming the highs and I'm surprised tour tonearm will track anything being out front in between

The tt won't be there permanently.  Of course not. This is just at the moment. There is very little if any vibration reaching the platter as odd as that may sound.  I know I know.  Between the floor at the platter you've got more separation than meets the eye. These tables are very well built in their isolation design

 

i had them toed.  They didn't need it at all, put them back flat against the wall again which solidified the bass response even more and the highs are reaching me just fine.  I find myself turning it up a bit louder in order to get attack and dynamics during heavier music.  Once it gets there it sounds great.  The sound is a 'wall of sound' and very live compared to the cm10's.  The bass is just excellent.. really excellent. I keep pulling for albums with distinct bass tones and I'm enjoying hearing how well they are displayed and voiced through these 15's. 

 

Im hoping the Lm219 maintains good bass drive, but opens up the sound and dynamics a bit.  

 

I feel as if after having speakers in this large of an enclosure, it could be hard to go back???

 

how else can I say it. As a long time bassist guitarist and drummer, obsessed with tone and amps and such. This setup through the cm10's didnt necessarily sound like real bass guitar.  It sounded like bass.. yes bass, warm, and rhythmic, but not like a lifelike bass guitar, where as the cornwalls are excelling at this wonderfully....I feel like I am hearing bass out of one of my bass guitar cabs my my basement!... in a good way 

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On 11/21/2016 at 7:21 PM, mkane said:

  This set up doesn't get used much because of hum. I don't know enough to fix em'.

003_zpsrotrbwiv.jpg

If you are interested in pursuing a possible fix for these, consider posting in the tubes section with lots of information about what these amps are, under-chassis pictures, schematic if available, and a detailed description of the hum problem.  They look too nice not to be used!

 

Maynard

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