Shock-Late Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 I hate my new AMC CVT3030! it only works good with classical and jazz music! And I mostly listen to rock and pop! WHY DID I SELL MY MUSICAL FIDELITY SS AMP??? It was better sounding than this piece of **** ! And so much cheaper!! damn it! On one of my recently bought pop recording (Rufus Wainwright, "Poses"), I can't even hear the background vocals!! And with punk-rock I don't hear the drums, they're like "blom blom" instead of "bam bam"! I should have known that tube amps are only really good with quiet, soulful recordings! but i wasn't able to try this amp with my scalas at home before buying it! What's more, i get a persistent peak in the high treble that's fun on first impressions but soon becomes boring to listen to! I really don't know what to do! Nobody should buy a tube amp without knowing exactly what it will do to the sound, just because people say that "tube amps are soooo great"! i think only very expensive tube amps are great, and even them, I'm not sure they're good with driving music! I hate this hobby...all my money is gone in this amp and I can't listen to it... This message has been edited by Shock-Late on 06-09-2001 at 05:37 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowooo Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 SS-1 Tubes-0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klewless Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Shock-Late, Your statement "What's more, i get a persistent peak in the high treble that's fun on first impressions but soon becomes boring to listen to!" is far more prevalent than many people may realize. This applies to perceived impressions on most any audition in which one participates, not just treble, or bass, or smoothness or ....(you get the point). Only to find out later that after "... which impressed me as better" was not really an improvement after all (just different). If only we could understand this complex process of decisiom making! I understand your frustration. Been there, done that too. If only I had the money I have spent on "better". Have you tried to move your speakers to a slightly different location? Sometimes that shows up as a problem not noticed earlier due to different amp behavior. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 shock, I don´t think you should blame tubes...the musical fidelity piece you had certainly was an excellent high fidelity piece...the AMC piece is questionable, I might say mid-fi...in your desire to get some of the benefits that many tout of tubes you "jumped too soon"...sell the AMC unit and be patient, save up for something truly high fidelity...that does not mean necessarily expensive, buy used (the great circle of life exists in our hobby, many of our audiophile peers turn overs amp like we change socks!) and try to audition equipment before you buy...I have half a dozen components in the closet that I bought without auditioning (since randy bey is spilling his guts too, that is my big, dirty secret!) however I am quite happy with my cheap dynaco tube amps and k-horns, they, to me, sound better than my McIntosh solid state did...the Mac was a great SS amp, detailed, powerful, low distortion but it made my k-horns sound too shrill...the dynaco monoblocks give great punch, are still quite detailed, have a great soundstage and have tamed the "glare"...YMMV...BUT...don´t write off tubes yet...hang around some stores and give a listen...SS versus Tubes, what fun! best of luck and sorry for your audio problems, Tony This message has been edited by sunnysal on 06-09-2001 at 10:32 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted June 9, 2001 Author Share Posted June 9, 2001 I think this is the worst "boulette" (as we say in french about something we shouldn't have done) I've made in my entire audiophile life. But what's sad is that I'm a student, only 23, and this is the most expensive component I've ever bought, since even my Scalas were bought for very cheap (cause they're ugly, painted in pale grey). I had to sell my Musical fidelity amp plus a pair of 38cm Alnico woofers i had in order to get the cash. What's more, i just gave a phonecall to a shop who sells second-hand gear, to see if they could eventually take the AMC and give me another amp instead, and they say they don't want it 'cause running in class A and not very reliable because of this...So I have to sell it, and I'm going to lose a lot of money, I won't have the cash to buy another amp as good as my Musical Fidelity was. In fact the very worse thing is that the reason why I wanted to buy another amp was due to the sound of the scalas, and not to the quality of the MF amp. My scalas are the old ones with the metal horn and the AA x-over; I thought the harsh sound I had was partly due to the SS amp but it's entirely due to the Scalas; indeed, this harsh sound is still there with the tube amp. At least with the Musical fidelity I had punch, bass, details, dynamics, and clarity. Such things I don't have with the AMC. And it's not my CD player, this one, at least, is pretty good. I should have dynamated the horns and saved for a pair of ALK x-overs before changing the amp. It will serve me as a lesson, but it's a bit on the expensive side for such a bad lesson... Maybe it will serve for other people reading this... Anyway, if anyone can tell me if they know a good but not too expensive amp capable of sounding as nice with punk-rock as with classical, please advise me. I'm fed up with wasting money. This message has been edited by Shock-Late on 06-09-2001 at 11:49 AM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy Bey Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Shock, I hate to say this but I TOLD YOU SO!s> heh heh, actually I don't think I did. I probably extolled about the virtues of tube amps. Maybe I lucked out. My first tube amp is probably going to be my last amp ever. And with 8 blinding class A SET watts, it plays so loud the dust shakes off the rafters. I agree with Tony. Don't know about the pedigree of the amps you mention but suggest you get a well received (in the Khorn crowd) tube amp before you give up on tubes forever. Properly done, the effect is truly magical. Here is my low cost (less than $100) suggestion to improve your lot in life. Buy a large container of plain dynamat from a car audio store and a big big box of rope caulk from the window insulation department at the hardware store. Dynamat your squawker as well as you can, and wrap the rope caulk around the tweeter until it resembles a little snowman. Do the same with the small part of the squawker horn, where the driver meets the horn. If you can reach the woofer dynamat it's basket too. Don't know about the LaScala but if it has a rear chamber for the woofer stuff it with fibreglass insulation. These things were the most wonderful changes I ever made to my speakers. A bit further down but still appreciable was changing the tweeter section in the AA from 2uF to 6uF, and bypassing the 2.5mH coil on the woofer. If you haven't removed the screw from the coil on the left side of the crossover (the one that holds the little frisbee down on the midrange coil) do so and glue the coil after throwing away the screw. There. That's it. You're done. If there is anything still wrong with the sound start looking elsewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 shock, your best bet, money-wise, is going to be a Dynaco ST-70...you can get one for less than $300...the low power SET amos are either more expensive or will not handle the loud rock music...I think push-pull form Dynaco is your best best...however I do have a few more questions...what kind of preamp are you using? perhaps some tone controls would help somewhat until you can swap amps? BTW randy´s tweak suggestions come from a lot of hard work and listening on his part, give his advice due weight..regards, tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider124 Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 sunnysal, the AMC is a EL34 PP amp. The problem is most likely that even at $1000, unless you are dealing with a good kit (Bottlehead, for instance) or used stuff, the iron being used is still pretty cheapo. A 300B amplifier with good iron (Magnequest, Lundahl) should give some pretty damn impressive bass with the La Scalas. Unfortunately you're in the neighborhood of $1500, assuming you're handy with a soldering iron and comfortable with making a kit. My personal solution for my RF-3's (possibly RF-5's or 7's in the next year or two), will probably be a 20W SET using the Svetlana 572-3 parafed with Magnequest iron. At $1000 and seeking really good bass performance... well, I probably wouldn't have gotten into tubes yet. Good iron makes good bass, and good iron is f***ing expensive. (Now, I hope I don't insult/offend anyone with this next comment...) Who the heck recommended the AMC CVT3030 for your La Scalas? Charlie Also, someone saying that they won't take them because they are Class A is pretty stupid. Class A operation doesn't have any effect on overall tube life, the only thing that really matters -assuming you stay within limits on other things- is overall average plate dissipation. (Which can be plenty high on Class AB amps) ------------------ "What's that noise?" "It's the carpet, it kinda mutes the speakers." "No, it sounded more like the chandalier falling." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted June 11, 2001 Author Share Posted June 11, 2001 Thank you all for your help; I will try to find a really good-sounding amp (be it tube or ss) and until then i will dynamat the horns... Frans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 Shock, Dynamatting the horns will help a lot, if you're hearing the same thing I was hearing 'fore I dynamatted (?word?) MY Scalas. Dynamat is available at auto parts stores like Pep Boys. There are (at least) three types: old original ugly icky-looking brown stuff based on some asphault compound; newer lighter weight version with pretty silver backed high tech polymer compound based damping material; newest (?) version with higher tech, more heat resistant polymer (stuff is made to go under car hoods, remember) with silver backing. I tried all three (I'm a complete nut case) and found the old, heavy, ugly smelly brown verions was WAY better on my metal horns. I applied it by first cutting the sheets of Dynamat into four triangular shapes that fit the top, bottom and sides of the horn, heated it by placing it in a warm switched off oven 'till it was almost too hot to hold, then applied it. Note that the warmer it gets, the better it sticks (to EVERYTHING SINGLE DAMN THING IT TOUCHES), but the saggier it gets. Too warm, and the stuff has the consistency of pizza dough. As to amps, I'd suggest spending some time with EBay. I've tried several different integrated amps, both tube and solid state, and if you get something over EBay you don't like, you can usually sell it to someone else for just about what you paid for it (long as you don't go nuts and overbid in the heat of the moment.) Personally, I tried everything from a Jolida 6550-based tube amp (SJ502A) to a (get this!) Krell KAV300i, and found that, for whatever weird reason, the best sounding amp, in my room with my La Scalas, is a 15 year old Rotel RA850BX2 integrated 30 watt amp. (Note to those of you who've followed my "What amp is he using NOW?" posts, I decided yesterday that the Rotel is better than the the TEAC AS100 that had replaced the Rotel a few months ago. TEAC is more technicolored, a bit more dynamic, but after listening to it for quite some time, I found that I liked music better through the Rotel. I have no idea why.) Ray ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider124 Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 Shock-Late, About the only recommendations I can give are for kits (They just toast most retail stuff you can find for twice the price). 1) If you want to give tubes another shot, look at the AES Super Amp. Go to the page and click on 'Whats New' over on the left. It is a $1000 kit ($1200 assembled) with KT88 output tubes and REALLY GOOD output iron (designed by Cary). This is not an integrated, and you would need a preamp if your CD player doesn't have volume control. You would probably want to buy this through Upscale Audio , unless you have a local AES dealer. UPDATE: Whoops. I've read a couple of reviews in which people say the bass is soft and/or mushy. Not good for you. 2) Another good tube kit is the Bottlehead Paraglows . I know you think I'm probably crazy for recommending a 2A3 amp (about 2.5 watts), but this is an exceptional amplifier, with really superb iron, and using parafeed output. It has pretty impressive bass considering the power output. Starts at around $1200, goes up to $1700 or so with better tubes. 3) If you are fed up with tubes, the SS amp I would *VERY STRONGLY* (as I finally had a chance to listen to a pair of these... outstanding) recommend the AKSA, produced by Printed Electronics . It is also a kit, but available with the PCB mostly finished, they also sell most of the power supply parts and such that you need. If you can, or can find someone who can assemble these, it would really be worth it. It is a (relatively) large 55w/ch Class AB, but it has distortion characteristics similar to most Class A stuff. Read Hugh's writings about this amp on that page. Well, that's about it. Sorry if kits are totally inappropriate for you. If so probably try to find the Rotel that Ray likes, I guess The good thing about the AKSA, (and probably the rotel, I don't know how much it costs) is that you'd probably have enough money left over to pick up some of Al's crossovers. Charlie ps If you want to try something way out there, send me an email and we can talk about some hybrid tube/SS stuff. Not even available as a kit, but I could build you one. This message has been edited by Spider124 on 06-11-2001 at 12:22 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discorules Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 Hey Shock. To borrow an expression, "I feel your pain." I strongly recommend getting a Harman Kardon stereo receiver. I still haven't heard any thing better and the lowest power model, 70 watts/ch should more than enough for the La Scalas. The price should reasonable for you. I made the mistake of dumping my then 14 year old HK 730 receiver several years back and bought the new fangled home theater stuff from Denon. In the interim I also listened to a bunch of other amps and none of them surpassed the sound I got from my HK. In fact as an example, Krell's are some of the most overated unmusical amps I've ever heard. The HK's don't blow you away with some exaggerated performance initially. They sound very musical when you first hear them and over time you hear the subtle qualities in your music that make you appreciate their amps in the long run. Anyway I'm back to HK as my dedicated stereo setup with Magnepan speakers. The speakers are nice but nothing like Khorns which I plan on purchasing eventually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 thanks spider, I did not realize that was an EL34 PP unit, though I am surprised that he lacks bass punch with that setup...like I said my Dynaco monoblocks do not seem to lack bass! I guess they had pretty decent "iron"!...I think a 2A3 might be a risky choice for head banging...regards, tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider124 Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 sal, which dynaco's do you have? Early dynaco units had iron (transformers) that were hand-wound in the USA. Not bad at all As for 2A3's and head-banging.... it MIGHT be risky. I will post on the bottlehead forum at the asylum and see if anyone else has tried them. (2A3's and La Scalas) UPDATE: Legend has it that PWK voiced the K-Horns with a 2A3 amp. (This is second-hand info though, obviously) And I've heard of good results on the 2A3/La Scala combination, although nothing specific on bass performance. I know one guy who has an 845 w/ La Scalas and thinks it is fantastic. These are expensive, though. Charlie This message has been edited by Spider124 on 06-11-2001 at 03:16 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Cornell Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 Just an opinion, every solid state unit i have used sounds absolutley fabulous on my cornwalls!! I really would have no place for a tube amp here, because of how hot they run!! I have a Mcintosh 2120 solid state amp, that normally runs at 101 degrees!! Thats at about 10 watts per channel, wall shaking levels!! so i myself, really dont see the benefit of tubes!! I have 3 recievers, 2 amplifiers, and the cornwalls rock on any of it! Pioneer Sx 850 Pioneer SX 950 Pioneer SX 780 Mcintosh 2120 Mcintosh C-26 Pyramid PA1000 amp Harman Kardon CD player Klipsch cornwalls front Klipsch cornwalls rear 2 channel stereo 765 CDS Oh what fun!! Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted June 11, 2001 Author Share Posted June 11, 2001 quote: Originally posted by sunnysal: thanks spider, I did not realize that was an EL34 PP unit, though I am surprised that he lacks bass punch with that setup...like I said my Dynaco monoblocks do not seem to lack bass! I guess they had pretty decent "iron"!...I think a 2A3 might be a risky choice for head banging...regards, tony Sal, i don't lack bass punch; what I lack is clarity and impact in the midrange. The drums are kinda strangely muted. And i miss the drive and rythmic tension with electric guitar, wich now sounds just like a monotonic "noise". Even with classical music do I miss clarity (choirs appear to sound like a single big voice) and impact... Frans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shock-Late Posted June 11, 2001 Author Share Posted June 11, 2001 Well, I have to say thanks to all of you guys! I really did appreciate your help! I will look around until I find something interesting...but this time I won't buy it without a listen on my Scalas!... Ray, can you tell me more about the TEAC AS100?? how old? how much power? do you have a pict?? Thanks! Frans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider124 Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 Based on your post there, Shock-Late, about loss of clairty in the midrange, I DEFINITELY think the answer is a SET valve amp. If you get a chance to audition a SET amp (Especially a 300B) at some point, you should give it a shot. Again, quality of the transformers will be key. And I'd strongly recommend Bottlehead's Parafeed stuff. Don't know if you'd get a chance to audition those, though :/ Charlie ------------------ "What's that noise?" "It's the carpet, it kinda mutes the speakers." "No, it sounded more like the chandalier falling." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 spider, I have MkIVs...they are monoblocks, I am not sure of the year BUT since they each have a pair of transformers I suspect they have more iron per tube than an st-70...looking at the schematic and specs they are basically an st-70 split into two chassis but with the power supply section doubled...two trannies each...etc...maybe that is why I have such good slam! regarding mids...I really have to say that while I do detect some "smoothing" of the upper mids and lower highs, I do not seem to have lost any of the definition and clarity I had with my McIntosh SS integrated amp (MA6400) which, by all accounts, must be a pretty good example of the best of the SS breed...I listen to a lot of rock and have not felt I lost anyhting when switching to the tubed Dyanacos...just seemed to tame some "glare" from the overly bright (in my opinion) highs with SS...oh well to each his own...regards, tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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