One other thing about my post on the tube grill. Take it off!

The theory I was told the other day was that the tubes pick up more noise with the shield on and then tubes amplify the sound.

Not sure I did the explaination I received justice, but that is why most tube amps leave the tubes exposed.

A little tweak might make your sound even better and it doesn't cost anything ;) These are the best kind of tweaks.

Terry

tmhill April 12, 2006 01:06

I did hook them up to SS gear for a week, but since my wife is at home, and there is not a dedicated listening room, the volume was very low and not sure it helped. I listen in the evening with the tubes.

Sounding better and better...tonight was the ah ha moment, where I really enjoyed the overall sound as the best I've heard under $100K.

Terry

tmhill April 12, 2006 01:02

Brian,

I hope you got your amp back.

Something I tried after looking at pictures of Velo's system. You should try running your MA2775 without the tube grill on. I removed mine and think it sounds better. I may be a hallucinating, but it seems to sound better without the grill. Would there be any rational explanation for that? Someone smarter than me will know.

Thanks,

Terry

PS - I hit the 200 hour mark on the speakers tonight. They are sounding listenable now.

tmhill April 07, 2006 00:15

Brian,

I missed the obvious on your posted system - sorry for asking when you had posted the details above. I noticed it after I had already posted my questions.

The David biwire speaker cables are interesting to me. I did not run biwire on the 804S's. I used a relatively inexpensive high quality copper speaker cable (about $500 total for 25 ft runs on both sides made by Cobalt Cable - Their Ultimate Speaker Cable line - which I've been pretty happy with). I used the B&W jumper cables (or whatever they are called) since my cables are not biwired.

I'm thinking about changing the speaker cable in the future to get something higher quality and more transparent, but I don't want to introduce more than one change at a time. The change of the speakers is an obvious and big change so it seems enough for now.

So the delivery date of my 802D's is now up to Thursday or Friday this week due to all the snowstorms this weekend and this week. I shipped my 804S's to the new owner late last week. I'm speakerless while I wait.

Great idea on the break in using an SS amp, I'll see if I can borrow a SS amp from the dealer to do the break in. You are right there is no reason to waste tube time.

I'm expecting that this is going to be an amazing improvement to my system's sound. Lastly, thanks for the encouragement. It is helpful to know my idea was not unique and there are others with similar ideas on what might work well. Someone else posted the C2200 with the Mac 275 amp (or amps). The dealer I bought the 802D's from lugged them in and hooked up the 802D's to the C2200 paired with the Mac 275 amp (close to what we have). It was lucious sounding. I'm sure the MA2275 will be as good or possibly better. No technical reason why except it's what we've got so might as well pretend it sounds better. If not, there you go, it's your next improvement - trade your MA2275 in for a C2200 pre with 2 Mac 275 Amps to run at 150 in bridged mono - hehe! Then you would never run out of power! Enjoy your system - it won't sound any better - hehe!

Terry

tmhill March 14, 2006 00:03

I've been running my Mcintosh MA2275 with B&W 804S's. I just broke down and bought new 802D's from my local dealer. They are being delivered on Tuesday this week. I'm really excited to get a bigger speaker paired with the MA2275.

I'm glad to see someone else with the same idea. Maybe I'm not the only crazy out there powering the 802D with a 75 watt per channel tube amp.

What power cord and interconnects are you using? What speaker cables are you using? Are you bi-wiring your speaker cable?

Terry

tmhill March 12, 2006 18:57