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Planar Speaker Asylum Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share your ideas and experiences. |
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This is a little story of how I built a system that meets my standards for the Holy Grail.Some five years ago, I made the acquaintance of a brilliant young electronics engineer named Henry Ho. At the time he was powering his Scintillas with a monster class A amp he built himself. Henry is a very humble man. He is not one to go tooting his horn like other manufacturers.
Henry is very interested in new technology, and keeps up with all the new innovations. When B&O created their ICE module, he tried them out, and liked what he heard. It wasn’t long before Henry began producing marvelous analog power supply class D amps.
I entered the high end market only 5 years ago. I recognized Henry’s genius early on reading his amp treatises he wrote for our Apogee Forum. I tried his class A amps, and loved them. Outside Henry’s own products, he had a strong admiration for Nelson Pass gear. Under his direction, I bought several Pass amps and preamps to run my Apogees.
As soon as Henry made his first ICE amp, he was eager for me to hear it. We live 3000 miles apart, so going over to his place is out of the question. So Henry mails the stuff to me. There are quite a few audiophiles in my area that come to listen to what my audio journey has been.
I will spare the reader the evolution of my ICE amps. The ones I have now are monos. They are loaded with the improved ICE 500A modules. Henry made some serious changes to his power supply too.
I found out early how much wires count when building a successful Class D system. The difference great power cords make on my system astounds people. As for wires, I am an early convert to Speltz ICs, and SCs. It seems my gear can, “Hear,†the fizz generated by insulation. Speltz wires have no fizz.
A friend of mine had me over a couple years ago to hear an Audio Note DAC. His comment was, “It’s as if you can reach around the singers head.†I had to concur. So now I have an Audio Note DAC. To spin the disc I have a venerable PSAudio Lambda. This is a great machine. It’s clock and anti-jitter controls work excellently.
There is no truer instance as how important the front end is where the axiom dictates, “What goes in must come out.†Those of you who have tried the H2O with less than satisfactory results can only look at their front end choices to know why. I have had a good sample of front ends run through my system, and their owners nearly all left shaking their head. only those with Audio Note front ends ended the evening smiling. Oversampling machines just are not capable of letting the music come alive.
In comes Henry again. I sent my digital duo to him so he could hear it. He did more than that. He modified both. When they came back, my system sound had gained appreciably. No longer were my speakers dark, a common declaration made by people concerning Apogee Scintillas.
Ah, Scintillas. I fell in love with them at first listen twenty years ago. Yes, they are that old. No other speaker I have ever heard, can float the music unfettered into the room as well. Scintillas have a dense array of huge magnets producing powerful fields for the current in the Aluminum ribbons. Unfortunately, the Scintilla gains most of it’s fame by being an amp eater. Henry’s amps have no problem with the Scintilla’s 1 ohm rating.
Enter Henry yet again. This time it’s his preamp, the Fire, that bowls people over. Very few have heard this hot two part beast. They have yet to go into production. For the time being, Henry has been so generous as to lend me his personal preamp. It’s contribution should not be underestimated. This preamp is not for people looking for a polite sound. Like a fine passive preamp, the Fire does nothing to color, or distort the music. What it does do is totally outclass any passive preamp in supporting depth, dynamics, and power generic to the disc.
These gathered components, thanks largely to Henry Ho, have produced stunning music with stunning reality. Any music lover will want to hear their entire libraries on my system. Even Audiophiles (who know what real music sounds like) will marvel at the natural decay of ringing notes from impact to thin air. Singers are fleshed out. Some may say my system leans to warm. I just hear living bodies. Performers exude warmth naturally. The music lives with a strong sense of rhythm, timing, and power.
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Topic - Scintilla Holy Grail - muralman1 16:13:52 12/09/06 (0)
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