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In Reply to: RE: For me #1 was the preamp upgrade to Hell.. (long ago..) posted by John Elison on August 13, 2016 at 07:37:26
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That is odd! Are you sure you had the Citation Eleven? It was a solid state preamp with a five band equalizer. It was great at reproducing square waves but it didn't sound as good as the Hafler DH-101 to me when reproducing music.
Did you actually compare the two?
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Yes, the Citation 11 (though I do not have visual memory of the walnut case). To be fair, my "comparison" was separated by a time of perhaps weeks, maybe longer. On the other hand, the equipment and the music used were pretty much identical BUT FOR the amps -- the Hafler was played through a Hafler amp, but I do not recall which amps were used with the HK (I got to hear it with several different amps).
Further info of uncertain value: I am a tube-o-phile (note the Irish descent, like O'Bama) as you know, and I have been since my first personally owned system in the late 1960s. During the mid-1970s - early 1980s, I tried without success to move into the modern age, spurred by audio writers of the time, by engineer colleagues where I taught (who, along with audio salespersons, repeatedly told me, with deprecatingly snide giggles, that I had grown addicted to certain flavors of tube-design distortion), by the gradual decline in numbers and quality of vacuum-tubes on the market, by frequent assurances that ss designs were getting better every month, and so on. Perhaps sensing a mark, local retailers put a large amount of equipment at my disposal, and for a considerable time I became quite product-literate from 1st-hand experience -- much more so than I am today. I did not much like transistor sound, finding it generally flat or 2-dimensional, often hard, bright and/or metallic or edgy, though almost always better in the bass. Those words may seem exaggerated, and they are, a bit (for rhetorical effect), but the phenomena bothered me more strongly than they do today because, I suspect, my hearing was then more acute (in 1970, tests showed that I could hear a 25 kHz signal! -- today, probably not half that). Among the better-sounding ss pieces I heard long enough to form opinions were some by Meridian, Naim, Threshold, and, yes, the HK Citation 11 (though I would not say that about its partnering amp of the time, the Citation 12). I would not place the Hafler pre in that group; to me it sounded more like the general rest of the ss crowd.
Let me acknowledge that I speak for myself only, uncorroborated by and not relying on square-wave measurements or any others notwithstanding that unlike some I highly value scientific measurement (and find it, e.g., distressingly, idiotically and lazily absent from most common vinyl front-end assessments). Further, my evaluation of ss equipment over the years has doubtless been biased by my antipathy to those particular negatives mentioned above, so that were they not there, there's no telling what other differences among the pieces might have moved me to different conclusions.
So yeah, given my general sense that you are a serious and thoughtful listener not to mention someone with whom I often agree, I indeed find our very different rankings of the 2 pres in question quite odd.
But never doubt that I prize you much more highly than I do the Hafler.
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
I mentioned square waves only because the Harmon Kardon sales pitch included a square wave generator and an oscilloscope. I was an electronic technician at the time and when I went into the audio store and viewed their "square wave sales pitch," I was sold. ;-)
I played my Citation Eleven and Twelve for a couple of years until my Citation Twelve amplifier went missing during a move. I replace it with a pair of Hafler DH-200 power amplifiers configured as monoblocks. Therefore, when I made my comparison of the Citation Eleven with the Hafler DH-101, I owned both of them simultaneously and I compared them both through the bridged Hafler DH-200 monoblocks.
No matter, though. We all have our own preferences and opinions. The terms "better sounding" and "worse sounding" are subjective preferences and not objective facts.
Thanks,
John Elison
Interesting, John.
I think yours was the better comparison inasmuch as mine was separated in time, and the amps in mine were not identical -- a Hafler amp (100 watt/channel, ss, I've forgotten the model name) with the Hafler pre; a variety of amps (including the Citation 12) with the Citation 11. Now that you have me thinking about those auditions, I'd love to go back and do them again just to see if there was any variable that might have generated the differences I think I heard ASIDE from the intrinsic natures of the 2 pres.
Just to be clear, my reaction to the Citation 11 was that it sounded a bit darker -- less bright, edgy, hard -- than the Hafler and than many other ss pres of the time. I did not find it 3-d and palpable like my favorite tubed pres, but less irritating, less noxious than most of the ss alternatives. Could that have arisen from some kind of impedance-match peculiarity? I don't know. Judging from the fun you are having with your tubed kit, I'd have thought we were seeking the same sonic goodness in any event.
"Irregardless" (as my students used to say) I agree with your last para, but it is interesting to puzzle about the reasons why pieces sometimes sound different to different listeners (even as the impressions dim in memory). Maybe I've always been addicted to certain kinds of distortion, eh?
Jeremy
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