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It arrived yesterday.First impressions:
1. It sure is small and light.2. This zero-NFB design sounded excellent driving the mag.-planar tweeters of my line-array speakers, so I connected it to the B/MR drivers. It sounds excellent there, too, so I'm ordering another, and my ASL 22-Watters will soon be for sale.
3. Each output transformer has 2 8-Ohm windings. In this version of the amp, both windings are terminated with binding posts. These can be paralleled for 4-Ohm speakers or series'd for 16-Ohm speakers or for speakers for which one wants less damping.
4. The amp uses cathode bias which means it has no meter or adjustment pot. Just think--more time for listening to music!
5. Roger made apparently no concessions to high-end fussiness in selecting parts for this. All 5 PS caps are inexpensive 'lytics with no film bypasses, and the single coupling cap per channel is a nondescript dipped 0.047/400 film cap that may be a polyester.
I have more pics; e-mail me at jeffreybehr(at)cox(dot)net if you'd like them.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
Follow Ups:
The binding posts are silver-over-brass Audio-Notes well suited to bare wires, etc., but not spades.
I hardwired the OPTs' secondaries for low and high speaker impedances to avoid the use of exterior jumpers.The IC is new-to-me-but-now-discontinued Audioquest Panther, their used-to-be-best copper-conductor IC.
Hardwiring eliminates at least 2 sets of solder and one of mechanical connections, which HAS to sound better. :-)
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
...that's so old I trimmed away some green wire. It's to the speakers' tweeters and is temporary.After I get rid of the big TV in the middle of my soundstage, I'll know what lengths I need and will build some high-quality, multiconductor cable similar to what I built for the B/MR.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
I bought one about 3 weeks ago. Using it with a pair of Abby's. It replaces a 2a3 amp I've had for about 4 years. This is an outstanding amp especially at this price. I didn't realize how much noise the 2a3 made and what a difference a quiet amp could make. Highly reccomended.
I love mine, and plan to upgrade to the V.2 with additional speaker taps... I found the machine REALLY started opening up after 100 hours, and I believe that transformers have to work themselves into the amp. It quite suddenly became a MUCH better sounding amp, really quite astonishing moments with well recorded music. It walks right through complex arrangements. I had been using it with the Omega SuperHemps, and am now looking for something else to try. I highly recommend the EM7 to anyone who wants a noise-free, high resolution alternative to 2A3. No noise, no hum.
Hard to argue with your assessment of the amp, well put. I like having most of what I loved about the 2a3 without all the hum and noise issues.Listening to my 2a3 now it sounds a bit muddled and slow in comparison. From what I have heard about the superhemps why are you looking for something else? Just curious
I was thinking about the MaxHemps to be honest. Abit more grunt in the lower register. I really want to hear them with this amp. They could be placed on the floor, vintage style.I also have played/tested the Hempcone in an open baffle, using the 100Hz shunt capacitor input on the EM7, and both really, truly shine. ....a simple OB rig using: 2X Hempcone8, and 2X Dayton IB-385-15 woofers, a BASH amp, on 27 X 42 baffles, and be done. I think this would be an effective rig. I prefer the sound of the Hempcone to the B200, on OB, and the Hempcone without the whizzzzer cone will apparently make ~9KHz, which makes tweeter integration really easy. At any rate, the EM7 is all the tube amp I will ever need, heard and owned plenty.
I have a pair of abby normals now and the combo is great. My room is to small for open baffle it's 10X11 and ca't get speaker more then 2 feet into the room. I am interested in the hemp speakers. I'm thinking about building the fostex recommended double bass reflex speaker designed for the fe127e and then putting the new 4 inch hemp driver into if from omega. I looked through the archives and didn't find much on the double bass reflex box but it looks interesting. I agree the more I listen to the em7 the more amazed I am by it.
SkiteThe 4.5 inch driver will be OEM only, Omega...however, for a very simple taste of hemp, get the big 90L cabinets from Madisound, and the REAL Tone Tubby 8 inchers are only available from
www.abrown.com Click on Sales.
These are the only real HempTone 8 inch drivers, the rest are now "Hemp Matrix" if you prefer Kevlar. The owner of the forementioned lost his license from Tone Tubby on the hemp compound. Tone Tubby is going it alone, along with a 5.25, 6.5, a coming 8 inch wideband "guitar" speaker, and their other guitar speakers. ...I have heard the difference, and please heed my advice, suffice it to say.
If you get the drivers, feel free to email me about effective driver tweaking. Larry Moore preferred the untweaked HempTone 8 in those boxes to the Supravox 215EXC field coil on OB, in overall tone and musical gestalt. On OB, the Hemp cone can take ALOT of lower end EQ lift, because cone breakup is almost nonexistent, the technical reason behind the smooooth sound. ie: these can be made to make bass, on OB. A VERY interesting finding.
I would be interested in the tweaks you speak of. I looked for the 90L speaker you reccomend but couldn't find it.
The more I listen to the amp I really like the way it plays music. It just seems to effortlessly track the flow of the music. it has also fleshed out alot and the harmonics and tone are great. It's a keeper.
The 90L enclosure is the Madisound Woodstyle SUB box. Look under the sub heading. I believe it is Woodstyle. There are two providers, however. A 3X4 inch port will do it.
I took a look at the enclosures looks like an interesting project thanks. Liking the em7 amp more and more.
...I THINK the system has never sounded better.Roger has reinstitued an introductory price, for this version* $850 before going to a regular price of $950.
Also, he's decided to name the amp the EM7; makes sense to me. :-)
* It has binding posts for each of each OPT's 2 windings, so the user can select high or low output impedance without soldering.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
Wow, what a tidy little unit. I know some have used the **EM7 type
tubes for larger SET voltage amp/drivers with pleasing results.
I guess Rodger Modjeski and I may share the same lack of enthusiasm
for obsessively bypassing every electrolytic in sight --refreshing!I have found that the overall synergy of a design and the
harmonic characteristics of the chosen tubes at given operating
points are by far the greatest determinants of sonic performance,
and that expensive/exotic components (possible exception OPT's)
often contribute little if anything over intelligently chosen
common industrial parts.Jeffrey, please share more details of your listening impressions
with whatever loudspeakers/arrangements you have tried. How are
the sonics compared to some of your other amps?Looking forward to more of your reportage.
...with it when she picked it up. Roger's shipment-confirmation e-mail indicated the shipping weight was 6 pounds; smart-ass Behr had to ask if he forgot to install the 3 transformers in it. :-)Thomas, I wish I were a golden-eared audiofool who hears all sorts of subtle differences between amps. I'm more a music lover who forms longer-term impressions. However, soon one of those GEAs will be bringing his Altman BYOB amp to my house, and I'll report on his and my observations on all 3 amps (including my ASL 845s).
Of one thing I'm fairly certain--if it sounds good with those 5 inexpensive Nippon Chemi-con PS caps in it, it'll sound cleaner and more detailed AND smoother, less edgy, with better caps in it.
My goal is to use 2 of these amps to drive the 4 MR and treble ends of my triamped speaker systems. I can hardly wait.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
3. Each output transformer has 2 8-Ohm windings. In this version of the amp, both windings are terminated with binding posts. These can be paralleled for 4-Ohm speakers or series'd for 16-Ohm speakers or for speakers for which one wants less damping.
That don't sound right.
If you have two 8 ohm windings, and you parallel them, you end up with one 8 ohm winding. The number of turns doesn't change. If you wire them in series, the turns doubles and you end up with one 32 ohm winding.
se
...in series for 16 Ohms, in parallel for 4 Ohms.
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
...in series for 16 Ohms, in parallel for 4 Ohms.
Which is the same thing you said. And I'm still left wondering how you get 16 ohms in series and 4 ohms in parallel from two 8 ohm windings.
se
...now that I look more carefully and not try to recall a quick and casual conversation, is that the series connection is for high-impedance speakers and also when one wants less speaker damping, and the parallel connection is for low-impedance speakers.What I also know is that the more I listen, the more I like the sound of this amp. Tonite I was listening to the PentaTone SACD of Julia Fisher's Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and thinking that this music sounds REALLY nice...JUST like real music!
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Tin-eared audiofool and obsessed landscape fotografer.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jeffreybehr
(not the sound, the looks)! I guess you opted this for the tweeters rather than a 45, give us a more extended impression when they are broken in.
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