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In Reply to: the we experience posted by njjohn on December 14, 2003 at 17:32:46:
Hi njohn, remember for best results, one amp will work better with one driver and not best with another. Take the time to orient each system optimally for best results. This applies to everything in a system.TC
Follow Ups:
yes, thanks for your thought.while i was at the house with the we speakers, i tried another 45 amp and it did not hit the magic that his 45 had. i realize that it often takes a particular combo to realy hit something special.
in fact i'm facing a situation with particular songs. regarding the abbys i have. one amp, a particular 45 that i have, will play a jazz standard song and pull every single gut wrenching feeling out of each note. i think it does this as well as the we combo i heard did voices. the song sounds fantastic to me really.
but take the same amp and it loses to a 6sn7/27/2a3 amp with songs that have a steady beat like some 'old school soul' music. and the 2a3 amp plays this music so well that you just don't want to get up from the music.
so this puts me in a dilemma. do i go for the something that clearly reaches a very special realm in doing one thing so good that it is very extraordinary (similar to the we experiences in the way it did voices only)? or do i go for something that generally just sounds like a very good-excellent combo but it cannot at all reach the same peak with a particular type of music as the other one?
it's a hard choice and i'm not sure. and it might take some time to tease out the variables and try to combine the best of both amps into one, assuming that that is even possible without a degradation of the peak for the one amp.
so i decided i guess to do like the set-up with the we combo. just go for the best in one area. have a narrow band of excellence that really can be extraordinary rather than trying to reach a broader pleasing combo.
that's the route an individual listener can take. i assume that it's not a route a manufacturer obviously can take or the equipment is not going to sound good in enough situations.
i think perhaps that this is a factor why maybe some things aren't as good today as they may have been previously. the attempt is made to make the sound better across a broader range, while unique attributes of excellence may fall by the wayside. that's a little bit of a hypothesis that i have.
What is your source component(s)? It seems to me the things your chasing are similar to what I have found. Improving source components can well improve dynamics and clarity. When using 45 tubes they ruthlessly expose the source and I find similar things go wrong or right. *Drive* is the first thing to go with SET. Increasing efficiency is the route you have to go with 45's. The Abby loves a 45 but you may have to limit the amp below 80-100hz and use a sub. Then you can rock with 45 and Abby well into realistic volumes. With the 45 full bandwidth you will have marginal dynamics when you run full tilt, which is probably a moderate listening level with classical. Blues and rock need the sub and this will relieve the dynamics at the amp. Integration with subs and Abby is pretty easy in most rooms, again the source making this easy or not IMHO.TC
i didn't realize who you were and you are trying to help me get the most out of your speakers. nice to see you here.the speakers are really growing on me. becoming perhaps my favorite.
i'm a relative newbie. how do you limit an amp below 80-100 hz. thanks
You get to the point where you figure out how it works, then it's all hard choices, either/or. I took the "what sounds best with most of my record collection, 50s - 60s jazz bias" route, which, indeed, lost that one-of-a-kind, fall-over-dead-performance 45 magic for me. That's why the well-heeled SET junkies on this site all have beaucoup amps, and even multiple systems. I would, if I could, for exactly the reasons you cite. I wouldn't argue with your choice, though; that sort of vocal performance is like heroin.Paul S
it wasn't vocals that the 45/abby combo did well. abby doesn't sound good for voices. i was referring to my favorite jazz song now: johnny griffin 'what's new?' on the johnny griffin sextet cd. what a song! donald byrd does a blistering solo too.multiple systems! tell me about that. i'm not going to say how many i have: lol, i'm too embarrassed to say.
My experience with the Abby's re. voice is very different. In my experience the combination of the Abby's with 45's are about the best I've heard voice - and I've had a chance to compare with my 45 amps and an original Lowther speaker (not just drivers,but the real thing). Also have heard Lowther's in Hedlund's. The Lowther's do a some things uniquely well, but not as well with voice to me.
I've found that the combination is very sensitive to source - perhaps the problem with voice in the source? What are you using with the Abby's?
when i say about the way it does voice, i'm comparing the fostex driver to the lowther. fostex sounds a little 'microphoned', meaning the voice sounds like its going through a effect of microphoing, not as resolved as the lowther. but i'm realizing that the fostex abby does some things better than the lowther in the box i have.well if the abby can play some jazz, with this amp i have, as well and with as much gut wrenching emotion as i ever heard, isn't that good enough?
i believe i can her both the strengths and the weaknesses of the speaker, or at least my opinion at this point. but the strength to me is what is inteersting and important and what makes it effective.
the particular strength of the speaker is the bruteness it can give the solo instruments in jazz. i'm using the word brute cause i can't think of the exact work i'm looking for. it's when solo lead instruments come in and it's the force they are given.
so when for example, johnny griffin is playing or when donald byrd comes in with his solo, it comes in powerfully with brute strength. and there is enough detail, and the speaker adds a little reverberation to add to the force. i think that's why it has that effect, and it seems to outdo the seond best in this regard, my lowthers, because of this.
this is what i'm beginning to believe makes for a good speaker and makes a speaker 'rock'. the ability to get the solo instruments to stand out.
regarding the wood construction of the abby, seems to me that some instruments benefit from the coming out of the wood chamber and some don't. the instruments that are like hollow chambers seems to benefit the most, like flutes, drums. and i think perhaps there is a little too much reverberation for insturments like piano and voice. most of the instruments fall in-between.
these are just opinions. that's my impression from hearing last night. my thought could change today. but i can say i really enjoy going to 'the abby room' at night to lisen to music.
source is nothing special, a cal mk11. i'm sure i have in no way maximized the sound, but i have found the amps that can make them sing.
I wouldn't necessarily would say that you are off (I could be for that matter). I was just trying to account for the differences. I think I understand what you mean by "bruteness" - not that the Abby's are crude, but when a solo is played, say by a sax, it has a great presence, a sense of being in the room with you. My wife was commenting last night, in the next room, how it seemed like the players were right in the room. I agree with you in the main re. how the Abby seems to favor certain instruments - I find that guitars, violins, cellos, and saxes do especially well. Seems to do less well on piano. It's on the voice that we seem to experience different things; I do find that the Lowther's have more detail, but the timbre and the soulfulness of the voice seems to come across better to me with the Abby's.
About placement, do you have them toed in or not. I find they do better firing straight ahead. Anyways, glad you are enjoying them. I envy your having both the Lowther's and the Abby's, plus all those cool SET's you have.
glad to hear you have abbys and you are enjoying them as much as i am. they are becoming my favorite. i won't claim they are the last word in accuracy, but i also realize other speakers that i thought were very good are even less accurate.we are hearing the same things but coming from slightly different perspecitves, like a pair of eyes converging on the same thing.
the reason i said that they don't voice especially well was a comment about the fostex driver when compared to the lowther. i was comparing with astrud gilberto's voice and only the lowther allowed me to hone into some very particular characteristics of her voice including extra accent, and the way she says her words.
but when comparing the impact of the solo instruments such as the sax, the lowthers do it very well-almost excellent, but the abbys seem to do it better. there is a little more weight and to the sound of the lead or solo instrument so that the solo can hit the spot.
i think people turn up the music to get to where the solo instrument hits the spot where it should, and often even with this, this is not satisfactory. problem is it seems with conventional speakers everything is too even, it is not capable of giving the lead the weight.
so i agree that voices can have a little more impact. the word you use is 'soulfulness'. 'impact' is the word i was looking for before.
instead of the word 'reverberation', i think the word 'resonance' is better. the abbys and fostex give each note some good resonance and this is why there is more body to the sound.
this helps nearly all the insruments, but maybe there is a bit too much resonance for the piano. i'm not that knowledgeable about instruments but to me the piano begins to sound a little more like an electric piano. there is perhaps an extra fraction of resonance. but heck perhaps that's the the way it should sound. the music sounds better so maybe that resonance is the right thing and we are use to sound stripped too much from resonance.
and heck, i'd like to hear some music on it that
is actually purposely recorded in resonate places. and i'm looking forward to hearing clapton's guitar on the abbys. when he was with cream. it probably will hit the spot like it should.i'm not too knowledgeable about single drivers and the boxes, pipes or horns that may contain them and i don't know how the abbys compare in this way. i would imagine the boxes i have the lowthers are just not as favorable as the fostex's in the abbys, so i don't know if the lowthers can attain the full weight. they are kings though of resolution.
you could put together the lowthers i have for about 500. a pair of dx3's put in a box. just have to locate it right because you cannot expect them like that to fill a room with sound.
i've been very fortunate about the amp situation since i have a friend who builds them, and we have been on this single ended journey together. i just ordered a pair of 45 monos to be built switchable to 2a3, with the transformers that i like. these will probably be my amps for the abbys.
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