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In Reply to: Re: help me sort out the sounds (45, 2A3, 300B) posted by jcb2005 on March 22, 2007 at 13:21:11:
First off, a little tea and a lot more sympathy: this is truly *agonizing*, isn't it? I feel your pain, 'cause I went through it three to four years ago. 45s, 2A3s (speaking of which, what *are* "current" 2A3s anyway?), 300Bs? Some other exotic variant? Something different entirely? And what speakers? Oh, you've decided on those already. But, are you going to inhabit this listening room forever -- and, if not, what to do??? It's never ending, huh? But, enough unhelpful empathizing. I don't show up on this forum often, but when I do, it's to help in some practical manner -- hopefully....Second, if you're looking for "our man in Brooklyn," Don Farber is it. A real gentleman, who will run circles around your soon-to-be new "best friends" at In Living Stereo, and who will get you centered and on the right path, S.E.T.-wise. Please e-mail me privately, and I'll give you his contact information -- assuming you don't already have it. (A warning, though: I haven't seen or even spoken to him in a couple of years, so I may have outdated info.) Also, e-mail me privately if you'd like to know how the folks at In Living Stereo wouldn't know an S.E.T. amplifier if one fell through their roof at their Astor Place "audio salon."
Third, a 35' x 14' room with 12' ceilings? Why can't I convince my wife to move to Brooklyn??? (We live in a 600 sq. ft. apt. in Manhattan!) Even with the speaker efficiency and volume levels you're citing, though, I truly wonder if the 45 tube is going to come even *close* to doing enough for you in that space -- in all respects, not just in the basement frequencies. (Very frankly, many would argue that the 45 handles bass frequencies more accurately than any other audio amplification device ever devised -- vacuum tube or otherwise. In any event, I would be hard pressed to list "bass response" at the top of a list of 45 shortcomings.)
Fourth, no matter what, it's *really* hard to go wrong with one of George Wright's products. I own his (original?) phono stage, the WPP100C. Couldn't be happier with its value. And my assumption, without first-hand experience, is that his amplifiers -- indeed, everything he builds -- likely exhibits that same "low cost for high performance" quality. Basically, you're just not going to go wrong, here. Just like if you were to sit down in front of two bottles of wine -- say the '47 Cheval Blanc and the '61 Petrus -- you just aren't going to have any regrets. And no one's going to feel sorry for you, either :-) You're at or very close to the summit; so, take some comfort in that.
Finally, if you still really want to hear a 45-based power amplifier in your current system, I'd be happy to help you out. I have a 4-year-old Jeff Korneff 45SE that I'd be happy to bring by for a listening session in your system. It's in storage at the moment in my house in Greenwood Lake (in Orange County -- about halfway between the city and Woodstock). Easy enough to cart back to the city and to your place, if you'd like. We could spend a weekend afternoon seeing if the (wonderful, beautiful, gloriously psychedelic, how-could-you-possibly-consider-any-alternative? :-) 45 tube does anything for you in your system. One caveat, though: Jeff (Korneff) has warned me about coupling cap leakage in his older amps, and I haven't tested mine yet. (It's been a couple of years since I've used it -- although it's been well broken-in.) I'd have to run some quick tests with a multimeter before I'd feel comfortable putting it back into use. Another caveat: although it drives much less efficient speakers than yours (mine are Cain & Cain [R.I.P., Terry] Abbys at something like 95 dB), the system is in a *teeny* room -- you can check my system for room measurements by clicking "(A)" -- and, in fact, they're the nearfield version of those speakers, so I sit ***very*** close to them. So, my listening "position" is bound to be *much* different than yours.
Please -- anyone -- correct me if I'm wrong; but, the common wisdom sems to be: use the 45 if you can; if you can't, step up to the 300B. (Which implies that the 2A3 represents the worst of both worlds. Of course, 2A3 fanatics will likely jump all over this, saying that it represents the *best* of both worlds. Maybe both camps are "correct" in their own ways?)
In any case, jcb2005, if you'd like to get in touch, e-mail me privately if you would: jim.hodgson[at]yahoo.com (you know what to do with that: replace the "[at]" with "@"). And sorry that I can't do more along the lines of "the 45 does this well and that poorly; the 2A3 does this well and that poorly; and the 300B does this well and that poorly." From my experience, the situation just doesn't lend itself to those kind of blanket statements, so -- as everyone seems to say -- "let *your* ears be the judge." I just didn't want to say that without offering some way to move you a little further along the "your-ear-judging" path....
Follow Ups:
"Please -- anyone -- correct me if I'm wrong; but, the common wisdom seems to be: use the 45 if you can; if you can't, step up to the 300B."I guess that's true at the moment. Only a few years ago, it went more along the lines of "the 45 is overpriced, unavailable, and under powered, and the 300B is lush to the point of being bloated. Only the 2A3 is really neutral."
A few years earlier, the 300B was the only "real" SET, everything else lacked the last bit of refinement.
These sands are almost guaranteed to shift again. :^)
Other than power capability, the only technical differences among tubes that I know to be audible are linearity and mechanical resonances. Both are entirely related to the mechanical design, and in today's SET world you can get many different mechanical designs in each tube type. So I am especially suspicious of broad generalizations about tube types. (Of course, I am also a circuit designer, so I feel that circuit design and parts selection are at least as important.)
Hi Jim,I own Don Garber's Fi 45 (the prototype) and have had his X, 421A and 2A3 monoblocks here as well as a bunch of other SETs including a pair of JC Morrison's 6B4G monoblocks. I also happen to own the Shindo Cortese. Oh yea, and I know the guys at In Living Stereo. Granted, I didn't know them back when some of them were building their own SETs or when they were selling Komuro’s amps, but long enough to know your colorful characterization misses the mark. By a very long shot.
It is interesting though how little credit we give people who've worked in this industry for decades…
Anyway, that's a very generous offer you've made and I'll echo yours and the others recommendation - you have to hear things for yourself. Ideally with your own speakers. I'd also suggest Jeffrey shoot Srajan an email since he owned the Zu Druids and owns the Zu Definitions and has used a bunch of amps with them (srajan@6moons.com) including the Yamamoto A08S.
It seems to me having a 45-based amp driving the Zu Druids (sans sub) in a 35 x 14 x 12 room is an awfully tall order.
Cheers,
Michael
Listen, my congratulations goes out to anyone who has had even a remotely positive experience at one of NYC's upscale audio salons. And please forgive my 4:00 a.m. "color." Now, specifically regarding In Living Stereo. First of all, I even wonder if we're talking about the same people. You lament "how little credit we give people who've worked in this industry for decades." Honestly, no one I met there was more than a few decades old!Now, that said, granted, I paid them a couple of visits during the fall (of one year about four years ago, to be exact) -- i.e., a horrible time in NYC high-end retail, since *no one* is buying *anything*. (We're all waiting for holiday bonuses to be announced!) I got a *very* hard sell from these guys, who were clearly eager to unload some gear that they obviously didn't want and that I made perfectly clear that I didn't want either.
Their main listening room was set up such that auditioning the Cain & Cain Nearfield Abbys was impossible. (To their credit, I asked permission to rearrange their room radically, and they agreed -- which dramatically altered the listening experience to the point of their saying to me, "You're hired!") When we started talking about amplification, they insisted on a number of things: (i) the 45 tube is incapable of any legitimate modern audio use based solely on its low power output, (ii) no power amplifier in the sub five-figure range could possibly be considered a serious contender -- "decent output iron costs at least that much," and (iii) they had never heard of any of the amateur builders that are regularly discussed and lauded on this forum (e.g., Wright, Welbourne, Farber, Korneff, et al.) but decided that the gear that they were producing must be meant only for amateurs simply looking to get into the hobby.
There was more, but this strikes me as enough for now. I'd also prefer not to relay anything beyond plain fact (i.e., who said what and when) in this public forum. Suffice it to say that I left In Living Stereo less than impressed -- with them and with me. Ultimately, I was made to feel badly about myself because I didn't have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a power amplifier. Look, as a New Yorker, I know what their rent must be on their little spot on W. 4th St. in Manhattan. So, I know the kind of profit that they have to generate every month to pay that rent. In fact, they "ran down" the Abbys as being "too cheap." That is, they flat out admitted to me that they weren't interested in carrying them because there simply wasn't enough profit potential in them. Terry Cain had a thing or two to say about your friends at In Living Stereo. And anyone who knew Terry would probably guess (correctly) that his characterization of the place and its people was just as "colorful" as you think mine is. Under the obvious circumstances, I don't feel at all comfortable saying anything more about Terry's business relationship with this particular retailer; but, I *can* tell you that Terry stopped sending people to In Living Stereo to audition the Abbys and started sending them straight to my apartment -- with my "cheap, hobbyist set-up" and all.
I don't know, Michael: it seems to me that your "(R)" may put you in a different league than the rest of us. Lucky you, but perhaps a bit of "(R)"eality needs to sink in before you realize that the average "high-end audio salon client" in New York City is too often treated like "(R)"ubbish. In fact, I really don't think that my characterization "misses the mark" at all. Rather, most often, *I'm* the one that feels like a "mark" in these places....
Jim,When I first went to ILS to hear the Abbys, I wasn't an "R" - I was an "A" and I owned the Fi X (by Don Garber not Farber) and used 45s. So in some ways our experiences are very similar, in other ways not.
Cheers,
Michael
Ah, Michael, it's New York City retail. Sometimes there's just no explaining it. As I said, I congratulate you on having a successful "audio salon" experience -- particularly one that I wasn't able to enjoy myself. Maybe those guys were more impressed by Don's Fi X than anything that I was considering at the time. If I recall correctly (although a memory like this would place me squarely back in high school), Don was the "don" of the resurgence of flea-powered audio in the West Village way back when. Perhaps there was an aura of respect surrounding his equipment at ILS. And forgive my typo: I was one key off and ended up recommending the work of an excellent photographer. If you're at all interested, "Portraits of Tibetan Buddhist Masters" makes for excellent reading while listening to trans-Himalayan chant....
During one visit while auditioning the Abbys, two other customers came in. They brought a CD they just cut - one guy was a performer on it (a singer) and the other the engineer. We were A/Bing the Abbys and Reference 3A deCapos using their CD. When we switched to the deCapo’s the engineer said “ahh that’s it” and the singer said “no the other speaker is much better”.New York City – retail.
And I thank you for the book recommendation – I will look into it. (and I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time, just making sure Don got his credit ;-) & yes Don's store - Fi - at 30 Watts Street was a trail-blazer for SETs in the US along with JC Morrison, Nori Komuro and Herb Reichert...
"Please -- anyone -- correct me if I'm wrong; but, the common wisdom sems to be: use the 45 if you can; if you can't, step up to the 300B. (Which implies that the 2A3 represents the worst of both worlds. Of course, 2A3 fanatics will likely jump all over this, saying that it represents the *best* of both worlds. Maybe both camps are "correct" in their own ways?)"Yes, that does seem to be the common wisdom. Right or wrong. Nice of you to offer Jeffrey a 45 audition. I still have a Korneff 45SE and
76/6SN7 preamp. It is very good for the money and Jeff is a great guy. But it sounds *best* to me with EML 45's which some say are not 45's. I dunno. Compared to the Cortese it sounds veiled. Someone I know said the same thing about the Fi 45 monoblocks. I have not heard them and he has not heard the Korneff. Every other SET I have owned seemed to empahsize the mid range at the expense of other frequencies. The Cortese does not; music just flows from it and it sounds balanced and *real*. I have not been to In Living Stereo but there is a post here from someone who has. Do a search. He said they were great no pressure people that made him feel like he wanted to buy something. Seriously, go have a listen and tell us what you think. What I can say is that I am now really enjoying music again and that is what this pursuit is about and I am no longer thinking about gear. And that feels great.Les
genuine advice and offers of practical help that I have seen in quite a while. Kudos to you.Kind regards
Raymond
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