My objective is to duplicate the sound of a good jazz venue as best I can. I'll never match it but getting close is fine. I've had various audio components through the years and tubes particularly DHT tubes/ASSET have gotten me the closest. So this is where I will settle down and appreciate.
Balanced AC power is fantastic !! 1800va balanced isolation transformer/conditioner. All aspects of music reproduction are improved for every single component.
Tripoint Tripoint Troy.
A wonderful grounding box component. When added to my system it increased the sense of natural sound quality and emotional engagement. The Troy has a humanistic and “soulful “ quality to it.
Coincident Speaker Tech Total eclipse 2
This wonderful speaker is transparent,open and involving. It`s large yet completely disappears as the source of sound within the room. Very easy to drive,94db and 14 0hm impedance (Minimum 10 ohm). I replaced the stock Solens capacitor with the Duelund CAST in the crossover.
Coincident Statement linestage
Superb performance. In my opinion , a masterpiece by Israel Blume. As would be expected, a wonderful match with its sibling the Frankenstein MK II.
Coincident Speaker Tech Frankenstein mark 2
A terrific 300b SET amplifier that is the foundation of my system. The EML XLS 300b tubes are a superb match with this amplifier.
Acquiring these 300b SET mono blocks changed the course of my music listening experience. They elevated the emotional engagement, tactility and “breath of life “ realism.
Yamamoto YDA-01
Wonderful music lover's DAC that has a very natural/organic sound quality. Duelund CAST addition(output coupling capacitors) makes it sound even better. It has a very minimalist circuit/design that was implemented well.
Ocellia Silver Reference IC
Very natural and pure sounding with excellent tone and timbre preservation.
Ocellia Silver Reference Speaker Cable
Same qualities/ comments as the IC.
Star Sound Technologies Sistrum Apprentice component platforms..
These Star Sound platforms are mandatory in my system. Effectively managing resonance and vibration leads to a very noticeable sound improvement with every component and especially the speakers. Excellent product.
High Fidelity CT1 Ultimate Digital cable
A highly impressive digital cable that mates beautifully into my system. Contributes to the natural sound presentation.
Pro-Ject Audio Systems CD Box RS2T
This is a superb Redbook CD playback transport. It’s both high resolution and impressively natural.
. I’m using the excellent Fidelizer Nikola II LPS. Splendid pairing.
Lavricables Grand and Master series Power Cables.
Pure silver wire and unshielded power cables. These are used with all of my audio components. They are very open, transparent, high resolution with beautiful natural tone and timbre presentation.
Abbas Esoteric Audio 3.2SE
Built by renown Ukrainian Abbas Zulfugarov. NOS DAC utilizing the classic Phillips TDA 1541 multi bit chip. Two 6080 tubes in the analog stage. 5 various rectifier tubes in the power supplies.
3 separate toroidal transformers (And 2 chokes ) for the power supplies.A very serious and successful upper tier DAC implementation. Using with the Abbas SPDIF and power cable.
Bill, any new item needs some tweaking like you found out with specific cables. I new you would like the PS Audio. I want to change the fuses in the transport, but Charles told me it is very hard to remove the screws to the bottom panel. I have not tried to do this yet. Enjoy
Bill for some reason this transport is really effected by the digital cable that you use. I use the Ocellia and its very open. I have used other cables that make it sound dark. I would let it gain 100 hours and then try some other cables. Charles has good luck with his cable, can't remember the name but I think it is much more money than mine.
Bill, yes maybe two cd's I have are a little louder, but you can't hear it at your seating position. The rest of them are quiet. I think you have nothing to worry about. Why do people fixate on such stupid things is beyond me.
Bill, yes that is what I thought too, but the difference was huge. I also have a CEC model 1 transport, but like the PS Audio better. I later sold the Romulus to my friend and bought their Pandora DAC. I had them put the Stealth Caps in the Dac and they also made a huge difference over their signature model which used different caps.
Bill if you used the Romulus as just a cd player, you never heard it at its best. I owned it and then later bought the PS Audio transport. As soon as I hooked the transport to the Romulus there was no contest. The sound was much more open, organic and life like. The CD player part of the Romulus is not very good. The best Jeff
Hi all, I hear the same thing with my Elrog 845. I can listen to classical cd's and enjoy them now where I couldn't do this before. I would say smooth as butterscotch but still resolving. Lets Hail the chief Dr. Schaffernicht.
Ron if you can go to live Classical concerts, I don't understand why you can't go to live jazz events. You have new people and conductors playing the same old stuff from years past in classical.
Spirit, I'm not sure what NAT amp you have. I don't see a 211 amp on their website. A.J. Conti had the Transmitter Amp which is One QB5/1750 tube at 120 watts.
It's funny because I talked to the Distributor and he said the problems the Elrog's had three years ago were fixed a long time ago. This is the reason I went for them. He did not mention anyone having problems are you the only one. Did you buy these through the distributor.
Charles is way too kind about his mini Lamm review. This amp was one of the worst amps I ever had in my system. My push pull VAC's, VTL's, Conrad Johnson mono blocks were all better. I have an old Densen solid state stereo amp from Denmark with no feedback which bettered the Lamm. Charles I doubt the Single Ended Amp would fare any better. Single ended will not change the darkness or the slowness in amps. All my push pull amps were fast. This is either the designers desires or the sonics of these output tubes. I have a friend who had the big Lamm hybrid monoblocks and said they were slow and dark as well. I was really let down on the Lamm as reviews have touted them as the holy grail. Maybe someone would like them on a really lean speaker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Islandmandan, I thought you wore party dresses with pink ribbons. You would be welcome anytime to me or Charles listening sessions with whatever clothes you want to wear.
No contest Charles you are right on the money. Many good piano players are mechanical sounding. In my opinion the best are Russian players because they play with such emotion. Tatiana is the real deal.
I heard that dizzy sat down on his trumpet while trying to sit into a chair and caused the bend. Dizzy being dizzy probably said why not and began playing.
Devilboy, I'll give you my two sense. I think they are directional because when Charles put the fuses in for the first time they were terrible real bright. It took I think a week for them to settle down. It's possible if he reversed the fuse it would have sounded much better from the get go.
It's funny how a single ended system grows on you. Since having mine I can't wait to listen and really am more relaxed at the same time. I never listened this much or had this much pleasure using various push pull amps. in the past.
Agear, I didn't know Dale Pitcher was still around. His big speaker in years past was one cabinet stacked onto another one and each one was smaller than the next one, I think there were about eight boxes in all. They were called Essence Speakers.
Charles, was responsible for me getting into BE BOP Jazz and going to live Jazz concerts. He also was instrumental in me changing what I thought was the best High power push pull thinking the sound would be more effortless at higher volumes. I never thought I would ever own a Single ended amp until spending many hours at his house and enjoying some beautiful music playing. I get now what he was after, just a more direct involvement in the players with a purer and more beautiful tonality. Because we go to a lot of live concerts including classical this method gets us closer than anything I know, 2nd order harmonics withstanding. We all know that audiophiles will say that you like colored sound and high distortion. These ignorant people don't go to live events and therefore don't base on reality. We just got back from a live Jazz Quartet at the oldest Jazz club in the world Bakers Keyboard Lounge and I'm telling you single ended mimics this greatly. No system will give you the huge dynamics and full sounds that these instruments make in real life, but we can get half way there with single ended.
Charles, what a difference the Apprentice made. I couldn't believe the degree in change. I hear no negative problems with the platforms only positive. The slight edge that may have been present on peaks is totally gone. In place is a beautiful tonality that is more open, dimensional, and more musical than before. Enjoy my friend.
Isochronism, you will love fingerpainting. This is a cd that you can play 2 or 3 times in a row. Its what my old friend Ko Chen Chou use to say. When your system is right and you play a great cd you can play it over and over again and even want to hear it again. Enjoy Jeff
Charles is right the Carmen CD is wonderful. If you want to hear what a live natural all analog XRCD sounds like this is it. I have not heard a better recording especially in the digital recording era. Why can't other engineers hear what this Japanese company got on tape in 1973.
Charles, thanks for the great evening last night. Your AVVT 32 SL tubes are wonderful. They have such a beautiful tone and weight in the lower mids upper bass that are wonderful. I feel the TS 300B's are more transparent and linear from top to bottom, but with certain cd's I think I actually like the avvt better. Its nice to have a collection of tubes and folks these two tubes are both great and they sure do not sound the same. It would be nice to see where the Royal Princess would fall into the mix.
brf, enjoy, I know how much better charles1dad speakers improved with these caps. I think you will also notice that it will improve with a couple hundred hours on them.
Charles, a good friend has a beautiful tuner and a wonderful local PBS FM station that plays classical during days and jazz at night. In his other house he had it hooked up to a YAGI rooftop and listened almost everyday. He needs to call an electrician to run a cable to an antenna in his attic. I also need to do this. I hope he does.
