Erik Mandaville Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 First! Thanks to all of you for responding with cogent, thought provoking comments, suggestions, ideas, opinions, etc. You all ARE in fact a rather closely knit group, and I tend to venture to this site perhaps a little less often. But I have always found this forum a really enjoyable place to share a common love and interest. I had merely happened upon a full-page view of a preamp, that to me looked like something out of a glossy audio magazine, and it just sort of hit me in an odd way...and I qualified that by saying my thoughts on the subject may not be necessarily correct, 'right,' accurate, or whatever else. If not of such an extraordinarily high quality (that's a compliment, Kelly -- one of many of extended to you on this obvious ability of yours!, that picture probably wouldn't have had the impact it did. And it IS a very nice looking preamp, by the way. And yeah, Kelly, I'd love to have a look at the schematic, BUT!!! only with the designer's approval. He may in fact not want every one in the world to see it right now. That I would like to respect. Jack Eliano published the schematic of his said-to-be quick 6SN7 line stage(now on the racks of Welborne Labs)in Vacuum Tube Valley, and it is really easy to make. The Pantheon (cool name!) designer may not be comfortable with that yet... In short you all, please accept an apology if I in any way disturbed what would otherwise be looked upon with interest and enthusiasm. But for those who may want to venture into a Pantheon based on its 'killer' looks alone, I would first do some research on the circuit employed -- or ask assistance with that. Look for things like: amount of gain; input and output imedence; (higher output imped. can make it difficult to 'drive' the capacitance associated with long runs of cable); method of coupling; etc. Maybe Kelly has provided all that information already. As well-armed and thorough as he always is, I'm sure these specs. have already been...well...made known to the public. So please just take what I said with the well-known 'grain of salt,' ok?! Lastly, please let me share this! I finally finished the restoration of an old, vintage pair of 6V6 push-pull amplifiers (capable of about 10 watts or so), and used them with the La Scalas and my Lowther/Medallion combo (powered by 2A3 monoblocks). With some exprimentation of speaker placement, I was able to achieve an incredibly good balance between the two speakers, where the La Scalas very nicely filled in the lower frequency range. both speakers, Lowthers and La Scalas, have similar, high-speed sonic signatures, and I was surprised at how well the two worked together. I had tried this once in a different fashion with a different amp, and the results were not nearly as good. SETs (single ended triodes -- for those who aren't familiar with that) are good, but so are push-pull amplifiers! This is the first time I've had some hands-on experience with phase-splitters and such, and it was a good (and good-sounding) experience! I sat in front of the system (powered by a total of 22 tubes!) late into the night -- no distraction whatsoever...which is how I prefer to listen to music. And my amplifiers, preamp, and sources are now turned off. Have a good day, Erik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 Erik, On the first subject, for my part, your concerns are an important piece of the overall picture. High quality audio is not a mainstream concern and so, it has only marginal potential as a market. Those who venture into the market most make careful decisions about disclosure. Too little disclosure will result in loss of sales to those who would appreciate a good design. Too much disclosure may feed the competition. The way we listen to each other and regulate the circulation of ideas will impact the growth, or lack of it, of high quality audio, as a market .. and the availability, quality, and cost of related equipment. On to the Lowther/LaScala combination. Are you creating a single speaker using Lowther hf and LaScala for the low end? Where is the crossover? How does the Lowther high freq. sound compare with the LaScala high end? I attended a horn speaker design review, given by Bruce Edgar, last summer at the ChiTown Horn Bash, and talked with Bruce afterwards. I was under the impression that Bruce felt that pushing a horn-loaded element beyond a 10x frequency range was not realistic. Yet, Lowther designs claim to achieve a 100x frequency range (200Hz to 20KHz). leok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 leok----Lowthers in Medallions are primarily direct-radiators and not horns. They are only horn-loaded in the bass, below 200hz or so. The driver is mounted so the front radiates into the air like any other cone but the rear of the driver fires into a folded horn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 This is completely new territory for me. I was looking at the Oris DIY design on the Welborne Labs site. The idea of using the Lowther driver for under 200Hz adds an additional dimension to the puzzel. I'll look up the Medallion, and now I'm sure I don't know what Erik is doing. thanks, leok Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Mandaville Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 A short note here, Leo: I think the Oris is intended........... ............oops! My wife is calling; time for our Sunday morning at Barnes and Noble (for me that means a couple of new CDs!) I'll hop on again later and get into this a bit more. Erik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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