I have started building this system 5 years ago. My first goals were big tight bass and great mids. I love vocals and chords. I mostly listen to Rock. Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Traffic, Zepellin, Yes, Genesis, Floyd, CSNY, King Crimson, Neil Young, Zappa, PFM, Le orme,..etc.
I love also spanish music, Mecano, Miguel Bose, El ultimo de la fila.
And finally a lot of female vocals, joni mitchell, natalie merchant, carole king, etc.
I have been changing speakers and amplifiers like 3 or 4 times.
I started with a Rotel integrated, then to a Plinius 8100 and then to the CJ MV50 but with a Modsquad preamplifier.
Finally arrived the SFL-1, which BTW sound incredibly good with the upgrades from Parts Connection. Without the mods it had some veil over the spectrum.
As for speakers, I started with a pair of PSB Mini Stratus, then moved to a Triangle Celius ES and now the Tylos.
At that time, I loved the big and warm sound of the Mv50 but I was after more detail and tonal balance because the voices were almost all the music, way bigs and the rest of the instruments were not so present. So, I love it but I wanted to changed it for good.
I wanted to take the mid CJ magic way beyond.
... that was how the mod journey began.
I wanted above all natural voices with a lot of detail and low bass extension.
Following Jeffrey Behr great advices ,it begun as a simple replacement of coupling caps and minor changes, 0,22 sonicaps platinum instead of the CJ styrenes in order to improve the sound.
But in the end, we changed the whole power supply capacitors and bypasses with Solens and Mundorfs Supremes, almost all the resistors with caddock, rikkens and tantalums, the signal path was rewired with silver wire, the rca chassis connectors were replaced with WBTs, the original binding post were also replaced with edison music post, and the diodes were replaced with fast recovery diodes.
Also, we did put some new ceramic tube sockets and an ac inlet to be able to exchange power cords.
We damped the caps and some chassis parts with ear damping material.
Then, we reconfigured the circuit to eliminate the cathode follower.
After all these mods, the unit was sounding really acurate, with a lot of detail, great mid-highs but a little on your face. The mids were there but without the mid magic CJ always perform, they were cold.
So, after almost 500 hours, the sound was more analytical than warm or envolving but with spectacular detail. And the mids-highs were too agressive.
Then, me a my amplifier designer friend,Carlos Cisneros,(taking advice from Mike Samra) decided to change the coupling caps(the sonicaps platinums) for a set of russian pios military surplus.
Well, at this stage and after 30 hours of caps break in, the amp started to sound wonderful.
It had a very detail sound, great soundstage, great tonal balance and the magic was starting to appear again. The mids were becoming very natural as the break in advanced. The tonal balance was improving.
Then, we decided to put in the second stage of the power supply 2 CSC run in oil caps 100uf each. We had to use a off board MDF to attach them to the chassis.
We keep the Solens in the first stage.
Well, with this caps the sound was way better. When the Solens were alone the bass was very dry, way too tight not real.
After the run in oils came in the sound was full again, bass was tight but with air not dry and the mids body was recovered.
A week ago as a final mod we wired the unit in triode and now Im in my first audio nirvana.
I just wanted to share all this long and strange trip.
Now, I will enjoy my cds for a while. My next plans are upgrade the Rotel with a Superclock and his own power supply. Then, build a passive TVC using the TX-102 S&B and then put a subwoofer.
Alan the 14 ohm load seems ideal for SET amps.It's a perfect mate with my 300b amplifier, the sound is effortless and very organic, it just sounds real and avoids the hifi artificiality. My amp has 8 and 16 ohm taps.It sounds best with 16 ohm tap. Regards,
I learned a lot modifying the CJ. I think I arrived to SETs reading on the web about them and then listening to them. Although, as a matter of fact, the CJ always sound better wired in triode simulation mode. No doubt about it.
Let me tell you Im in love with the 45 SET. Im pretty sure I will fall in love with the 26 tube preamplifier that Mr. Danielak is building for me. I can only praise the work of Bob Danielak, not only in his skills as an audio designer but also as a friend who is willing to walk the extra mile in your projects, always trying to find the best solution for your specific case.
As for the Danley's, I have to admit thats still a question mark in my mind. I know the SH50s are still horns, I know they act a as one point source and I know that they do not interact too much with the room in terms of reflections. But yet, I need to listen to them in my room with the 45, the 26 preamp, and the NAD M51 to see what happens.
Its just some weeks from now, time flies sometimes.
I see that you have a pair of Coincident Total Eclipse 2. I have heard lots of things about these speakers. RA Salvatore, praise them in his SET friendly speaker list. How do you manage the high 14 ohm specs in this speakers?
Hi Alan, I enjoyed reading your audio adventures, I know you've gain valuable experience. The DHT preamplifier with your 45 SET amp is a great choice and direction. With the right speaker you'll have an exceptional sounding system that should really convey music's emotion.I use a DHT preamplifier and wouldn't have it any other way.The realism is just wonderful. Regards,
Well, after almost three years, the journey is still going. The Golden Grail or Holy Grail is still elusive and mutates over time.
After the Tylers started to sound really good (that was in 2010) and after I turned the small room into a kind of audio laboratory with acoustic treatment all around including some DIY bass traps, work sent me to Africa. Meaning away from family and my music system.
Im still in Africa but Im coming back home in 3 months. Here, in Kinshasa (DRC) i have spent my time with a Qinpu solid state integrated and 2 small NHT bookshelves. Not bad, enough for my passion to survive.
But, all these years, during my trips home i continued changing the system.
First big change was to move the system to the living room. Somehow, I felt like Dr. Frankenstein locked in my crazy audio lab and I was turning my passion for music into a sound comparison competition and paranoia.
So, I sold the Tylos and started to look for something bigger for my living room. The idea was to listen to music in the living room, where eventually i can share the experience with my daughter, wife and friends without locking myseld in a room.
I ended up buying a Jabo KH55 exponential horn and I hired a local cabinet maker and speaker designer to build a woofer box to go with the Jabo. I bought one RCF woofer for the vented box and one RCF compression driver for the Jabo horn. My designer friend also built a variable crossover for the horn and woofer.
The speaker was big and very sensitive, around 99db, at least.
Sound was huge. I could see voices in the center of my living room in bigger than life size. instruments were also portrayed with lots of detail. Problems were that the bass was muddy, the soundstage was not great, and dynamics were not first class. Also, the midrange was harsh, probably due to the titanium diaphragm of the RCF compression driver. I could be wrong but thats what i thought.
Well, i listened to those horn speakers in and out during my trips back home and enjoyed them in its virtues. Truth to be told, maybe I did not took the time to set them up properly. Anyway, I really tried all the crossover points, i also did a room test with a microphone and it resulted in a significant time delay between woofer and compression driver among other issued that were not properly adressed by the designer of the crossover and vented box.
For a time, I thought of modifying it changing the compression driver to see if the harshness of the midrange would be gone. Before that. I decided to finally buy a SET amplifier to understand what was all the buzz about. I did some research and ended up asking great amplifier designer Bob Danielak to build a 45 SET amplifier for me.
Bob did a terrific job. The 45 Danielak SET sounds really smooth and psychedelic. It produces a 3D direct connection with music that its hard to explain. Lets take into account that is my first experience with SET. Right now, it uses emission labs 45 mesh plates. The combo RCF/Jabo horns and 45 Danielak sounded great but I still could hear the harsh midrange coming from the compression driver.
Happily, some months ago, the designer of the vented box of the horn asked to if I could sell him the whole horn speaker since he was collecting some of his designs. So, I sold him the horns. It was sad but, at least, i know the horns were going to a nice home.
So, with that money and after some audio research i bought a pair of second hand Danley SH50's.
I bought them because i heard them and was impressed and because I really like the design principle of the SH50: multiple drivers pointing at the horn to produce a one point sound source.
I did not listen to them in my home yet since they are waiting for me in my living room and Im still in Africa. But i will come back and set them up soon!!
Probably, will need a couple of custom stands to raise the mouth of the horn so it can be at the same level of my ears when im seating in the sofa.
Now, Bob Danielak is building a DHT tube preamplifier around the 26 tube that will take the place of the Sonic Frontiers SFL-1.
Plans are to buy a NAD M51 DAC and hook it up with a Mini Mac to play some FLAC files.
I will try to post some pictures of the 45 amp and the now gone Jabo/RCF horns.
Alan
PD: The Conrad Johnson that is not anymore a Conrad Johnson is still sounding great and depending on the material can replace the 45 SET amp.
After all the Mods You don't have a 'Conrad Johnson' anymore!!! After all the money spent, could some other designers's stock component be better, .........PROBABLY SO!!!!!! Sounds like U'r still searching haplessly for the Golden Grail. Have fun........and DeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEPP pockets.
Jeffrey Behr just point me in the right direction, he didnt do the mod. The mod was done by a local friend Carlos Cisneros. I think you can contact Bill Thalmman, he is a former engineer of Conrad Jonhson. If you want to dig deeper into this mod, feel free to email me. [email protected] Alan
Thanks Johnny. I think its just a good starting point. Now, Im thinking about changing to a passive pre amplifier instead of the SFL-1. Also, I have in mind some capacitor mod to the Tylo Crossover. The crossover uses Bennic Electrolytics and Hovland Capacitors. I will bypass the Hovland with a Mundorf silver and oil, and replace the bennic for more mundorfs silver and oils and sonicaps gen 1. I will post the mods here.
I must add that my room is very small It has 3.22 meters width 4.26 meters large And a great detail is that the ceiling is made of wood, and is not parallel with the floor. In the lowest part the ceiling is 2.60m and in the highest part is 4.26 cm. I think the sound is really great for a room of this size. Alan
