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Re: Cheap-Jack, Consider The Source

Tube Guy, you remind me of a funny situation that I am now in.
I have a new business partner who has dabbled with hi fi even longer than me, but he didn't stay with it, like I did, over the decades. He had hi fi equipment 45 years ago, that would appear to be a mixture of Cheap Jack and Soundmind's components today.
You know, the Dyna MK 2 preamp, 2 Dyna Mk3 power amps, and 2 AR-3 loudspeakers.
Over the years, he sold this stuff to sail to Tahiti, instead.
When he returned, he lived on a sailboat for years, so he didn't need a hi fi.
Well, what did he do, when he finally moved into a house?
Well, first, he bought my old K-horns, and used these with some cheap solid state equipment. Then he upgraded his video system to VMPS speakers, and one of my Parasound 5 channel power amps. Third, he asked me for a better power amp for his K-horns, and I loaned him a Dyna Stereo 70, that I had sitting around. He was too cheap to replace the flat output EL34 output tubes, and the sound sounded mushy and dull on his K-horns, so I loaned him a Parasound 1200 solid state amp that he is now using.
Now, let's get to wires: He found a mail order source of cheap and pretty cables, and he thinks are good enough. He remains very skeptical of cables in general, and I just ignore his opinion.
However, because he worked with me for no money for the last 8 months to make preamps to finish an order that was previously pre-paid for, and was not finished by Bob Crump, who took his money with him, to the grave, and I was stuck with finishing the order for free, I helped him make his own CTC preamp that is equal to mine, with great care taken to the parts, circuitry, case, pots, interior wiring, etc, that would cost about $22,000 on the American market today. This will probably drive his K-horns. However, he could care less about the connecting cables at this time. When I mentioned this to Brian Walsh, who also owns a CTC preamp of the same quality, he said that without good cables, my friend was almost wasting the potential of the preamp. Overreaction? Not really, because when I mentioned this to another friend who also has a CTC preamp, he said that when HE changed his wires, the preamp imaged much better than with regular quality wires. It was a big surprise to him at the time that there would be so much difference, just with wires, but you have to have the corresponding audio equipment to go along with it, or it might be a waste of time and money.
Now where does this lead us? Well, wires can be important, if the rest of your hi fi is correspondingly good. If you use tube amps, you should be willing to replace the tubes when they go flat, as tired tubes can sound pretty bad. Third, if you have a good system, even if it came piecemeal and by accident, you should consider connecting wires as more important than you normally would, just like if you bought a sports car, you should not drive on cheap, underspec'd tires on it, just to save money. I did this once, what a mistake! Darn near killed me! Missed a year of fun, too!

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  • Re: Cheap-Jack, Consider The Source - john curl 12:19:36 08/31/06 (0)
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