I am restarting a system on Audiogon just to let class D owners know there is gold to be mined in their systems. This is my H2O Laboratory. For over six years I strived to bring out all I could from the 16 bit CD. Finally, I think I learned everything there is to learn on how to match class D and H2O specifically to the most difficult speaker load extant.
I started this venture with unbridled enthusiasm. Having already heard great class A and AB amps on the Scintilla I knew how the speaker controlled the amp rather than the other way around. My first dally with Class D cleaned some of the thick solid state smudge. That was encouraging. I didn't care much whether it was musical or not in the beginning. I just wanted to hear what was on every CD. I didn't know then, how long a road of discovery it was going to be.
My beginning with the H2O six years ago was a rough start. I had to put up with preamps not made for the class D amp. My funds weren't overflowing putting two kids through out of state university. An Aleph P did a decent job. H2O make things OK by creating a class A preamp that not only worked with the H2O amp, but assisted the waking of the 1 ohm speaker too.
My sources were wanting back then too. I started with a Jolida 100 loaded with NOS Sylvania Black Plate tubes. Later I replaced that with an Audio Note One.1 DAC and a PSA Lambda. This combo allowed more of a the view through the CD window. I thought it was quite enough, until someone characterized the sound as being dark.
I sent the Lambda and AN back to H2O. They came back with cutting edge diodes that opened up all those highs I was missing, plus a lot of dynamics I didn't know I was missing. That sufficed for three years. The sound was extremely dynamic with full force surges that followed the biggest climaxing classical scores.
Cables were always a problem for me. I learned early on class D amps need shielded cables. The clip on iron rings did no good. Shunyata did good. Made up Belden wires did as well. All my gear is hooked up with Shunyata or Belden. I don't know why it works, but I do know it works well.
The speaker cable conundrum flummoxed me. I knew from experience insulation talks. Depending on the cable's thickness the insulator's sound will be a hiss to a shush. The only commercial naked SC I knew of was Speltz Anti Cable. After a year, I found out that they were lacking in the highs and lows, but had a killer mid. By listening to other's experiences I tried thin ribbon. That worked better than anything I had imagined. It just let every note through in it's fullest expression. The front to back depth popped into focus. Obviously all the CD's information can travel unscathed by the
Now, to bring it to present. My trusty Lambda transport died, and I became disabled.
I went on a search for a replacement for my Lambda. I was looking at older greats. They seemed to all upsample the signal before passing it on to the DAC. Some pre-filterred the music. I did not want any of that. Only one just passed the honest digital information.
There was one transport in my price range that did just that. That was the 47 Labs Flatfish and it's power supply, the Dumpty. This little jewel is better than I ever dreamed a transport could be. All of a sudden, I found the bass was not absorbed by my pliant 100 year old floor. There was something else, something that gave me dance fever. I looked up the Flatfish on the 47 Labs site. There I found what the transport's creator called the new ingredient in my system. He calls it, "Harmony." Whatever it is, it definitely takes the music to a whole new level of enjoyment. Suddenly, you just know that is what music should sound like. It isn't just low mid and hi notes it is the melodic interconnection of those notes that is missing in so many systems.
The Flatfish is coupled directly to the floor through the cabinet. My floor is suspended over a basement. I can feel all the speaker vibrations from the far side of the room where I am typing. Walking on the floor makes it bounce. How was I to keep the Flatfish from collapsing on it's unattached legs?
That is where I made the next big step. Like with the speaker cables, I had to invent something that would isolate the CD spinner. I looked at what was on the market, and saw there was nothing there that could do the trick to my satisfaction. So, I made one. It is perfect. It actually absorbs all the tremors and thumping the speakers make.
There will be no other changes. The lab is closed.
A tiny slab of aluminum with a stainless screen skirt. The CD spins on top. Three loose legs gingerly balance the player. This is the best transport I have ever witnessed. It is a barebones transport with as few parts as possible. The laser and clock are fixed on a rail. The power supply, Humpty, is separate. It is a robust aluminum cylinder.
The sound is better than anything I have ever heard. It is this Flatfishes uncanny to unleash a subtlety they call harmony, I just say it is the missing ingredient necessary to get the performer's real intention.
Audio Note UK DAC-2
AN DAC 2.1 with diode upgrade - very important. This DAC sounds far better than stock AN DACs. The ultra fast recovering diodes let all the music through. CDs have it all.
Sanyo PLV Z-3000
All the detail one could want, excellent contrast and near seamless fast action.
H2O Fire 2
This is a muscular and pristine preamp. The dynamics, and dynamic surges are not approached by any other preamp. That I am sure of. Also, every improvement I make upstream of it is clearly passed on by the fire.
H2O M250SE
An amp that will require advice how to bring out it's hidden perfection. This is what my site is going to be about.
Apogee Acoustics Scintilla
This is the STOCK Apogee Scintilla - the original. My system will not work on foreign ribboned Scintillas. The Scintilla is a totally misunderstood speaker. Being 1 ohm and 76 DB, it takes a hurculean amp and preamp to master. That is what I have.
Speltz Anti-Cable
I still have these on board because they have never failed to deliver what upgrades up stream I made. I also am using their brand new true digital cable.
Mother Lode Audio Gold Strike
These are my own. I could not find any SC that could do it all. All commercial cables lacked something, and most of them emitted self noise. My cables are ultra thin copper ribbon for the positive, and aluminum ribbon for the negative. These deliver all what is fed them from upstream.
Why use aluminum at all? Because this system proves it makes no difference what is used for the negative cable. The positive must be the best, though. That too is proved here.
Mother Lode Audio Cloud Nine
The Flatfish transport is fixed to what it stands on. The floor in my listening room is a hung over the basement wooden floor. It bounces, and transmits every tremor to everything in the room, save the Flatfish. It plays perfectly without of hint of smear or skip. I accomplish this with a granite tile topped perfect cushion. This cushion absorbs all outside tremors and thumps. Need I say more? I won't.
Speltz 75 ohm digital cable
This cable is nothing like their ICs or SCs. They are both stiff, and bendable. The Speltz digital cable is as slinky as a garden snake. It's performance is simply outstanding.
After your much appreciated seconding of my mentioning Sinatra recordings as a good system check, I had to check your setup. I can certainly see and understand why it is working for you, a different way of doing it than I would suggest for others, but a perfectly valid one.
For me, the key comment was "I could put my ear right to the ribbons and hear nothing but music.". Elsewhere I have mentioned eliminating or minimising the weaknesses, and that simple phrase tells me you've done that very effectively. All your other comments just reinforce that same sentiment.
We went to see Chanticleer perform at the Sacramento Cathedral. They were simply mesmerizing. If you don't know who this men's choir is, treat yourself by buying one of their CDs.
We bought their latest Christmas CD. Frankly, I could not tell any difference. The recording is wonderful. Spun in my system brings all the singers out just as we heard them.
Somebody has compared the little known MKIII DAC to an Audio Note 5 DAC. I have never heard either. I do know this, though. All Audio Note DACs have sorry diodes on board. That one omission chokes their full expression.
it took me 8 years, but the effort was more than worth it. KODO drums are powerful, but more importantly the booming flies off a tight skin. The smallest detail is there, but always in proper proportion. On this disc, the first 5 minutes is chanting. Your system has to take wild swings if you want to turn up the chanting. At one juncture in the music a faraway stick clicking can be heard. It gradually approaches until it is front forward where there is such a clatter of sticks.
Singers have to stand on their own merits. There is no romanticizing other systems will color with. Some singers, like Loreena McKennit, and Eva Cassidy will sound quite bright on many systems. Someone recently told me, "Most audiophiles down-tilt their frequency from flat. System brightness would be the cause. I knew a fellow who showed my his TacT graph, and the down-tilt he gave the frequency curve was there to see. That was where I first heard Eva Cassidy. There is no system brightness here, so those super high female notes are just as intelligible and gratifying as the live performance.
If this system can easily differentiate between sources, one would think it can tell a good cable from a bad just as easily. Yes, it does. I was trying, and using a variety of cables in the past. The sound became clearer when I changed sources and amps, so I never considered the cables being important.
Then, I read something Paul Speltz wrote on his Anti-Cable site. He said that heavy insulation will pollute the music with stored energy. I bought his cables, and found out he is absolutely correct. I could put my ear right to the ribbons and hear nothing but music. Very expensive insulated cables made a racket that could not be believed, save the evidence was right there.
I bought the AC ICs too. They are certainly more user friendly than their SC brothers.
One day, on a visit to an old friend, he showed me the AC SCs are great at mids but lacking badly at the bass and treble ends. A Shunyata helical cable he was trying bore the ACs weakness.
I knew some folks in Europe were using ribbon speaker cables, going so far as to redo the crossover wires with ribbons too. I thought, that would be easy to try. I got some 12 gauge .003" all nines copper ribbon. Because my speakers use aluminum ribbon to take the negative charge back to the negative terminal, I figured no harm would come if I used the aluminum the rest of the way to the amp. I was right. In fact, it was better. The copper ribbon connected the positive terminals. Switching the two cables results in music disaster.
I just lucked out. I hit upon the best cables for my very unusual system. This was at the end of the rainbow discovery. It opened a treasure of real qualities in music. All aspects of music, dynamics, rhythm, separation, and loveliness passed on. The difference was so strong it literally knocked me back on first listen.
With all the newness of recent improvements, the Speltz ICs kept up. They will stay.
Power cables also make a serious difference. Unfortunately for me, costly cables are better. One thing was made loudly clear, all my audio power cables have to be fully shielded the length of the cable. Normal cables sap the life out of the music. I haven't figured this one out yet.
Ok, on to sources. I have entertained a variety of oversampling players, some SACD. These players were the pride of their owners. They all loved their player's performance on their systems. They all fall before the altar of nonoversampling. The owners find out the true sound of their players. Some become shallow and thin, others grainy and bright.
Sakura systems says it best what their Flatfish does for the music:
"Compared to the conventional box-type chassis/casings, this platform is almost completely free from any stress of construction. Now, you can hear how much harmony and bottom-end information was obscured under those mechanical stresses."
They are being too modest. This little transport is the best I will wager. It is certainly the best for my purposes. That is because all competitors load their transports with extra chips for up sampling and filters and, of cours, lots of circuitry travel. As with CD players, the extra chips do nothing but worsen the music. This is born out through playing them here.
The improvements include the musical bass, full bodied and foreward singers, surprisingly realistic instrument tones and responses, and superb separation along depth and horizontal lines. It may seem funny how much a transport can make a difference on sound. I learned it does when I sent my dark sounding PSA Lambda to my amp builder, Hung Ho. He sent it back as an equal frequency player. Still, at it's best, it was still treating the sound as all players do, putting out a chain of frequencies. It took the Flatfish to bring out the lovely harmony found on CDs too. Now I know why record fanatics don't like CDs. Records pull the harmony off naturally.
I am not going to let the selection of non-oversampling off the hook. All Audio Note DACs use the same lame diode on their digital supply board. The users of these DACs scoff on how a diode upgrade can improve the sound. Too bad, because switching the stock diodes out for much faster recovery Schottkey diodes makes a world of difference. The 47 Lab DACs are too polite.
The combination of the two source elements create a matrix for all music venues to freely play out. Whether it be jazz, orchestras, choirs, or rock. These Scintillas bring out the best. Drum solos are especially pleasing to me, because Scintillas have always been thought of as a polite speaker.
The two times I heard the best sound ever from Apogee Scintillas was in 1986, and present. Both times the Scintilla was an original ribboned speaker.
The first time was when I stepped into Keith Yates http://keithyates.com/ first listening room in Midtown Sacramento. I had been stopping in there to listen to every new speaker he set up in the enormous main listening room for the week.
That day, no one was around. I could hear clearly a pianist performing in the next room. I figured that was where Keith was. I did a walk about the big listening room. There were strange devices about two thirds into the room. I wondered if they could possibly mimicking a live pianist. No way, I said to myself. Walking around one the image never failed. It never got closer or farther away. Someone was playing a piano nearby.
Walking to the long equipment cabinet I noticed his prize Goldmund tangential reckord player with Koetzu cartridge spinning. My mouth just dropped in amazement. Looking back at those pretenders, all I could think was, I had to own them.
That brings me to the present. Again, with Apogee Scintillas re-ribonned in 1996 by Apogee personell. I have the piano in the room now. I can't fool anyone, first because this isn't a huge brick store room but my living room. Also, everyone is used to seeing planar speakers.
On ribbons. I take a lot of abuse for not liking the replacement ribbons a fellow in Australia makes. These ribbons are not the same. They were made differently to, "Bring out presence." My system kevulched on his ribbons. The sound was strident and chopped by a frequency ringing at low HF. These abnomolies do not surface as well with conventional amps, though they are noticable.
I have heard expensive Pass gear powering the foreign ribbons and it is just not good. The bass bellows a one note. Singers are faint, and buried into the band. The highs are rolled off, and there is no sigh of attack.
The original Scintilla ribbons are lighter. Their five foot long progress is naturally dampened by the simple resistance of air. You never really see them move, they are so big and fast. They are able to resolve the faintest of sound. They are also quite capable of mimicking the crack of a whip, their attack is so superb.
The folks that have the new ribbons are happy with their sound. I am glad they are. The buyer of my foreing ribboned Scintillas is very happy. My criticism is born out of experience of both ribbon types, and pertains to only my accompanying system. Oh, and also a super vinyl system on a great class A amp for that in the next room experience.
My next attempt at getting lots of folks mad will be directed at the over and up-sampling CD player owners. Over 99% of all CD players are loaded with chips that torture the music.
None of the above system pieces the way I use them can be bought in a store. I see that nothing I have to say would interest most folks because there is nothing to discuss except the Speltz ICs and digital cable. These babies do it all. I only change wires when I see there is no source, amp, speaker, preamp, or SCs that are less than optimum. That is because no wire can add anything your gear lacks.
