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In Reply to: Well, not what you asked - posted by Triodeuser on December 23, 2006 at 16:46:42:
I have faith in my speakers so I will hang on to them for as long as possible or until I win the lottery and have a dedicated listening room all to myself...I know that the pairing and synergy of the amp and speakers is critical to achieving that "balance" however the recent listening session with the 2a3 based integrated and the Triangle speakers has really given me hope with re: med. efficient speakers with SET amps.
The Triangles were rated @ 91db/w and were floorstanders - the Melody 2a3 amp is rated @ 16w/ch but even though in p/p configuration the dealer stated 10w realistically at most.
What I heard was out of this world and I actually preferred it to the Mastersound Reference 845's and JM Utopias especially with price factored in; I could easily live with the Melody/Triangle combo and call it a day.
I figured a similarly powered SET amp with my med eff. bookshelvers would be my ticket to nirvana.
So, although the combo of my speakers with a SET amp may be less than ideal, I know it can be done and sound amazing.
Again, I've got faith in my Paradigms, I've heard them in rooms with multi thousand dollar gear, both SS and Tube, and I know they can perform. They perform incredibly in my room right now. I just know that what I heard @ the dealer can be achieved, I'm just looking for a "cheaper" way.
In the long run I don't see a speaker change for years to come as my kids are still young and too curious for equipment to move anywhere other than where it is. I'm married to the room and for the most part, to my speakers. I can still change what's upstream though knowing that it will not be neutralized or lost to bad voicing on the part of my speakers.
Thanks again for the input...it's good advice, and under normal circumstances I'd be going that route, but with limited funds, I see the natural path of progression would be the amplification and THEN the speakers as I feel my speakers are up to the task of great sound with SET.
If I'm totally askew from your point or if I've read it incorrectly please let me know...my wife tells me I don't know as much as I think I do. Yeah yeah yeah, I know this.
Merry Christmas and safe and happy holiday listening to all!
Follow Ups:
Perhaps I am prejudiced by my previous personal experiences where when I was "married" to a particular piece of equipment, I would have been better off to move on.Hope you find a good solution.
Whlle I am SET and horns all the way (the Subs are SS), there are some awfully good push pull amps out there.
I used to own a VAC 30/30.
Super amp. Great sound. I could live with it.
Happier with SET though.
Regards
wanting a new future so badly, but being bound so tightly to the past. Don't waste any money trying to fit SET into your terms- you'll just get compromised system and be unhappy with it. Wait 'til you can do it right with a good basic proven amp and true high eff speakers and save all the intermediate steps.
...speakers of less than high sensitivity* can be driven quite well by some SETs. I mentioned earlier that my introduction to SET bliss started with Art Dudley's review of the Antique Sound Lab Explorer 805s. I really perked up when he said these 50-Watt monoamps drove his Quad 989s rather well and sounded VERY good. Those were my speakers, so I bought new 805s.
I listen to mostly big-orchestra Classical and film music, my room is largish at c. 3200CF, and I listen at what I call moderate levels and what my wife calls way too loud--c. 95dB peaks at the listening position but usually lower.The 805s drove the 85dB-sensitive 989s (full range) to levels beyond what I wanted to listen at, and I was quite happy with the combination until I tired of the Quads' excessive (for me) treble energy. The replacements, Eminent Technology 8s, sounded great, but their 2dB-lower sensitivity was the proverbial straw, and the by-then-highly-improved 805s sounded hard and unattractive too often. Having been introduced to the great value of ASL products, I bought a pair of new Hurricanes; their 120 watts in triode did just finely for months. But the sounds of higher-sensitivity speakers driven by SETs kept calling to me, so I built my current dipole, open-baffle, line-array system and the new ASL AQ1006(845)s.
Eugene (?), I still believe you should save your money for a pair of 845- or 805-based SETs...or buy those 40-Watt 805-based SETs on AudioGon. Keep your speakers; buy something more sensitive (and dipole if you want to gain some spaciousness) when you can afford them.
As far as horns go, some of us think they sound even-more forward than normal monopole speakers, but others LOVE them to the point of obsession.
* I don't know if there's consensus on where 'high sensitivity' starts, but I herewith nominate 93dB as the beginning of that range. My OB dipoles are 97 and they sure qualify.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
but to me, a good part of the sound I enjoy is the due to high eff speakers. Most good high eff designs use minimal xovers, have very quick response & great dynamics. Many lower eff. speakers are made by damping one or more of the drivers substantially to match another, and/or using stiffer, heavier materials. These are just never going to be as nimble as good full-ranger drivers or pro sound motors. Also, many of these store-bought lower eff. speakers have very optimistic specs, including 'room gain',etc., compounding the problems.
I'm tri-ampimg a three way horn setup and feel I'm so far out there compared to most people that I wanna be sure I'm not saying to the original poster "this is the one and only best way" because of my own prejudices.Having said that mouthful - it seems to me that high efficiency and horns seem to "uncompress" the music improving the dynamics and making it more lifelike, or "magical"
...and that many of us treasure those dynamics highly. I put spaciouness and tonality on top.My OB LA system was intended to be a simple system, and for the main system it is, being 2-way with only a cap on the tweeters and a coil on the main drivers. These are driven by the ASL 845s. The bass drivers are driven thru an old Dahlquist DQLP-1 low-pass filter and by 2 channels of my Outlaw 300WPC/4Ohms-times-7 poweramp.
It and the ASL SETs sure do sound EXCELLENT.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
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