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Hello
I own a pair of Nola Viper 1A and I need some help.
What kind of amp (both brand and power) would be good to use?
Are the spikes and tilt that important?
Should I have them far from the backwall (I am thinkin about the OB)
And is it important to use bi-wiring here?
Thanks for now
Micke
Follow Ups:
Much good advice so far.
I'm running Dehavilland Aries 845g amps w/my Alon V's. Although rated at only 30 watts(This totally contradicts Alon recommendation of high power requirement), they are a good match, as others imply. In fact just saw an ad on A-gon for older version Aries 845 with a price drop to $2400; worth consideration.
Agree to get them > 3 ft from front wall. Disagree regarding toe-in. They sound much better here toed in. If the Viper's tweeter & mid are as high up as the V's, then you will need a taller than avg seat, or need to tilt them down via spike adjustment. Properly adjusted, you'll get great soundstage with tall images when on the recording, with good stability even outside the sweetspot.
Enjoy! Cheers,
Spencer
Carl recommends them firing straight ahead, actually, which was perfect in my room, especially for soundstaging and depth - two of the chief virtues of Alon/Nolas IMO. The wide sweetspot is something I was specifically looking for. Then again, I had a large room.
Each owner will have to experiment in his/her own room to find optimum set-up.
I agree about the toe in. My wife had Alon 1s and I briefly had a pair of Lotus Esprits. Both sounded better in different rooms firing straight ahead. Toe 'em in and lose the magic.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
I had the Alon Vs, and thought they were fairly easy to set up. I was lucky enough to have a large room at the time.
Alon/Nolas are generally better away from walls. I had mine about 3' from back wall and 4' from side walls. They're at their best with space around them. If you can't bring them that far into the room, you'll need to consider soom room treatments. In my set up, per Carl's instructions, the Alons sounded best firing straight ahead with no toe-in. You may need to experiment with this, but in most rooms with most Alon/Nola dipoles, no toe-in works best.
Definitely use the spikes. Angle of tilt is important for your listening position, adjust depending how high or low you sit. The Nolas have a fairly wide sweet spot and are slightly forgiving, but take the time to experiment and the increased focus, 3D imaging and depth will reward you.
Alons/Nolas love tubes, but no flea powered tube amps need apply. They also will work well with certain high quality ss amps - I ran mine to outstanding results with the Herron monos. I always used a tubed pre-amp when employing ss. You need at least 150w per side, high current and damping. The DeHavilland works well with Nolas, and so do VTLs.
Carl designs his open baffle speakers to be tri or bi-wired - do it! Don't even bother with the jumpers.
Enjoy!
Being a current owner of Viper 1A's, I can shed some light here for you.
Since the Viper's are very resolving, setup and equipment choice are extremely important for a musical presentation and accurate soundstage.
My initial amp was a Pass Labs Aleph 3 that while a very good match, was a little threadbare and anemic. Next up was a McIntosh MC275 that brought the Viper's alive. The more power you can feed them the better and the Viper's will let you know just how good your amp choice is. As with all Alon/Nola speakers, a tube amp is highly recommended.
Bi-wire is essential as it has always been with Carl's designs which are true bi-wire capable having 2 seperate x-overs with point to point wiring. I currently use AQ Volcano Bi-wire cables with 72VDC DBS which are a very good match as is MIT although I haven't tried the latest MIT cables and there is also Synergistic Research cables of which employ active shielding which I will report on here in the near future.
The spikes and tilt back(rake angle) are extremely important especially getting the rake angle correct for your listening position which will ensure proper soundstage reproduction which is a Nola/Alon hallmark. Placement in the room should be given a lot of consideration but this will ulimately be determined by WAF and your decor. You should also consider some room treatment such as the ASC tube trap products but this would be true of any high quality transducer. With proper room treatment products, you can place the Viper's closer to the walls without detriment but at the very least, try to use the rule of thirds if possible and a diagonal setup is prefered.
If one is forced to place the Viper's close to the walls, one can use strips of foam placed edge on behind the midrange and tweeter to damp the rear waves. For more detailed info on this, contact me directly thru the AA.
Cheers,
~kenster
I've heard excellent sound from the DeHavilland single-ended amps with the earlier Alon Lotus Elite Signature speakers. The DeHavilland GM-70 amps produce 50 watts per channel and mate well with the 8-ohm nominal impedance of the Nola design.
Room setup is important with any speakers. If you have a rectangular room, check out the formulas on the Cardas::Insights::Room Setup page. The formulas will tell you where the speakers will have the least overlap of bass nodes. The calculated position may not be practical, but it is worth trying to hear what the speakers can do.
Kara Chaffee, the builder of DeHavilland amps, sometimes uses a diagonal setup in difficult show locations.
I don't have bi-wire experience with such speakers to be able to give advice.
This is my thoughts;
I have put a couple of Soften Wallpanels on the wall behind/above me
The speaker baffle is 110 cm from the frontwall (the wall where the speakers are) and 70 cm from sidewall
The spikes are on with slightly tilt (I will test diff tilts with the spikes).
Big plants with lots of leafs will be placed behind each speaker in the corner.
A carpet in front of each speaker
Small toe-in, will try more and less
About the amp, I am not sure here yet.
Thinking about an Yarland Pro88Se (2 x 55 W push-pull) or a Dared VP-845 (2 x 35 W class A)
Nine-pin tubes are used because they are easily available, not because they have superior performance. The octal-base 6SN7 is far superior as a voltage amplifier, but it is a bit more difficult to find. The benefit is in the pleasures of tube type experimentation: there are some fantastically good NOS versions of the 6SN7.
DeHavilland makes a stereo 845 amp that uses 6SN7s for voltage gain and 6AU5 driver tubes. This seems to me to be a better selection of tube characteristics for the circuit functions.
The 845 is a good tube for audio, but the GM-70 is superior if you can afford the monoblocks.
I would avoid push-pull amps with these speakers, as there is always the issue of crossover distortion.
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