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In Reply to: RE: Active bi-amping of ET LFT-8b posted by BDP24 on July 03, 2016 at 03:18:40
I would go with the B4 for flexibility and Pass' voicing. I have not come across a heads on comparison, but it seems the 10B has better bass but the B4 is better in everything else. Both are regarded as transparent.Both use discreet parts rather than op amps. Marchand manages to do quite well with the op amps but they are still noticeable. Taking out an idle gain and buffer on the marchand was a relief,
Do try the equidistant arrangement on the corner to corner plane, I am curious and can't really try it in my room any time soon.
Follow Ups:
I happened to go onto Audiogon yesterday not long after a First Watt B4 x/o was listed. It's the revised 2014 version, and less than a year old. I made an offer, it was accepted, I sent payment, and it'll be on it's way to me today. What luck!
There is serendipity for you. If your preamp sags on driving it (loses the freq extremes) then you can increase the input impedance by replacing the input resistor to a 20k, most tube pres do perfectly well with that load.
Serendipity---exactly Satie! I took another look at my pre-amp's (EAR 868) specs. I thought I remembered it having an output impedance of 600 ohms, but the spec sheet actually reads "5 volts output into a 600 ohm load". Tim de Paravicini, the pre-amp's designer, does a fair amount of work in the professional recording field, designing products for the studio environment, where 600 ohms is the de facto standard. Nelson Pass told me yesterday that the EAR will have no trouble driving the B4.
Edits: 07/07/16 07/07/16
Pass and TDP know each other's equipment so I would expect you would have no problem if Pass does not expect one.
BTW I used TDP's TC4 MC trannie for a while and it does deserve its high reputation, definitely bested the internal MC trannie in the 834p, The phono stage benefited from a cap diode and resistor upgrade in a big way, made it sound more like the higher end TDP designs.
I know TDP is not a believer in boutique parts, using garden variety one's in the EAR products. The 868 sounds darn fine as is, so I'm not gonna tinker with it just yet!
Well, he tends to make the best of a price target with robust designs that can handle some component drift. That is why he is TDP. Does not mean that the end user can't mod the unit with boutique parts and obtain a significant improvement at a reasonable cost that would have multiplied the price had it been done at the OEM.
I'm going to take a look inside the 868 after I get set up and running in my soon-to-be new room. I remember being surprised by how few parts it actually has.
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