PeterK wrote:I suspect the recordings you are using are the problem to a degree.
It's certainly one of the issues for me alright. Some recordings sound glorious and others tend to have some sort of treble issue. My episode has certainly made me realise that ultra transparency or ultra revealing is not necessarily a good thing. Still though I think I'm pretty sure at this stage is that I need a source that is considered to be on the safe or polite side. The amp and speakers are open and dynamic enough to do the rest.
Certainly moving from a Wadia to an Opus21 has brought me closer and while not there yet, the Opus21 is no doubt a nicer listen than the Wadia was, at least in my system anyway. In coming weeks I plan to get a Meridian G08.2 in......and off I go again. Cue some circus music.
One thing that has changed though is my view on the whole cable debate. I think I'm now firmly in the camp that cables make extremely small or f*ck all differences. I tried a whole lot of cables of all types and budgets and not ONE of them changed anything. But lets not go there. :-)
Ah yes. It's very hard to know how far to go with cables and other types of tweakery ....
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a modern approach as above, or my preferred type below ...
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"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking" - Henry Ford
Any update on this Simon...both the amps and the electrical issue you seem to have??
"I may skip. I may even warp a little.... But I will never, ever crash. I am your friend for life. " -Vinyl. Michell Gyrodec SE, Hana ML cart, Parasound JC3 Jr, Stax LR-700, Stax SRM-006ts Energiser, Quad Artera Play+ CDP
I picked up the amps in mono form from Ivan on Wednesday evening, with the message from Bernard being "Don't get heart failure when you turn these on". When I asked why, Ivan said I should expect them to be "edgy" for a while, as the new valves would take a while to settle down. Sure enough, you could have shaved with the sound that first night, but ever since then they've been improving, giving a warmer, bigger, more effortless sound every time, and as of yesterday they've started to sound really gorgeous. I'd read online that the valves take 100 hours or so before they're really stable, so it'll be interesting to see how much more they improve. One way or the other, I'm very happy. As it stands they possibly don't have *quite* the transparency and speed as a single amp in stereo mode (but I could be imagining that, it's marginal) but they just sound much more in control and unflustered. The added power hasn't changed the sound massively, but I didn't want it to. Everything just sounds a bit more solid, a bit more confident. From what I can tell, crescendos stay right to the end rather than tightening up, but I haven't had the opportunity to really test that. Babies always seem to want to sleep...
I'll tell you one thing though, eight 6C33C's belting away are HOT. After any kind of decent listening session the rest of the house feels freezing! As Hazel so charmingly put it, it feels and smells like I've been using a hair-dryer in there. Anyway, I'll report again on sound when the valves have really settled down. Very happy so far, though.
At the end of last week I also borrowed a voltage monitor from Ivan. Suffice to say that while the voltage hasn't moved around much (low 220s to mid 230s) the best listening sessions have been at the higher end of voltage, and the worst have been at the lower end. It's too early to read anything into it, but it's interesting. I'm trying to form a view on the sound before taking voltage readings, just to make sure I'm not coloured by the numbers. To be honest, I don't think such small swings should have any effect, but it may be that lower mains voltage is an indication of the amount of general crap on the mains supply. Time will tell.
Nerdcave: ...is no more! Sitting Room: Wadia 581SE - Rega Planar 3/AT VM95ML & SH - Bluesound Node II - Copland CSA 100 - Audioplan Kontrast 3 Kitchen: WiiM Pro - Wadia 151 - B&W 685s2
Getting more and more convinced mains quality has an impact on sound myself, let us know how your thoughts on this develop.
There are days during the week and occasionally on a saturday when my valves do not sound as sweet as I would normally expect.
Sundays tend to be better more often than not so I have been thinking of logging voltage for some time to see if i can match my perception with voltage changes.
A bit OCD but one of these days I plan to borrow a logger to see how good the supply is.
Hopefully another weeks burning in gets your amp as sweet as honey.
Good news so Simon. You reckon you're finally there??
"I may skip. I may even warp a little.... But I will never, ever crash. I am your friend for life. " -Vinyl. Michell Gyrodec SE, Hana ML cart, Parasound JC3 Jr, Stax LR-700, Stax SRM-006ts Energiser, Quad Artera Play+ CDP
