Choosing an amp on the basis of tone.....

[Parrot]

SET = Sophisticated, Elite, Talismanic.

PP = Poor Plebeian.

This summarizes the situation propagated here by a few.

[coda]

shoot first, avoid questions later.

[fini]

shoot first, avoid questions later.

LOL! The best!

[mike stehr]

"Not sure anyone addressed the original issue, what happens to the waveform in push pull?"

Half of it is cancelled?

My local audio buddie Dan has mentioned that he can tell more differences swapping speakers and using the same amp, than swapping amps between the same set of speakers. But this is a guy in a 2 bedroom house with a full basement. And other than his bedroom, his lab area, bathroom and the kitchen, the rest is speakers and other gear. But, mostly speakers.

With that many choices, he finds more enjoyment from the hobby doing that than discerning differences in amplifier characteristics, which isn't as easy for obvious reasons.

We've compared his 2A3 SET amp with James Iron, (agape?) with a late '90's Denon receiver once, using the quick and dirty test of wiring one side of each amp to a speaker, and a double or single pole switch to flip between each amp. We've done this before, and always come to same thing same. It's hard to tell the difference, flipping back and forth on the fly. I always mention that you have to listen one amp for a week or better, and then swap to the other one.

I always notice the differences in the character of the amp right after swapping, and then pretty much forget the differences over time if that makes sense.

The tone compensation and controls on the Denon were the only things that made a difference in character from the 2A3 amp, and with adjusting the tone controls you could get the Denon to sound the same flipping back and forth with a switch.

We came to same conclusion doing the same test comparing my DIY 2A3 amp against his....I'm not much for the quick switch/swap comparing with amps, but it works rather well with speakers.

My DIY 2A3 amp out of all the amps I have with the Cornwalls is the best sounding, more open, natural sounding bass, liquid midrange, and louder, blah, blah......but there is something to be said about my cheap little Magnavox 8600 series 6BQ5 single-ended console amplifier.

The little 5" X 8" POS won't get as loud or open, but the amp has a really good balance. Good bass extension, with great midrange and excellent top-end within the amplifier's working range of course. I found the little maggotbox at a thrift store for 4 bucks with the console, (TV stand) and then sunk about 60 bucks or so into the little SE amp with rebuild, mostly tubes.

My friend drew up a schematic from his older magnavox SE amp with a little larger value cathode bypass cap and resistor. I threw it together and brought it down to use the scope for a bench test, a feedback comp cap was established from watching for overshoot and ringing with square waves, watching sines for power, etc...

We then listened to it with a older pair of Sansui's floorstanders from the eighties, the nice ones like JBL. We were rather suprised at the bass response. I brought the little SE 6BQ5 amp to a co-worker's the other day, he has a pair of JBL L-26 Decade's. The amp has a nice balanced sound in it's range as well, though it was more prone to pinching than with Cornwalls.

I have a pair of Motorola "golden voice" 8 inch full-range with a whizzer cone, high fs at 90, 100 Hz. I tossed them in a pair of medium sized bookshelf speakers with no back panels, to play with Dammar treatment. They didn't sound that great with a vintage SS integrated amp.

The Motorola's go ragged pretty quick with any power, and are rather efficient. One night I tried the little maggotbox with the 8 inch fullrange's with just a stepped attenuator and a CDP as a source, and played at around 70 Db. Where the amp was in a good working range, and not pushing the speakers.

Again, the amp had a nice balanced sound, the bass was there, horns had a nice lively sound, and enough top-end extension not to require tweeters for these wore out ears.

I'm ready to hear this Eico ST-70 on my Cornwalls, if it can sound like that little SEP 6BQ5 amp with more gumption, I'll be a happy camper......

Yackity schamickty......

[fini]

Edit: I left out NO in the original post

Hey Gilbert & Craig, I was just making a point, there are NO ill feelings on

my part for sure. I know both Mark & Craig and have a great respect for each and

just did no want to see them throw away their relationship over something so

silly. My intention was to elicit a response from Craig, who responded exactly

as I expected,(Craig you are so predictable) which I think was good for both

Mark & Craig. How would someone have felt if they just ordered from Mark

based on Craig's recommendation then thought that recommendation was not sincere

but just payback for previous good deeds. Hey I have been in sales 20 years what

can I say. It's time for a group hug again!

rigma

Yer still looking for a hug, though, right?

[mike stehr]

http://www.minifini.com/

Cool.....Mini Cooper parts......

[neo33]

SET = Sophisticated, Elite, Talismanic.

PP = Poor Plebeian.

This summarizes the situation propagated here by a few.

WOW! (insert sarcastic smilies here)

[mike stehr]

.

[fini]

Now, let's talk about *ART* here, shall we? This is a creation by our very own Mike Stehr...

[Jeff Matthews]

It's good to see Craig's still not writing off mark and is willing to consider him "friend." Mark, how about you?

Dean's just messing around, and Rigma's already declared truce and retreated.

Mark, the ball's in your court.

Dean, I AM OFFENDED you'd use me as an example. My ears don't bleed that much when I listen. []

[NOSValves]

Edit: I left out NO in the original post

Hey Gilbert & Craig, I was just making a point, there are NO ill feelings on my part for sure. I know both Mark & Craig and have a great respect for each and just did no want to see them throw away their relationship over something so silly. My intention was to elicit a response from Craig, who responded exactly as I expected,(Craig you are so predictable) which I think was good for both Mark & Craig. How would someone have felt if they just ordered from Mark based on Craig's recommendation then thought that recommendation was not sincere but just payback for previous good deeds. Hey I have been in sales 20 years what can I say. It's time for a group hug again!

rigma

Rigma,

I take it you quoted yourself to make sure I had read it...I hadn't. No worries all is well between us.

Craig

[Lascaladan]

Md, although it was quite a time ago that I was doing this, my "golden ears" and my involvment in the industry had me audition much equipment, before getting to market. I had several speakers on hand and a top of the line Stax headset that hooked up to a source or to a power amp. Very interesting when I really liked a product through the phones, but not the speakers, and vise versa. I always had the connections to evaluate these toys at home. Funny about this thread. We are all speaking a language that is quite the same. My 1st goal of any piece of audio gear is the ability to play the rythm and tempo of the music. Not all recordings can be used to judge this(imo). If the equipment passes this test, I will then evaluate it based on all the attributes we are all talking about here. I would like to hear VRDs on my system, based on everybody saying how wonderful they are "in the bass". My experience with tube amps have been dissapointing in this area, even the big boys. I also have a problem, due to my close proximity of amps to speakers, microphony. The Lascala is very easy to drive, as we all should know, and the bass is very quick and agile. Mine are also quite extended in the bass, due to some "mods" I made to the walls of the k33 bins. I completely gave up on other top speakers because of the slow and ill defined bass(no rythm /tempo). I have a pair of Janis W3 packed away, which aren't bad with the "right amp". But this nesitates a biamp situation, and I always had a coherence problem between them and whatever speaker I had them with(unless I had the same amp for all). My beloved Dalquist DQLP1 might have been the problem, not having enough slope or whatever. The 3 watt/10 watt amps sound good, but do not have that energy and headroom I require. Anyway, this is a thread for a lot of people, not just you and I.

[DrWho]

I think the reason these issues always come back down to amplifier

power is because most every amp (regardless of topology) is going to

sound 90% identical when operating in "pleasant" regions of their

operation.

=================

True. It's the 10% everyone is chasing with their listening choices.

So if the amp is responsible for 15% of the total system performance and differences between amps are about 10% of that, then the total influence on the system is about 2%? Heck, sometimes my mood will make a bigger difference. I dunno, does the following distribution seem reasonable?

source %25

preamp %15

amp %15

speaker %25

room %20

Btw, if you wanna spend slightly less for a good SS amp, then you can check out the Crown K1 or K2 instead of the Studio Reference. I'm not sure I would put the macro/micro -techs in the same group though???

[maxg]

Who,

All things being equal those figures might make sense. the problem is - how often are all things equal? In other words - a great system with a perfect source in a dreadful room is gonna sound bad - whatever you do to the system. Changing room, or changing the room could, in that case, make a massive difference well beyond the figures you derived there.

As a general rule of thumb I break the sound quality down into 3rds.

I/3 - the room.

1/3 - the source material/recording.

1/3 - the system.

Beyond that is so hit and miss it is probably not worth attempting to put numbers on it. How would you score synergy in all of this?

[Duke Spinner]

I'm not sure I would put the macro/micro -techs in the same group though???

they were only mentioned as the Macro has matched output devices, Who .....[]

I'd rate the Speakers as 30%, and the Pre as 20%...

with the difference coming out of the Power amps contribution .....

[Mike Lindsey]

I would like to hear VRDs on my system, based on everybody saying how wonderful they are "in the bass". My experience with tube amps have been dissapointing in this area, even the big boys.

And you shall, as soon as you can swing by my place. And if you like, I can bring them to your house when we listen to your rig.

Mike

[coda]

"Not sure anyone addressed the original issue, what happens to the waveform in push pull?"

Half of it is cancelled?

We've compared his 2A3 SET amp with James Iron, (agape?) with a late '90's Denon receiver once, using the quick and dirty test of wiring one side of each amp to a speaker, and a double or single pole switch to flip between each amp. We've done this before, and always come to same thing same. It's hard to tell the difference, flipping back and forth on the fly. I always mention that you have to listen one amp for a week or better, and then swap to the other one.

a.k.a. phase inversion, when you introduce a phase difference of

180° into a waveform. PP splits it into two signals, one in phase,

the other out of phase. Oddly, this aspect should not put anyone in defense mode, once the original

waveform is lost, we should expect that it will not be fully recovered.

Still weighing on comparisons between 2A3 SET and late 90's Denon gear sounding the same on the fly. I have a 90's Denon DRA-825R receiver that's not in the running, it sounds fairly lifeless and flat through the Cornwalls, but is a better match with an older set of Ohm Walsh 2 speakers. Those Denons have extremely low distortion ratings though when running through Optical Class A.

[Jeff Matthews]

I'm not sure I would put the macro/micro -techs in the same group though???

they were only mentioned as the Macro has matched output devices, Who .....[]

I'd rate the Speakers as 30%, and the Pre as 20%...

with the difference coming out of the Power amps contribution .....

Okay, you're getting close to the edge. I've been watching! Just kidding, but if you're curious, the specs of the macro/micro series can be found on crownaudio.com. They are comparable to the K series. They were produced at different times, but the price-point is also about the same. Duke's K doesn't require a fan, but it gets warm. That's probably the biggest difference between the 2. I think his is also more powerful - like we need more than 375 watts/channel.

[Duke Spinner]

Half of it is cancelled?

, when you introduce a phase difference of

180° into a waveform. PP splits it into two signals, one in phase,

the other out of phase. Oddly, this aspect should not put anyone in defense mode, once the original

waveform is lost, we should expect that it will not be fully recovered.

Oh No ya don't Coda ..

not gonna let that slip by ...

depends on where the output pair is biased....

they could be in class a for quite a bit

[mike stehr]

""a.k.a. phase inversion, when you introduce a phase difference of 180° into a waveform. PP splits it into two signals, one in phase, the other out of phase. Oddly, this aspect should not put anyone in defense mode, once the original waveform is lost, we should expect that it will not be fully recovered.

Still weighing on comparisons between 2A3 SET and late 90's Denon gear sounding the same on the fly. I have a 90's Denon DRA-825R receiver that's not in the running, it sounds fairly lifeless and flat through the Cornwalls, but is a better match with an older set of Ohm Walsh 2 speakers. Those Denons have extremely low distortion ratings though when running through Optical Class A.""

The original waveform isn't lost, half of it is just inverted. ; )

It's hard to believe switching back and forth between a 2A3 SET amp, and a Denon receiver on the fly would give us the impression of sounding the same. (Once the Denon's tone controls were adjusted.) But it did.

The test seems to work best when evaluating between speakers.

That's why I'm not much for that switching test. I noticed differences once when we compared the 2A3 SET amp to his Mitsubishi (DA-10?). It's a 70 or 100 wpc dual mono power amp with the attachable dual mono pre-amp. While that beast had a noticed stronger bass at the same levels as the 2A3 amp, it did sound quite a bit more dead on the midrange and highs with the tone controls set flat.

Personally, I think the Mitsubishi can sound quite a bit more open on the mids and top-end with a good re-cap job in the pre-amp and other places. The amp isn't no slouch, but it is 30 years old and could use a tune-up. I'd love to hear it on my Cornwalls just to see how it would sound. But it could sound wretched for all I know.

But that Denon receiver with a little tone adjustment could emulate a 2A3 amp rather close, and comparing my DIY 2A3 amp against his 2A3 amp with this test was pretty much useless IMO.

I would have to borrow his 2A3 amp, listen to the amp in my system with the Cornwalls for a good week, and then swap back to mine to notice any differences in amplifier characterisics. And that may not be the easiest thing....I dunno unless I tried it.

Now a Denon receiver with my Cornwalls compared to my 2A3 amp.........I've never heard a newer receiver with them. But if you say they sound dead on Cornwalls, I'm sure you are right.

They sound flat and kinda dead with my vintage lower wattage JVC integrated SS amp, even after re-capping some areas. Unless the source recording has plenty of bass, the loudness button gets used. Bass at flat, treble pot at 2 o'clock. But it's the only SS amp I have that the Cornwalls tolerate and use for quick listening sessions when there is no time to run a tube amp.

I have a vintage Mitsubishi receiver from the early eighties. It's a nice unit, great tuner, but a little tired on the sound. Through Cornwalls I could say it's the equal of flat syrup. A NAD 2100 power envelope is downright scary, smeared, shouty, rough as hell......more grain than being buried in a silo.

When we did the switch test with the Denon and the 2A3 amp, we weren't listening to Klipsch. I can't recall for the life of me what speaker we were listening to at the time. Dan cycles through speakers like socks, and I gave up trying to keep track years ago.

It does makes visits rather interesting, because you never know what he's got going......Dan did join the Klispch world with a pair of RP-3's for his 2 channel HT system with the big plasma TV. The RP-3's sound rather good, he likes them as well. We both like the sound of that Tractix tweeter. I keep bugging him to hook them up to the 2A3 amp, but they are his HT speakers.

The last visit we did comparisions with other speakers versus a B&C 12CXT. We used his 2A3 amp. I could easily live with a pair of B&C 12CXT's. They have a nice balanced smooth tone, well extended bass and top-end, lovely midrange, and seem like a point source. Sensitive enough to have plenty of boogie factor with a 2A3 SET amp. He had a pair Tannoy 12" monitor gold's for 30 years, and sold them due to lack of cash.

He feels the B&C 12CXT is pretty much neck to neck with the Tannoy gold. He's just waiting for a mate. (I wanna hear it when he get's a pair going......)

Blah