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Model: | Conquest 300b mono blocks |
Category: | Amplifier (Tube) |
Suggested Retail Price: | $7500 approx |
Description: | SET pure class A valve mono blocks 18 watts into 8 ohms |
Manufacturer URL: | Audio Note |
Model Picture: | View |
Review by astrostar59 (A) on December 28, 2006 at 13:36:43 IP Address: 88.15.59.161 | Add Your Review for the Conquest 300b mono blocks |
Update to my earlier review.I have now had the Conquest for 2 more months. They have settled down during the burn in period. I had to run the amps for at least 200 hours before the sound stopped changing. bearing in mind the tubes were also new (TJ solid mesh gold’s, rest Philips NOS). On first switch on I knew it was a leap from my old SS amp.
But since then the sound has both expanded in width and depth, the micro dynamics and heard alongside the powering bass. Anyone who thinks SET's have loose bass and curtailed treble, I disagree! The subtlest flute texture, or cymbal rasp is clear alongside powerful and deep pounding bass lines. I guess the 4 tubes and separate mono block design helps. I can listen to ear splitting levels if I want, with no loss of control partly due to a kind 2 way horn hybrid speaker design. I do find I listen to music at louder levels anyway, as the SS amps I had were good at bass drive and dynamic, but treble quality had you diving for the volume, particularly with such revealing speakers.
Chuck rock, classical, dance, electronic or jazz at it, its the same, pure musical pleasure.
My favourite CD this week, well DVD, is Star Wars, a John Williams release with film clips, hit the lights and enjoy!
I still go on these forums because I love the hobby, but I am not sure what upgrade I will do next or when it will be. I am very content (at last) with the sound. Maybe upgrade the DAC 1.1 kit to 2.1 if Brian brings an upgrade out?
It's nice to look forward to getting home and putting the tunes on...
On another related note, I have been buying AN gear for 8 years now, and have had excellent service from Peter at AN UK. He has repaired my M3 out of warranty at no charge when I had a lightning strike on our house, and repaired (free again) a transformer failure caused by a faulty valve. I must also have driven him nuts asking advice over the years. It's good to deal with companies that care about the hobby and customer service.
Product Weakness: | Not child safe, space heater. |
Product Strengths: | Tubes more expensive compared to running SS but much more musically rewarding. Needs careful system matching but get it right and heaven awaits. |
Associated Equipment for this Review: | |
Amplifier: | Conquest Mono Block |
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): | Audio Note M3 |
Sources (CDP/Turntable): | none |
Speakers: | Zingali Overture 2's (horn hybrids) |
Cables/Interconnects: | Audio Note AN/v |
Music Used (Genre/Selections): | Classical, Dance, Jazz, Prog Rock |
Room Size (LxWxH): | 18 x 12 x 9 |
Room Comments/Treatments: | Heavy drapes, thick rug, soft furniture |
Time Period/Length of Audition: | 2.5 months |
Type of Audition/Review: | Product Owner |
Follow Ups:
Here's another tip. Try some NOS tubes. The Sylvania 6SN7W (short bottke, chrome top) soudns very good. I did a tube rolling session on my friend's Audio NOte Conqueror and the 6SN7W came out tops. YOu get better transparency, resolution and yet sweetness. Its the single most important tube. The next is the 300B and here the 1950's WE 300B (sqaure getter) rules. Next best was the the TJ Mesh with gold pins/ceramic base followed by the TJ mesh 300B steel pins/balck base. For rectifiers, the WE 27B followed by the Mullard 5u4G. But the rectifier made the least contribution amongst all the tubes.
Addicted to Tubes
Hello DrivemanMany thanks for the tips on valve swopping. I will try some out when I get over the last
bank blast!While we are on the tube subject, what life have you or your friend been getting out of
300b's (which make faired best?)
6SN7 (which make faired best?)
5U4G (which make faired best?)Have you found NOS or new manufacture to be the most reliable/long life.
And do you switch of when you go out, or at night?
I know quite a few people running current production WE 300B tubes. None have experienced a tube failure or weak performance after several years of operation. These are pretty reliable tubes. The only problem with them, from a reliability standpoint, is that they are not properly glued to the base and so they have a tendency to become loose. Several friends have either had to glue the base back on or treat the tubes very gently because of this.6SN7s of any make can last a very long time in a circuit that does not require high dissipation. I bought a pair of tungsol roundplates that test very bad, but they sound good and the manufacturer of my amps said that there probably is a lot of life left in that set of tubes because they are being run gently. The only new 6SN7s that I have had problems with were noisy Electro Harmonix tubes. They were noise from the start and tested poorly for noise, although they had extremely high transconductance.
I haven't been into tubes for a super long time, but I have not had a rectifier of any kind go bad. I have seen a rectifier that tested bad at the point of purchase (virtually no voltage drop in either direction, i.e. shorted out!), so I would never put one in an amp or preamp without first testing it.
I've seen a WE amp, using NOS WE300B tubes, with impressive tube life. The owner did not know that leaving the amps on shortens tube life, so he left them on all the time. After 6 years on, the we300b tested at 80%.
However, the WE 300B was designed to have very long life, its intended service was in telephone lines on the bottom of the ocean. You can't swap tubes often two miles deep... I think the specifications there were for 17000 hours of uninterrupted service per tube. There is an amp on the bottom of the Pacific ocean from US mainland to Hawaii, with a 300B amp on the bottom every few miles. During 40+ years less than 10 tubes failed......
There's no mystery about WE300B. What makes it very expensive, is that they were factory run for 6000 hours, and then tested. If they did not test as new after 6000hrs, they were tossed. Unfortunately, some of these failed tubes circulate as WE 300B, and people ask big money for them, and the buyer is not realizing that's not a WE300B, but a failed 300B. I guess that can be one reason why different people have so different opinions about them, as you can't know if you listened to the real tube or the failed one, which, instead of being destroyed, ended up in someones warehouse.Try to do this on current production tubes, and see for how much it can be sold..... 6000hours of electric bill into a 300B is a fair sum.
BTW, that WE amp had an excellent tone, I thought I am listening to a 2A3 amp.
I would say that the tubes still tested 80% after six years BECAUSE they where not switched off.I think that swithing the gear on/off shortens the tube life.
NC,My gut feeling is that when the amp is switched on/off, the tube ages because the cathode undergoes rapid cooling / heating, damaging the cathode. The cathode is a complex structure, and its ability to release electrons can be influenced a lot by annealing it. And that's what occurs during on/off cycling.
There was one study on tube life and aging, involving hundreds of vacuum tubes, when they built Eniac that showed that slow turn-on of B+ does not influence tube life. The only evils they found was heat, that was not dissipated from the anode.
Something must be ocurring during turn-on.
When I hook a stereo70 up to a variac, and turn it on, there is an initial current draw of over an amp. Then the current draw drops to quarter amp or so, then a couple seconds later starts going up as the rectifier starts to conduct.What is that initial huge current draw? As the rectifier is not operating yet, it's not HV. The filaments are drawing that excess current, and their current draw drops to the nominal as the tubes heat up. My hunch is that this initial huge current has a hand in ageing the tubes...
My idea is to turn on the amp with a variac slowly, to prevent this rush of current. (I tried it out, and turning the st70 on with a variac prevents the initial huge current surge). I'm curious if on the long run it can save tube life..... there was recently a post saying that RCA had theater amps on which they starved the cathode during the breaks, increasing tube life. I also heard from my mentor that when not using the amp, run 30% B+ voltage instead of switching the amp off, and that will extend tube life tremendously.
Looking at the physics of cathode heating: the cathode needs to be 900-1100C hot in order to emit electrons. Warming up a thin piece of metal from room temp (20C or so) to 1000C in a matter of few seconds is an immense stress to the material. After this immense stress, comes up the high voltage. As I see, the high voltage is not that stressful on the cathode (unless it is of too high current), it stresses the plate: as the electrons bombard the anode, their motion energy transforms to heat. However, the plate is a much bigger structure than the cathode: the current density on the plate is on the order of a few percents compared to the cathode. This translates to lower stress on the anode, than on the cathode, for a given current.
The heat generated by the flow of electrons has to be dissipated. If it is not dissipated by the tube envelope, it starts building up inside the anode structure, and a significant portion of it is reflected back to the cathode, increasing its temperature. When the cathode is heated above 1100C, its deterioration speeds up, tube life declines sharply as it increases.If the B+ is decreased to 30%, then, with the same bias, the cathode current is basically shut off, plate dissipation and reflected heat (& stress) on the cathode is minimal. I would think this is better than starving the filaments on full B+, where there is a full current demand on the cathode, but the cathode is not hot enough to satisfy it. I beleive a straightforward way to kill a tube is put HV on it without filament voltage....
However, it also depends how much the filaments are starved, and what is the operating point of the tubes. If they operate in deep A, starving the filaments would probably wreck the tubes, as they have high current demand on a lukewarm cathode. If they operate in class B, there is but a trickle of quiescent current, that would not hurt the starved cathode.It's worth a try to toy around........
Janos
The problem with tube lifetime studies is that there are many ways a tube can die, and many constructions that address the various mechanisms. Here's a few bits I've picked up over the years:1) Heating and cooling the cathode (and heater if separate) causes mechanical expansion and contraction. Any weakness in the material - a thin spot, a micro-crack, whatever - is a likely source of breaking the filament during this mechanical sress. That's why light bulbs usually blow out when you turn them on.
2) The inrush current to a cold heater is very high, producing large magnetic fields which apply force to the magnetic (steel) electrodes, and to the heater which carries current and hence has a magnetic field. (Presumably AC heaters or cathodes have a continuaul source of magnetic vibration as well.)
3) The mechanical expansion/contraction can work-harden the heater/cathode material, making it brittle and easily broken. (Something like this was said to be a problem with the very first generation of Vaic 300Bs - this was quickly addressed with a more complex cathode structure.)
4) The mechanical action can also cause bits of the cathode emmissive coating to flake off, reducing the available emmissive surface and sometimes producing grid-cathode shorts. Some specialty tubes have diffusion-bonded emmssive materials to address this problem.
5) An imperfect vacuum (they are all imperfect to some degree!) will have ions, which are much heavier than electrons. Positive ions are attracted to the cathode when high voltage is applied, and are massive enough to damage the cathode material when they strike it. Once the cathode is hot and the space charge built up, it will protect the cathode. This is the theory behind delayed high voltage, and also the reason starved heaters are risky. Presumably a slightly starved heater is OK when the cathode current is sufficiently low so that a good space charge can be maintained.
Ion velocity is proportional to the voltage, so reducing the voltage helps.
Note that tungsten filaments are relatively immune to damage by ions. That's the reason they are used almost exclusively for very high voltage tubes. Thoriated tungsten is in between.
6) Reducing the voltage, and hence current, to zero can lead to "stuck" cathodes; they develop a barrier and won't turn back on when needed. This was discovered when tubes were used in early computers, and might be "off" for extended periods. Special cathode material formulations (I believe mainly high purity) were developed for computer tubes. Some of these tubes (5965, 5687 for example) have a good reuptation for audio, and it's possible this is a reason.
6) Heat is the enemy of a good vacuum - it promotes outgassing from the internal structures and the glass, and leads to tiny damages to the glass-metal seals. The getter will absorb many but not all gasses. Gasses means ions and ion bombardment.
7) The "usual" (it's in all the books) cause of a tube wearing out is the finite lifetime of the cathode emmissive material. It does diffuse away from the surface, one atom at a time, hopefully caught by the getter action. You can see this in ordinary light bulbs, which get a slight darkening as the tungsten evaporates from the fiament and condenses on the inside surface of the bulb. Eventualy the cathode emmissive surface does not have enough exposed atoms of strontium, barium, etc. to emit enough electrons. Tube testers measure peak emission to detect this progression.
8) Like light bulbs, the evaporation of the heater wire itself is non-uniform - any thin spot has a greater surface area and evaporates faster, leading to weak spots and eventual breaking of the heater wire.
Paul,Thank you for your concise answer. I learned a lot. Would it be a good idea to use inrush current limiters on the AC heaters? The DC heaters probably start up slower (in case of filtering more complex than a C only), as the caps need time to charge up.
The imperfect vacuum is very troublesome, if the tube was abused even once. It starts the water cycle, leading to the accelerated deterioration of the cathode. This goes on even when the tube is operated modestly afterwards.
The cathode emission can be improved is some cases by applying high filament voltage (8-9V instead of 6.3), without high voltage, for a minute or so. This causes the cathode to melt slightly, and the emissive material, if any is left, to migrate to the surface. Sometimes weak tubes can be reformed this way.
Another tweak is to bake the tubes. The getter needs high temperature to work efficiently. However, during normal operation, there is a charge in the plate structure, preventing the ions trapped there to be asborbed by the getter. When there is no current running through the tube, and the whole bulb is heated (in a regular oven to 250F or so), the getter can absorb those atoms / ions which would be normally trapped by the space charge.
So, it seems, that for the heaters it is best to never turn them off, and for the cathode it is best to always run some current through them, but keep the entire strcture cool and unstressed.
As an experiment, I put a switch on my Darling amp between 50% and full B+. (I have a voltage doubler supply, with a center tap on the hv transformer. Switching between 150--150 and 150-center I get full or half B+.) Fortunately, with half B+ the DC coupled amp biases up to operation. The tubes run very cool, and to my surprise, I can use the 50% point to listen to music. My hunch is that the current also drops proportionately to the voltage, so I get around 25% of the normal power, maximum 50%. That is 250-500mW compared to the regular 1W.
To my surprise, that low power still produces excellent sonics, I need the 1W setting only for very loud listening, where the low setting starts clipping. However, the lower power setting has better low-level information readout, I find myself listening to the amp at much lower levels, as I can hear the same level of detail, dynamics, and body at ridiculously low volumes. I can understand why some folks choose the sub-1W range amplifiers.I'm curious how much longer life can I get from the tubes this way. I've had 6000 hours on the tubes. The power tubes (1626) are down to 80% emission, the driver tubes (cv5311) at 99%. Since then I also fitted them with diy copper heat dissipating sinks, and a fan to blow air on the tubes. This way, the driver tubes hottest surface point is around 40C! The power tubes hottest point is also very cool, around 60C. I have an 5A variac, thinking about hooking the amp to it for gentle turn on/off. I have observed that the turn on current inrush is visible: the tube lights up bright, then as the fl starts warming, the brightness subdues slightly, and after the damper diodes start pumping the hv, the tube brightens again.
With the stereo 70 the turn on inrush current is audible on the Russian EL34s: I can hear a metallic clinging sound on turn on. Must be the tubes internal structures resonating in the strong magnetic field. Seems that this one needs the variac for turn on.......
And I can agree with it.One question, why would reducing B+ to 30% be better than just switching it down completely? I don't quite get that.
It might not be better for the tubesa at all... however, 30% hv has hardly any plate dissipation, but is already sufficient to polarize the power supply caps, and to keep the amp warm. After the hv is switched off for extended period, the power supply section and signal ection cools down completely, and switching back the hv the amp can start warming up from scratch. With 30% hv the amp is always warmed up.Based on the physics of the cathode, 30% is be better than no hv, if the tube is left with that for extended periods. When we switch off the HV completely, the electrode cloud on the surface of the cathode wants to escape (it always wants to escape, when it is heated). If they are not allowed to do so, it will slightly change the structure of the cathode, releasing the built-up internal tension, altering its electron-emission capability.
What makes it very expensive, is that they were factory run for 6000 hours, and then tested. If they did not test as new after 6000hrs, they were tossed. Unfortunately, some of these failed tubes circulate as WE 300B, and people ask big money for them, and the buyer is not realizing that's not a WE300B, but a failed 300B.This is a nice story. Do you believe this is still the practice?
Hi Geoff,I don't know whether for current production they do burn in the tubes for 6000 hrs. Mind, that's two years of continuous use of the tube!
I was reading about the 300B in a book written by a WE engineer, on the history of WE, about 2-3 yrs ago. It has loads of data on the WE tubes, and tons of background information. Anyone remember the writer and title? AES used to sell that book, but they do not have it anymore.
Good luck,
Ummm ... sorry, but 2 years times 365.25 days/year times 24 hours/day is 17532 hours. Do the math! :^)Western Electric made tubes for underwater telephone repeaters, but the 300B was AFAIK designed for theater use. (Hey, I got a bunch of Astaire/Rogers DVDs for Christmas - RKO and WE!!) Lifetime estimates were 20,000 hours if the plate-cathode voltage was less than 400v and dissipation less than 32 watts. At rated maximum 40 watts dissipation, WE projected 10,000 hours life. Since they "wrote the book" on reliability, I'd be surprised if any other make could live up to that, and a little bit startled if even the current production does so - I assume they do everything that was documented, but that's probably not everything that was known...
I seem to remember that the original production process burned them in for more like 200 hours(?); I also seem to remember they rejected 75% of the production - and smashed them so they could never be sold. There was a picture in a WE publication of the mechanical shock test, swinging a tube on a 3-foot cord into a hard plate while powered up - very scary! Hard to imagine that anyone destroys that many these days. But technology is better now; many say that the new production has much better vacuum (10 times better?) for instance.
Maybe Gordon will post here? He probably has more experience than anyone else with original and new WE 300Bs.
"I assume they do everything that was documented, but that's probably not everything that was known..."- not so....
When the 'new' 300B's were first made, they were made for several years in the same plant in Kansas City used by WE, and almost all of the workers were ones who retired when Lucent closed it down. The "tricks of the trade" were preserved and passed on. Also, don't forget that WE did a LOT of gov't contracting in many areas where very linear tubes were essential.
Agreed, the 300B was not generally or ever used for undersea cable repeaters AFAIK. The primary tube for that was the 175HQ. 300B was designed for a variety of uses. When they designed tubes like these they designed for characteristics, not necessarily for end-uses. WE used them for series-pass power supply tubes (the horror!) and even used triodes as diodes in many of their theater amps.The WE book in question is by Bernie Magers, who's still around but I think the book is out of print. Much of the production info in there from an internal WE document which is available with some searching.
rejecting 75% of production run tubes seems insane to me. Maybe when they were prototyping but once a line was up and running the waste ratio could not have been nearly that high.
There is piles of factual lore about WE out there for the taking, it's not that hard to come by accurate info. It bugs me when lots of BS is posited as 'fact' when in reality much of it is myth and repeated nonsense. Not pointing fingers to anyone in particular here but if one is going to post this sort of info (anyone) let's try a little harder to get it right. Esp. since all of AA is archived and indexed by the likes of google, etc.
Ed,I'm glad you posted your corrections. I've read some facts about the 300B, and apparently my memory failed me with some of them. Someone has mentioned to me that there was a 300B amp at the end of the repeater line when he went down....
!
Addicted to Tubes
many say that the new production has much better vacuum (10 times better?) for instance.
Paul,Thank you for correcting me. I hoped someone knows the specifics accurately. 6000hrs-2yrs conversion is quite embarassing.... I was watching Black Adder in the meanwhile ;). Did the trick.
I was told that someone who went down to check the end-of-the-chain amp of one of the repeater lines saw there WE 300Bs. But as far as I know, 300B was used only between continental US - Hawaii. The other lines use other WE tubes.
Hi,I have not had a tube failure so far (due to life) and its been 2 years now (playing on weekends).
Can't compare NOS vs new becasue I hardly use new (its the first tweak I would perform in all my equipment).
For the power amps, I stich off at night and when I go out. For others, I leave it on during the weekends where I do most of my listening.
Thanks for the review,I too love Audio Note gear and PQ does indeed care.
If I might give you a tip for the next upgrade... Please consider the AN speakers. I once heard the Zingali on Audio Note gear and well.. do consider the AN speakers.
I'm getting good results over here with mine. Of course there's always room for improvement. Just out of curiosity, which Zingalis left you so disappointed, and why?You know, I thought that there were bigger differences between the 3 levels of the AN Quest amplifier than the entire "Overture" range of Zingali speakers. This is just a basic generalization and not intended to stir anything up. Remember, I like Audio Note products too.
Specifically, I thought that the entire character of the Quest amplifier changed as you go from basic, to silver, to silver signature. This would be like going from decent, to very nice, to "That's it! That's what I want! Can I write you a check?". On the other hand, the entire range of the Overture series just gives you a little more (or less) of the same character as you move through it's line. This would be more like, "Wow, these are all very nice. I'll get the biggest ones that I can afford". Again, it's just my opinion, and your mileage does vary.
I think the Zingalis sound very good with Audio Note amplifiers. What's not to like?
I think the way you describe the Zingali is what a speaker company should reasonably do. I think speakers are the msot critical part of the purchased chain. I understand UHF magazine's view that source is most important because a speaker can;t put back what the source misses - but at the saem time if a speaker is so poor that no source is going to save a speaker that can;t produce what is on the disc.I am NOT saying this about Zingali at all so don;t misread me please. But I think Audio Note speakers connected to Audio Note equipment (and hopefully one day soon Audio Note classical recordings) is on to something I have heard from no other maker. I have a set of Audio Note J/Spe speakers very very far from the top of their line. They are something like $3600.00US. I have listened to Martin Logan Odyssey, Prodigy, B&W N801, N802, 802D, Wilson Sophia, Totem Mani-2, Totem Shaman, Dynaudio Countour S5.4, Evidence Temtation, Revel Ultima, Magnepan 3.6, Paradigm Signature S8, and too many more to list(Quad, Sonus Faber, JM Labs, Apogee, etc), and none of these I would trade you strait up for the J/Spe let alone the E/Spe.
I truly think a system designed as a system is better than individual componants designed in a vacuum with people purchasing X brand that might maybe will work with some other Y brand.
Take the open sound of a Quad 989 panel - mix that with dynamic power of a large horn - add a significant amount of deeper bass than any panel can muster and most any horn and add a more balanced breathy and "live" sound and you have an AN E.
This is not to say that AN is the only answer to speakers but so far very few compete well that I have heard -- I have enjoyed a speaker from Tannoy recently and Zingali is a HE speaker maker which I tend to gravitate towards. Despite the warts of a K-Horn - it still beats any slim line design multiple stacked 6 inch woofer 85-87db speaker that I have heard -- but then that's why the K-horn has been around so long and still sells. In a way The AN E is horn like without being a horn so it does not fall prey to some of the horn weaknesses
For the many audionote loudspeakers and systems I have heard owned while very well designed and enjoyable where far from the dynamics of large horn systems. You only have domes and cones no way they can excite air pressure like compresion or other horn systems.Glad you enjoy, great you found what you like, wonderful you try to turn others to what you enjoy but come on 8in driver -1in dome = large horns is a bit of a stretch.And does a disservices to some folks for they might just purchase on your advise expecting this dynamic range of a large horn.And from your list I dont see a large horn at all makes one think.
I am sorry I did not mean large horns in the very large horn kind of way. I want to be clear that a horn speaker like the K-horn has more Macrodynamics and other horn speakers of this size and large such as the Avanteguarde also posess more macrodynamic prowess. I was speaking to some of the larger but still "typical" floorstanders from Klipsch and this ilk like the kg1.4(Think this was the number). And microdynamis are almost always blurred by large speakers (as well as driver integration problems). The Avanteguarde duo for example is very expensive but I found it difficult to relax to - it had a boom shout issue that doesn;t go awya and while loud with big impact seemed more brutish than tubeful in soft passages. My Wharfedales also suffer this as does the K-horn.OTOH the E does not have the shoutyness that some bigger horns have that can be often very tiresome after not too long listening. But for the sheer visceral impact a big horn is IMO better than a big stat. If AN was not around or I had a very large room to fill -- horns would be the way I would go -- the rubbish about off axis weakness has always bugged me since serious listeners usually listen between their loudspeakers.
Lastly, there is a big difference from an entry level AN E based system and the Level 5 AN system that I heard early last year when it comes to openess and power when corner loaded in a medium room.
I really respect Audio Note for making all of the audio components for a system, including the basic parts to build those components. That experience gives them a real advantage in knowing what matters the most, and what merely qualifies as interesting but not very useful.For example, I don't understand the usefulness of some of today's so called "reference" speakers. So many of these impressive designs are made by companies that believe that it's up to the customer to figure out how to drive the damn things to get good results at home.
Well with all the speakers out there advertising that they are "reference" usually is a warning to me that they are anything but.I think a company that designs the entire chain has an advantage not only in their end result but basic logic. How many people on these boards spend piles of money on interconnect and speaker cables? A lot. Now assuming that cables make significant differences it remains completely ludicrous to read a review of a cable by some outfit using SS amps and slim 85db 4way speakers when you have a tube HE system at home. People then buy based on the review of the new life changing cable that ends up stinking up the joint. (This goes for amps or CD players too)
That is bad enough but it goes further in the case of cables. IF one believes in cable superiority (and I respect those who do not) then Audio Note is almost the only logical choice to make. You can at least get a system where the cable is the SAME all the way from source to speaker. And really that is the ONLY way to buy cables that makes even the slightest sense. I am betting that more than 98% of people on these bards buying expesnive cables have at least 4 different cables going from source to speaker. Good results is entirely 100% a fluke.
You get an AN CD Transport, DAC (or Turntable) interconnects, amplifier, speaker cables to speakers to the internal wiring of the speakers -- all with the same wire material.
Of course I am not saying you MUST do his to get good sound - of course not. I am not even saying that individual componants from AN are any better than anyone elses in a given price range (Though I think their DACs would improve just about everything).
The funny thing is that according the measurement touting sector of this industry - Audio Note is doing everything WRONG. The wrong sdesign in speakers (shallow boxes, paper drivers, two ways, undamped boxes) Amplifiers (SET - worst measuring highest distortion lowest power), DACs (Tubes, no filters, or anti-jitter or re-clocking and no oversampling -- everything that most every other maker claims MUST be there to get remotely decent sound). And hell most people thing Silver is like nails on a chalkboard and AN loves silver.
So that is 4 things that alone should make terrible music and yet they added all 4 of those things together (and probably a few more that I am missing ahem their top turntable will get scoffs) so it is insane to me that when I go to my local shops to listen to this weeks (This is used in Skywalker sound B&W N801 coupled with the professional Bryston flagship amplifiers that the sound can be so easily wholly trounced in every musical and sonic regard that the industry approved system is just a shell of music.
I have a set of older Wharfedale Vanguard speakers which never were aimed at audiophiles (These are horn loaded and were upgraded versions of the E70. Even these despite their problems are FUN and enjoyable to listen to -- some of the High Fi (which makes me cringe when they bastardize the term) of most every standmount on the market makes me wonder how 95% of the audiophiles on these boards can stomach what they listen to. Of course wait a few weeks until they upgrade something (and that says it all).
This guy reviews the E-70 (My Vanguard looks similar but it is a 3 way not a 4, and the Vanguard is rated 40hz-23khz - 95db sensitive and has a straightforward driver array. I listen to stuff like Paradigm S2 and B&W 705 and I wonder how the hell such things can possibly be recommended to anyone who actually cares about music reproduction? I mean it is simply shcoking -- I am so glad that there was ONE dealer out of the dozens that actually carried stuff like Audio Note and other tube designs. Otherwise I'd probably be stuck like most everyone else in boring products that make music less interesting than my $40.00 headphones.
I don't know who complained about HE speakers that now has us all seeing LE junkers for lots of money -- but that person as Garfield would say "should be drug out into the street and shot."
Note the comparson to the BBC standard Mini-monitor BBC LS3/5a
Hi,It is not about what I don't like about the Zingalis, it is about what I do like about the AN speakers. Really, if you get a chance to listen to the AN-J or E speakers try them. It will IMHO immediatly be clear what I mean.
De differences between the different 'types' AN speakers are also quite considerable. I've owned the AN-E SEC silver signature made in 1997 or so, but most of the current range of lower priced speakers from AN outperformes the old versions (there where many improvements made the last years). I currently use the AN-E LX Signature, but with hemp drivers and AN-Vx wiring.
Further, like other posters said, replacement of the standard 6SN7's is very wortwhile. I like the Kenrad's the best, but they are hard to find. Also IMHO nothing beats a WE300B (Alabama plant new production) whatever people are trying to tell you. For rectifier, do please try a GZ37.
Lastly, if you are 'up to it', leave the amp on always. See other posts from me about this in DIY. The amp will sound better and I think the tubes will last longer.
Regards,
NC
There is a simplicity and rightness to the sound of the AN speakers that just isn't there with many other speakers. It's not that other speakers can't or don't sound good. It's just that they are not the same.For example, I know how I feel when I listen to single driver speakers such as the Omega Super 3s. It's the very essence of what those little speakers can communicate that I wish my Zingalis could do a little bit better. But could they do all that and still do everything else that they do so very well too? I doubt it. I guess that's where we have to stop and make a choice. Even though the Super 3s are limited with respect to volume and any real bass performance, I think the single driver road is the road that I am inclined to travel in the near future. We'll see . . . .
By the way, I did not know that a GZ37 is a direct replacement for the 5U4G. Thanks for that information. I would of course check with the manufacturer before I made the swap just to be sure the design is simpatico with it.
I also want to mention that I got a more obvious improvement on my Quest Silver Sig. by upgrading the rectifier (NOS National Union 5U4g) than I did by trying to upgrade the 6SN7 (NOS Sylvania I think). In other words, I think the rectifier matters a lot. We are, after all, modulating a power supply.
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