"I need to liquify my solid state" sez Dean

[mike stehr]

http://www.linearteam.dk/

These are free downloads for WinISD. I know, It's a speaker box design program, but it has a frequency generator feature.

Now if your PC has media speakers, there's a quick and dirty way of figuring out the frequency limits of your hearing.

Fire up the program and your media speakers, then click on the frequency generator feature. Start at around 8 to 10 kHz, and creep on up until you can't hear the frequency anymore. Somewhere between 10 and 20 kHz your hearing will roll-off the HF's.

I'm good for about 14.8, 15 kHz the last time I checked. (probably worse, now...)

It gives a rough idea.........

[Jeff Matthews]

Hey, Mike, I downloaded it and checked it out. It's odd because starting maybe in the high 13k's to low 14k's, I can ALWAYS hear the tone, but it sounds to me as if sometimes the pitch of the tone goes lower while the frequency is set higher - but I ALWAYS hear a tone - all the way up to the 20K. I think maybe it's producung some "dual" tone with the frequency, and I'm catching this lower "dual" tone.

Are you sure this works ok on PC speakers?

[Jeff Matthews]

I'd say I stop hearing a higher pitch at about 14K. I can't think of a single instrument, voice or sound that ever went that high. It was awfully high-pitched. It was surprising to see how high only 400 hz sounds.

[Jeff Matthews]

How 'bout anyone else? Care to give the download a try and report back?

I got my wife to try it. It topped out for both of us at the same time. She does not listen to any loud music. Yhe drum room is "my" room.

[sfogg]

Haven't tried it with that software but using frequency sweeps in my

function generator around 17-18k through speakers. Haven't tried it

with headphones in a long time. Varies with level somewhat. Flyback

transformers drive me nutty in TVs.. they are just under 17k I believe.

FR is one aspect of hearing, sensitivity is another.

Shawn

[Jeff Matthews]

FR is one aspect of hearing, sensitivity is another.

Shawn

Yes, I noticed that as I was running the program. Got to turn up the volume on the low/lows, like 30Hz. Then, some of the highs seemed louder than others, so I was tweaking the volume there, too.

[MarkBK]

Haven't tried it with that software but using frequency sweeps in my function generator around 17-18k through speakers. Haven't tried it with headphones in a long time. Varies with level somewhat. Flyback transformers drive me nutty in TVs.. they are just under 17k I believe.

FR is one aspect of hearing, sensitivity is another.

Shawn

Those drove me nuts whenever I was in a store's TV department - took a long time for me to figure out what the H*ll the noise was - no one else could hear it when I complained.

[Daddy Dee]

Jeff,

Hope it works for you to have a listening session with Craig LeMay. With his VRD's you are likely to find out if tubes will be a satisfactory experience for you. The VRD's have plenty of power to provide the bass dynamics for which you have an appreciation, I'd imagine.

Also, it seems to me that Craig has a JM preamp of one sort of another. If he does, or any other tube preamp, it would be worth your time to see what your Crown sounds like with a tube pre. Very likely, it would be pleasing in it's results. You might find out that you are happy to keep your Crown.

Dee, I am definitely keepin the Crown. Ain't no reason at all to part with it. The options I have are (A) buy a new amp and put it downstairs for my downstairs listening, or ( buy a new amp for upstairs (where my Crown resides) and move the Crown downstairs. Hell, I'd be plenty happy with another Crown. But since everyone is talking 50-watt tubes, I want to understand this theory a bit. That goes for tube pre-amps, too!

One thing you might comment to me on..... If you look at Stormin's posts on the previous page, you'll see that I noted some lost detail on the highs - where I could hear the detail on the Crown but not the Marantz. He said that was the trade-off. Smoothness of tubes makes the highs roll-off, and that's why tubes are smooth and not "earbleeders." Do you agree?

well, I haven't heard the Marantz, but I don't agree that it would be "tube like" because it rolls off the high end.

I think the smoothness of tubes comes from the difference between the sound of tube distortion and SS distortion. IMO, if you are losing detail with tubes, something is wrong with that tube amp. When you listen to something like a JM preamp or other fine tube preamp, I think you'll see that there is no sacrifice to detail. In fact, I think it will be fairly likely that you'll hear some new material you've missed on some of your favorite recordings. That always blows me away and it's happened several times with JM preamps.

[Jeff Matthews]

That's the impression I was always given. I'm sure I'll see soon. []

[mike stehr]

"I got my wife to try it. It topped out for both of us at the same time. She does not listen to any loud music. Yhe drum room is "my" room."

Maybe thats the HF roll-off of the PC media speakers. I didn't think about that.....

[stormin]

Well if i might add that was a generalization of the what some folks tend to say of the marantz. Actually Craig might of given a better description "They have a sonic signature all there own. Very warm and soft much like a bone stock vintage tube amp."

It is without a doubt not your normal harsh or hard sounding ss amplifier. And by that statement i am in no way implying that marantz is the end all in music reproduction. You do tend to lose some of the upper information in the recording because they are rolled off in the highs. Since i have not heard a crown i cant compare the two but i can say a marantz is on the opposite of the ss spectrum to lets say an adcom. And to all the adcom fans this isn't a slam either just a comparison.

Just to put some folks at ease and prevent them from having to take a defensive posture on the tube subject i am not saying most or all tube amps roll of the highs.

Like most i am still searching for nirvana myself.

[Jeff Matthews]

Yeah, I'm familiar w/Adcom. My friend had one. It's signature was very similar to my Crown. His Adcom kept breaking all the time, so it was a real turn-off (no pun intended). I'm sure the one he bought was a "fluke," and the problem was not widespread among the line.

[stormin]

Yeah, I'm familiar w/Adcom. My friend had one. It's signature was very similar to my Crown. His Adcom kept breaking all the time, so it was a real turn-off (no pun intended). I'm sure the one he bought was a "fluke," and the problem was not widespread among the line.

Well if he had the bipolar designed adcom like i have owned and that is similar to your crown then i guess i am familiar to the sound you are hearing. I had the 555mkII and the 565 mono blocks. I would strongly suggest finding the right tube preamp that doesnt rolloff the bottom octaves and isnt an impedance mismatch and you will be much happier with your mids and highs.

[Jeff Matthews]

Don't know what model he had, but it looked alot like the top GFA in the link below:

http://www.adcom.com/amplifiers/stereoamplifiers.htm

[pauln]

Jeff,

To quote Jimmy Hendrix, Band of Gypsies, "Happy New Year, first of all...".[]

I'm in the camp that recommends you try a tubed preamp. One of the advantages of tubes is that they have about 40dB of peak headroom when overdriven, and they hit <3% distortion at 20db peak headroom transients. And this is second harmonic mostly (inaduible), a little third (often inaudible), not much else higher until you go much past 20dB over. Keeping the harminics in the low numbers makes this perfectly listenable.[]

Compare this to opamps that go into massive distortion with all the harmonics at 3-5dB peak headroom which will sound distorted and metalic, or transisters which go into major distortion about 5-10dB over peak headroom with lots of higher harmonics which will sound distorted and too edgey/harsh.[:'(]

What this means is that the tubed preamp with push much cleaner more listenable headroom peaks to you power amp without sounding harsh, distorted, edgey, or blown.[]

If the Crown can take the input OK you may be really surprized how good a tubed preamp will make it sound. You might also discover that you get an authentic dynamic punch in the gut feeling with the music at less overall volume.[]

By the way, I'm in Houston but with my SETs and all you might be nonplused to hear them.[:$]

Craig LeMay might be able to help. He's a superb professional drummer and a nice guy; I played with him long ago.[]

Pauln

[Jeff Matthews]

Thanks for the review, Paul. I bet that was a hell of alot of reading to see where all we went here.

I know my Crown probably isn't the signature for dedicated tubers, but damn, it rocks for me. I'd sure like to hear it w/a tube pre.

If you ever want to hook-up, I can bring it on by, and we can do a little switch-out A/B thing.

Ooooh, I almost forgot. Happy New Year to you, too!

[Daddy Dee]

Well if i might add that was a generalization of the what some folks tend to say of the marantz. Actually Craig might of given a better description "They have a sonic signature all there own. Very warm and soft much like a bone stock vintage tube amp."

It is without a doubt not your normal harsh or hard sounding ss amplifier. And by that statement i am in no way implying that marantz is the end all in music reproduction. You do tend to lose some of the upper information in the recording because they are rolled off in the highs. Since i have not heard a crown i cant compare the two but i can say a marantz is on the opposite of the ss spectrum to lets say an adcom. And to all the adcom fans this isn't a slam either just a comparison.

Just to put some folks at ease and prevent them from having to take a defensive posture on the tube subject i am not saying most or all tube amps roll of the highs.

Like most i am still searching for nirvana myself.

not a prob bro.

[Audio Flynn]

Well I just cranked up your song and if you can stand that song while

your amp is pumping even 30 watts into your klipschorns then the case

is indeed closed your pretty close to being completely deaf

I used my $200 Fluke True RMS AC volt meters and with your song at my

listening positition with my RS digital SPL meter I reached 114dB peaks

and the highest registered VAC being fed to my

Lascalas................... right around 12 RMS VAC my ears would not

allow me to turn it up further. At 1 meter the Lascalas were blarring

out 118+ dB. My amps were not even breakin a sweat.

12 X 12 = 144/8 = 18 watts

what

does the above mean??? Just about nothing because even my fairly high

dollar test equipment can not measure what is happening accurately. The

SPL meter can't really give us the true peak SPL. The MM can not give

us the true RMS AC peaks and the impedence of the speaker is jumping

all over the place so there is no accurate formula to figure the

wattage used.

My ears are ringing and I'm out of here.

Craig

--------------------------------

This makes a ton more sense.

SS users really have to buy a tube amp to find out. It is not about specs it is about soundstage and realism.

The "soundstage" I experience with my set up or at Craig's has never been reproduced by any solid state I have heard.

[pauln]

Now, Jeff, I'm starting to understand HOW you are able to play so loud. If I did that the neighbors would be at my door with torches and pitchforks inside three minutes. Lawyers get away with more because they know the law and most others do not.

Imagine standing in fog near a cliff. You know the cliff is somewhere near, but you don't know exactly where the edge starts. So what do you do? You stay away from it. A lawyer is like someone who can see through the fog and knows exaclty where the edge of the cliff is all the time. That means a lawyer can go right over and stand right by the edge without falling.

Some lawyers' behavior and personalities can appear risky , rude, inappropriate, offensive, and dangerously aggressive to non-lawyers because of this difference in knowing just what the limits are of the law (as it pertains to social interactions, business transactions, interpersonal relationships, etc.).

Jeff, if you will post your mailing address I will send you my SPL meter post haste. Then someday soon we can plan for me to come by and meet you. Like, what do I need with a SPL meter for my SETs? As far as I can compute my LaScalas have yet to see a one watt peak.

Pauln

[oldtimer]

Now, Jeff, I'm starting to understand HOW you are able to play so loud. If I did that the neighbors would be at my door with torches and pitchforks inside three minutes. Lawyers get away with more because they know the law and most others do not.

Imagine standing in fog near a cliff. You know the cliff is somewhere near, but you don't know exactly where the edge starts. So what do you do? You stay away from it. A lawyer is like someone who can see through the fog and knows exaclty where the edge of the cliff is all the time. That means a lawyer can go right over and stand right by the edge without falling.

Some lawyers' behavior and personalities can appear risky , rude, inappropriate, offensive, and dangerously aggressive to non-lawyers because of this difference in knowing just what the limits are of the law (as it pertains to social interactions, business transactions, interpersonal relationships, etc.).

Jeff, if you will post your mailing address I will send you my SPL meter post haste. Then someday soon we can plan for me to come by and meet you. Like, what do I need with a SPL meter for my SETs? As far as I can compute my LaScalas have yet to see a one watt peak.

Pauln

Regarding lawyers it is an inside job. By and large they are the ones who make the laws, and do so in such a way as to baffle most outsiders(those without the union card i.e. law degree). Now imagine standing near a cliff, and there is a lawyer lurking nearby. You either have to hire it or you might as well jump off anyway. (insert smiley winky face here)