What is the difference between the belle and the Cornwall?

[Johnny dB]

m00n,

I was in your shoes a month or 2 ago. I wanted to try tubes but didn't know where to start. I considered the Jolidas for the looks, but wanted to get back into vinyl. I found a Scott 299A mkII on ebay shipped it to Craig, had some problems when I got it back, but Craig is very helpful and he goes out of his way to make things sound right. I couldn't be happier.

[m00n]

Yeah, I have been in email contact with Craig.

[kjohnsonhp]

Which Quicksilver amps are recommended the most? The KT88 seems popular

http://www.audioshopper.com/quicks.htm

M135 Mono Amplifiers EL34

V4 Mono Amplifiers KT88

M80 Mono Amplifiers EL34

Silver Mono Amplifiers KT88

KT88 Mono Amplifiers KT88

8417 Mono Amplifiers 8417

MX190 Stereo Amplifier EL34

Silver 60s,

Horn Monos,

M60 Mono Amplifiers,

the GLA,

Mini-Mite Mono Amplifiers

[edster00]

Dean,

Sorry about the mix-up on the amps. So many Scotts and so little time...hard to keep track of whom got which one from where.

It does go to show that you really can make a beautiful restoration with a little determination and elbow grease. Great job!

[dbflash]

Talk to Keith brought his Scott (can't remember what model) over to the house. We hooked them up to a pair of Lascalas.

Sounded pretty good to me.

I was so impressed that I had to get a PP amp so I could really compare it to a SET.

I will report back what I think of Dynaco MarkIII's compared to Wright 3.5 in the next month or two.

Danny

[mike stehr]

You know, I've been reading up on the "Penultimate Zen".

(These little catch phrases kill me...)

Looks pretty interesting, and a rather simple circuit at that.

[Deang]

I like Steve Decware's little SET amp based on the EL-34. I'd love to hear that thing.

Mark, I don't buy into the 'milliwatt' thing, but It does seem logical that if you're running big Heritage and 3.5 watts, you should easily get 90-95 db at 12 feet and still have plenty of headroom.

I've been experimenting over here for a while with this power thing, and what I've decided is that there is SPL, and then there is unbridled, unrestricted SPL. I think some peaks happen so fast, the meter just doesn't pick them up -- but the ears do.

If I compare 100db on the RF-7's and Quicksilvers to 100db with the Scott and Cornwalls -- it's interesting. The RF-7 based system sounds effortless and free breathing, while the Cornwalls and Scott start pinching and compressing. At 95 db however, the Scott and Cornwalls pull even. There is certainly more going on here than what the meter is saying.

That said, I just can't imagine anyone needing more than 20 watts for big Heritage, unless someone does most of their listening at 100db or more -- which is insane. 100 db is freaking loud.

The Quicksilver products: Most of the amps on that list are poor choices for Heritage speakers. Early Mike Sanders designs had a reputation for driving tubes very hard. Most of those early designs are pulling 80-90 watts out of four EL-34's or KT-88's, and were tube rectified too boot. They have a reputation for sounding great, but going through tubes very fast. Users of the early stuff would go through a new set of output tubes once a year.

The Mono-60 was his first design that ran the tubes honestly -- which is why he ended up with four EL-34's to get 60 watts. I asked him why he stopped making them, and he said sales started slipping because people didn't want to dish out for two quads of EL-34's when they could get 80 watts with four KT-88's. He agreed with me that the M-60's sounded better. Incidently, Mike Sanders listens to horns -- and his stuff is voiced accordingly.

If I had the big horns -- I would probably want to hear the Mini-Mites on them. The Horn Mono's were designed specifically for big horns, and supposedly sound great -- but there is a load of feedback in the design. I'm O.K. with some feedback -- but I think he went coo-coo for cocoa puffs on those things. Of course, I don't know jack squat about amps -- so who am I to say anything. There is a review at the Stereophile site on the Horn-mono's -- they seemed to like them quite a bit.

Personally, experience has taught me that if you want to go separates, you can cheat on the amp(s) a little bit -- but don't cheat on the preamp. I still think most of the front end signature comes from the preamp. The biggest changes in sound over here happened when I switched preamps -- every time.

[Deang]

I thought it was 'left' angles that caused distortion in wires. Crap, now I have to rewire my whole system.

[T2K]

"I have no religion about horns and tubes or tubes vs. 'xisters. Many horn though systems have truly obvious (and frequently obnoxious) peaks - - which I suppose fortunately - can seem to be ameliorated by tube amps, and conversely exacerbated by certain SS amps."

Thanks for laying it out where, hopefully, everyone can finally understand mdeneen. I get really, really tired of the constant bashing of SS gear here. It appears that no one here ever considered the fact that it may possibly be the horn speakers that they are using that are torturing their ears. The ever popular line that horn speakers are 'revealing' of the sorry SS equipment gives me a good laugh too.

I have tube amp(S). I have SS gear. They're both great. They're both different.

Keith

[kjohnsonhp]

I've chatted with a few financially empowered folks that like to have two or three amps on hand (SS & tube) depending on their mood.

-KJ

Still looking at pres...the AE-3 would still need a phono. I broke down and started working on my PAS3 (new connectors, freshed some caps, etc.).

[m00n]

Right on... That would be cool.

[jazman]

Some food for thought on the Tube vs SS debate.

This is a little piece drawn from the Audio Note site. As a manufacture of tube based kits and products some of the statements on the site are obviously self serving based on their product direction, yet some of the information has merit. Judge or believe as you may. BTW, there is much more to read for those so inclined.

http://www.audionote.co.uk/index.htm

..........."statements of fact not fiction or conjecture, all transistor amplifiers sound poor for the simple reason that transistors are inferior amplifying devices. The word semiconductor really means what it says and it says it all, half-conductor, sonically this could be translated to mean half the signal! Which is really what it sounds like. Pure and simple, transistors are highly un-linear and need a lot of correction (feedback of some sort) to have a bandwidth wide enough to be able to reproduce any music signals, they are not natural voltage amplifiers.

Directly heated triodes on the other hand are highly linear amplifying devices, the directly heated triode is the original voltage amplifier, the first, only and still the best, it responds well to better circuits, components and materials, but they are less efficient and more expensive than pentodes and tetrodes. Thus they require efficient speakers, with power output being at a premium price."

Consider the pot has now been stirred everyone.

Klipsch out.