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Re: Long Power struggles, "maddening" ........

Posted by tcain (M) on February 2, 2005 at 22:53:08

In Reply to: Power struggles posted by gd on February 2, 2005 at 20:02:23:

.I have a 600c I am restoring. Destination sound I am thinking. A two armed Teres, shewang!
Do you use the Fishphono?

I am dreaming of a SE 6v6, I hear it's amazing. Amazingly cheap.

Wavac is like high tea, uplifting. Not really great bass so I use a sub. The transmitter high-v supplies are bubbly, refreshing and light,,, er lit from ah,,, inside out. It's "screwing the strange alien female with 9 breasts" (Gizmo) it's that good. Gordon Rankin makes nightlites out of the same tube (811).

Berning 270 is power of the sun. And forces you to provide input that flavors to your liking. It has no sound. If your source is not sweet, you get dry and so on. With 10y linestage it hums but raves any style louder and fuller than any single box ever could. I am using this in Denver next year with S-Abby. Entertains up to 50 people at a whack.

Electronluv is the brat, Enfant Terribl'e. Unbeaten, unshaven. 2-6 watts of whole music home run. The place I can lay my head. I played it tonight for a longtime buddy and you cry. Probably due to oversize parts, seperate power supplies with gaseous tubes, the endless dynamics make you feel young again. Having to look at them is uneasy but you can't stop. In a huge room you wind up soaking too much tranny, and he gets tired and sweaty. In a small room no one gets out the same way the went in.

Wavelength is similar sound, outrageous and smooth, relaxed and formal. Proper sound. Workmanship.

Bottlehead. Really flabbergasting and fun. I think your 2a3 is "bona-fide", domestiliius erectus. Fi same thing maybe true-er, in an artists chassis who's channeling a watchmaker from the 30's. If I were living in Nyawk, I'd be packing pennies to Don so your kids can have it appraised someday. Americana never got more sophisitcated. Workmanship matters.

I was defending SET against digital amps offline from a digital thruster claiming,, victory!

my response:

====I admit and respect the fact that they (digitally dithered chipamps) do sound *very* good. ANd musical.

Best?

I really don't trust just ANYBODY's opinion about these things, especially dealers and writers (who tout digital=best). I will take builders and designers word much more seriously, they are the -makers- the ones who have the -risk- associated with creation. They're the only ones with ANYTHING on the table that they can loose.

On many levels, mainly aesthetic (is music anything but aesthetic) I think they fall quite short.

I know digital amps are using another process of using a digital circuit to switch the supply of mosfets etc.. But the high freq problems remain. And compared to tubes they at this point, suffer significantly. By now the sound has been obliterated into millions of particles, to be re=assembled with hopefully intact tibre and musical bits as per source? What my 40+ years as a builderphile./musician tells me is it's darn good, but no troide. I'll take the hum, the nonlinearity, the lack of power, just to have the voice right, the holography, the sustain and clarity that tubes have. And in simple and direct transformer coupled circuits that maintain music's energy.

I love the best digital amps out there, the ones that tranny coupling at the outputs , the "gee when I grow up I'm gonna be a tube" type circuits. Not going to be long and someone is gonig to tube buffer a digital amp like they do with mosfets.

I am lucky, I have some nice tubed amps. But also I am truly interested in ALL the other aspects of sound, the tangibles, the aesthetics, the art and which digital anything fails to address, except rarely with sources, and thus far, never in amplification. Analog still rules, unquestionably for sound quality as far as sources, amplification is the same. Now if your system has no analogue, hence the limitations and probably why you feel SET has been equalled. With good or great analogue, tubes rule largely unchallenged. Swapping in digital sources the issue becomes less crystaline, obfuscated by a consistency to the sound, a sameness. The color is finite and coarser.

The cold and sterile sound I hear from every amp I hear that does not contain a tube, just leaves me, as such, seeking warmth. So you see, I want the Monet of amplification, the Manet, the Rembrandt, the Rockwell. Not the Picasso or Kandisnky and definately not the FAX.
If there are dealers and audiophiles with enhanced experience who claim SET is bettered by digital, send them to me. BTW my speakers sound great with digital amps. Many customers use them, I should know. But they do not better SET done right, not excluding inexpensively done SET.

Firstwatt, avoids the power struggle altogether. Finesse, that's all you really need. So far advanced I think only an all Passlabs system does it best. I heard Abby at Nelson's and it haunts me, still. I think his preamp and F-1 commbo go where little else ---can-. Save for the brat(it's a compliment Josh). The F-1 is lucid as a Wavac with better than SE-OTL bass. But like the Berning is completely dependant on system family harmony. Sources have difficulty keeping up. Audiotropic/Firstwatt is so far, speed champeen the very sound of light. The holography of round plate tubes and the speed of a Spectral or some other high zooter sand amp.

There's a thing called a Vinny-box-tripath thingy I could probably live with. I'd still need a tube phono pre or output of a dac/cd.

Yamamoto45, amazing
Almarro anything, amazing
Geo Wright, see also Don Garber. Heirloom.

Battery chipamp "Final Labs", close to Josh in the midrange. Snuck in and slapped me kidly. Stereophile panned it in their "we don't understand world tour" series.

There's some DiyHiFi supply stuff I have heard that could be upchassied and occupy wvac territory.

Welborn. I heard an all Welborn system on Abbys that was able to do wood and steel, maple and hard spring. Stunner.

Tubes man!

TC

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