SET Asylum

Posted by darkmoebius (A) on October 20, 2006 at 11:42:50

In Reply to: Re: "Certain combo sound crap - for instance: Wright 3.5 + TVC" posted by Vince S on October 20, 2006 at 01:37:04:

First off, I have to compliment you on your system. George Wright makes some of the finest amplifiers and preamps on the market. His prices are ridiculously low for their performance. From the few pieces I have heard, they are masters at resolution and clarity. Tonality is fantastic. But, they leave little room for poor equipment to hide.

Not to mention, he generally designs all his equipment to be quiet enough for 100-107dB horns. Not many manufacturers do that.

I quite agree with you, but would not promote the TVC pre as a universal solution.

I absolutely agree with you. TVC's require a much higher understanding of component interaction and experimenting than fully active systems. For a lot of people, the time and effort will simply not be worth it. And, as with everything in this hobby, many will not like the resulting performance even if everything was perfectly matched.

But, it is a legitimate option for those seeking the highest level of transparency and tonal purity. Not the only one, just another.

I listened to the combo Wright apms+TVC with a old marantz CD player (quite decent sound but nothing high-end)...But according to my ears CD player+TVC+Wright monos sounded very clean but flat with highs rolled off

Two obvious things come to mind; 1) that's the actual sound of the cd player, 2) the actual capacitance of your interconnects (regardless of how short).

Excess capacitance has the direct effect of attentuating or rolling off high frequencies. Wright's amplifers are going to really reveal any upstream problems like this.

What kind of interconnects are you using and what length?

Eventually, I concluded that the Wright pre (high gain!) and Wright monos matched very well giving a very precise open & dynamics sound (of course with the adequate speakers)

No doubt that is a killer combination, GW really makes his components to perform flawlessly together. It would be real hard to better that performance for the money.