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Ultimate Monblocks for the KHorns?


StickMan

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Flux,

With all due respect, what the flux is your agenda here! You show up out of the blue, probably someone who has been here before under another name, and left hastily due to a run in with some board members.

If you have an opinion on something give the facts to back them up, not some ill colored metaphor that makes you look like a complete moron.

If you want to hang around contribute something of substance, otherwise read and learn something.16.gif

Have a nice day!1.gif

Tom

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Taken directly from the manual for my Cary 300SEI -

" ...as this ampilifier uses very a high voltage current, butt wiping is NOT recommended unless you are a recent parolee from OZ and miss your "friend" Bubba."

Regards,

Chris

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he said ultimate but then mentioned an 805c...so I took the price of the 805c as the reference. I will be interested in hearing from him about budget and other components...BTW the tenor stuff is pretty much ultimate IMHO regardless of price...tony

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Tony, Jeff Lessard said the same thing about the Tenor OTL ... It ruins you for all other amps.

It does have some inconveniences ... like heat apparently ... and it's also about 15-large for a pair. Maybe after I send three kids through college, have the mortgage paid off, the child support is done, my 401k's (I mean 201k's) are fully-funded, and well ... uh, forget about it.

Dean, to answer your question, I think what I've got in the living room is about as close as I can/will come to perfection. In the "Artto" spirit, most gains made from here out will be in the listening room department. That means "next house" which is a little ways off ...

I must say that LeoK's RF-7's and parafeed cobalt Moondogs are absolutely wonderful. He's also got a wonderful PP amp that he modified that sounds sublime and gutsy at the same time.

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JFL and tenor are kinda the ying and yang of audio;

jeff, simplicity, classic designs, low price...

tenor, incredible complexity, cutting edge design, high prices...

Ultimate for me?...well realistically, I would probably opt for JFL 2A3 PP monoblocks with the best of everything (cobalt trannies, BG and jensen caps, silver wires, best NOS tubes) and kick back at half the price of the tenors...the rest can go to another couple'a'hundred CDs...regards, tony

btw tenor monoblocks are regularly on audiogon for about $10k...

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DeanG,

how was that out of line? A lot of people (particularly the author of the review piece the link points to) think the Audio Note products like the Ongaku and, for the truly obsessed, the Gako-On are the ultimate tube powered amps. If you read the Positive Feedback review of the Ongaku, Steve Rochlin does a very good job articulating some of the elusive elements of music reproduction we all (uh, I think) strive for. To quote a small section...

"Theres a ritual we got here on Sunday mornings. That is to play Cheskys recording of O Magnum Mysterium. It was during this recording it all made sense to me. Though this music is spiritual, for the first time was truly spiritual. One could feel the hall. The way the pipe organ filled the hall with its presence placed about 45 feet behind the choir. Sure the music sounded good before the Ongaku, but not like this. It was as if they were there to the extent that even the feelings of the performance transcended the recording and into my home. This was my first deeply spiritual experience with reproduced music... "

Isn't that a good summation of "ultimate"?

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Re: the Ongaku

The fuss about this amp (IMHO of course) was:

-its price

-the fact that it was one of the first SET to have press coverage this side of the Atlantic

-the fact that it could drive other than efficient speakers so owners of B&W could ear the "SET magic".

For the rest, this amp sounds good but certainly not better than any SETs by Gordon Rankin of Wavelentgh Audio for exemple (a really nice guy with really nice amps but not often heard of around here). I would take Leok's delightful cobalt Moondog anytime of the day over an Ongaku which actually sounds pretty "slow" and to my ears.

Re: the Tenor Audio OTL

This is definitively my ultimate amp. Hearing this amp (particularly the 15W version) on my Lamhorns screw me for life. I can't live without them... Sadly I can't live with them either! I will hear soon the new hybrid version they put out and I must say I am pretty curious about what Michel Vanden Broech (Tenor Audio designer) will have achieve. This guy IS the tube guru by excellence. I wish I had only one glimpse of his genius.

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This started off so good, but it kinda went down hill.

I do have a question.

Lets say he gets a pair of what ever.

What Preamp does he get?

What I've been wondering lately is it better to have a better pre then power amp.

I know that the power amp is just going to amplify what ever signal that is feeding it and if you have a "weak" pre your ultimate amps are going to be putting out less than ultimate.

The reason I'm asking this is I'm using an AES AE3 preamp with every mod that they would do to it. I am using a pair of Wright 3.5's.

The sound is great.

But I got caught up in this BB and ended up buying a pair of MarkIII's. I want to totally rebuild these things. It's going to cost between $900-$1500 to do this depending on who does it.

My question is do I stay with the Wrights and spend the $1500 plus on a new pre or upgrade the Dynaco's and stay with the AES.

What gives the most bang for the buck?

This is my last purchase. If I figure out what to do, I am going to be having a going out of business sale here very soon. I need to start buying furniture. I need to get rid of all this stuff that I'm not using.

Thanks

Danny

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