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207.237.10.9
About to take the plunge.
Thanks,
Tom
Follow Ups:
or contact info
imagine
I have a Morrow 300B amp that Don rebuilt to be like his 300B amp. The sound is fantastic. I also own his 45 amp, preamp and cd player. They are all the best I have ever heard and would not trade them for anything.
Good morning,
Does anyone have Don's e-mail address and any photos of his units ?
nt
Take it!
I see you already have DRDs. Are you having them modded or buying a pair of Allen amps built from scratch?Ive already posted my feelings of Allen products here and elsewhere in the asylum. Youll pretty much get the same glowing response from all Allen owners. Nothing to complain about. I had a pair of DIYhifi LD+WE91 amps rebuilt by Don, he put his input stage in and did a few nip and tucks so to speak. He was floored by results as was I. I only chose to have these rebuilt as I went through hell to get the amps in the first place and liked the physical build of the amps. In stock form they sounded quite good but had a forward sort of shout effect. After the rebuild they sounded like all of Dons stuff, natural and right. No fancy audiophile descriptions here, I kinda gave allot of that mentality up after getting into Don gear. I always get a kick out of Todds posts here on the asylum. It would seem he too gave up the never ending quest after finding Don. I imagine (and hope) he puts in his 2 cents.
Theres really nothing to say when it comes to Dons work other than it does everything right without adding or subtracting sound characteristics. Im sure like any other piece of gear it has some signature of its own, but it sure as heck has been the least noticeable of any component Ive tried.
I just got done watching the movie Fateless, BTW on a side note, WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! Phenomenal film about the life of a 14 yr old boy in the concentration camps. I love film as much as I love music and this is among the greats. The sound of Dons gear with movies is just as relentless as they are with music. Now as I type this Im listening to Rachmaninoff piano concerto No 2 Op 18 and the sound is what I expect, perfect.
One note about Dons gear that Ive observed (I own his pre, CD player, phono, 45 int set, 300b monos, 84 PP and will be building his speakers) his input sections need quite a bit of voltage and his outputs produce quite a bit of voltage, big shock right :-). I mention this as I have his 45 integrated amp and if I listen to a stock DVD player the vol never gets very loud whereas I listen to his CD player and the vol gets as loud as one could expect from a 45 and then some. I was originally using a TVC with his 300b monos and while the sound was OK with proper impedance matched gear (a story in itself) the vol was never as loud as it could have been. Now I own his pre and everything is singing along as it should. BTW his pre is just as good as all his other gear. As one might expect, his amps sounded the best with his pre.
One last thought, get his CD player! At $600 youll never look back. If it werent for the fact its housed in such a chameleon shell one would thing they were listening to a $5K player, and if you look in the digital forum youll notice a few abandoned their mega buck digital players for this player.
Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night
I don't think we emailed but, I'm going to have him build them from scratch. The DRDs are going cheap to a buddy whom I'm trying to get hooked on the SET addiction. I'm hoping for a little more control at the ends of the spectrum which may be asking too much. Thanks for your reply.
I haven't posted much these past few weeks. My 94yo grandfather passed away the day after Thanksgiving, and although I haven't made a big deal of that, it is really sent me for an emotional ride. In some ways, it feels worse now than it did right after it happened.And believe me, this is where the music and the audio can really make a difference in taking the edge off such an ordeal.
I think had I not discovered Don Allen's audio products, roughly a year and a half ago, I think I would have spent an extra five grand, maybe more, on a merry-go-round of preamps and CD players. When a product line stops the merry-go-round, its value cannot be judged on price alone. Which happens to be super-reasonable on top of that.
Sorry to hear about your loss but, I was hoping we might here from you. I'll definitely put Don's CD player on my wish list. From what I've gathered people seem to rave about Don's 45 amps but I haven't heard that much on the 300b's. Especially in relation to others.
Thanks for your input.
Ever so sorry to hear of your loss. Reading of what happened to Terry Cain reminded me of loosing my grandfather on my mothers side. He too died of Lou Gehrig’s disease a few years ago. Im still not sure what I should donate to the cause. I remember listening to Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique the night I got the news of my grandpa and really being brought to tears. Im one of those people who likes to take an emotion on full bore. However it was when I lost my dog I grew up with since I was around 11 yrs just a few months ago that really made me feel rock bottom. She was 14. This was the first major loss Ive ever had to deal with, it hurt. Not that I have to tell you this but the saying holds true, time is the only true healer.On a positive note, Don is without a doubt an audio savior. All us owners seems to feel the same way after getting his stuff, the quest is over. I do think it takes a certain level of synergy to fully appreciate his stuff. If there is a weak link in the chain one might wrongfully accuse Don’s gear of being the culprit. When I first got his CD player I was using a TVC with some (pre Don mod) 300b amps. The setup sounded fine with a NOS D/A CD playback setup but when I first put Don’s player in, it sounded like garbage. Long story short, Don correctly diagnosed the problem, the TVC had the wrong load for the Don player and thus removed all the bottom end and made the top end sound crippled. Well sure enough after I got Don’s pre in the mail and hooked it up, BAM, the Don amps, pre and CD player came together to make the best sounding system my fostex speakers have ever worked with. I cant wait to hear it all through Don’s speakers. The speakers will likely be a summer project. So in short, to any who may read this, you really should hear an all Don setup (minus speakers so long as the ones used are good) before making any negative conclusions. Im using my Don 45 integrated with some Klipsch Forte speakers now and they also sound great. Im using those Klipsch speakers now as I picked em up mint for $100 and am waiting to build the Don speakers for either system and keep the fostex setup also.
It really pains me to write this, especially after I got done bashing mega dollar commercial products in General just minutes ago, but Ive found Cardas Neutral Reference interconnect cables to sound best with this setup. HOWEVER I have NOT tested many others in comparison to them. I want to take the plunge into DIY cable designs this summer to find a low cost solution to my tastes. Ive tried Don’s cables with the setup. While they sound good I like the way the Cardas NRs mellow the sound that little bit to make it ever so slightly more relaxed, especially with the digital front. However at $350 for a used 1m cable, Id like to hear more affordable options, Im sure some exist.
Don has without a doubt been a milestone in my experience with this hobby. Its so nice to be off the merry go round of gear. Ive lost several thousand selling gear I bought new and second hand to try other options only to be dissatisfied in the long run. I think speakers will always be something to toy around with though. I love trying things Ive not heard. And hearing other forms of digital playback. I do believe there will be advancements in the years to come. However Im with on the idea that Don’s CD player is something to be reckoned with, and at its price point, cant be beat. Like yourself, my main focus is now on finding great music I have not been exposed to.
If its cool with you drop me a line at my posted email address. I love getting tips on great music to try. I always hear from Don of the meetings in which people come over and share music they discovered with one another. I dont have such culture here in Sheboygan WI. Im sure many exist here but heck if I know em and organized meetings for such a cool purpose.
"And hearing other forms of digital playback. I do believe there will be advancements in the years to come."I hope so, but the prospects are not favorable..... Three reasons:
- Digital playback, by and large, has not really improved that much over the past 15 years. My favorite products are mostly 1990s vintage. And I've never heard one SACD or DVDA rig that impressed me.
- With the reduced exposure to good analog and live music, I think people don't know what to listen for during audio playback as much as they used to. More and more raves over products that I personally think don't sound good at all.
- As an engineer who is very familiar with the nuts and bolts of audio DSP, I've never seen so much quackery in a given technical field. (Not to mention the militant dogma some engineers have in regard to that.) What we end up getting is "technology" like asynchronous sample-rate conversion (aka "24/96 upsampling"), which has spread through digital product lines like a cancer, yet has no solid technical basis regarding how or why it would improve playback fidelity. (The attempted rationales I've seen are erroneous at best, deceitful at worst.) For what it actually does is to the contrary, and has spawned a new wave of unlistenable digital products.
Unless technology makes a shocking turn in the right direction, I think I'll still be using Don Allen's CD player ten years from now.
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