I am back, folks. My system was the third most talked about system after Mike Levine's and Albert Porter's.
For some personal reasons I took a break from audio. But I am back with good news and not so thrilling news. The not so thrilling news is that the system is unchanged. And the good news is that it is so hard to improve it, regardless of the price -- I do not know what to upgrade, except may be cables -- as I hit the peak performance from my perspective. The sound thrills me still every time I listen. Still, 140plus tubes, embedded in the finest of amps and pre-amp driving a legendary speaker that can give a good run for money to speakers costing $100k plus, all making heat and magic at the same time. Wow, life is good.
Acknowledgements:
There are several people I wish to acknowledge who have helped me a great deal in building this system:
1. Charlie, who designed one of the finest preamps. Although, TRL Dude is marginally better, the Charlie X-2 will stay with me for ever and will continue to provide listening pleasures
2, Paul Weitzel of Tube Research Labs (TRL) for his helping on tuning the amps and on his feedback on many other technical aspects of the system at the micro and macro level.
3. David Royalty for building nice wooden battery casing for the TRL moded Sony CD player and also for numerous technical feedbacks.
4. Ivan Li of Hong Kong for showing me the insight into planar speaker placement.
5. Steve Dobbins of Xact audio for coming all the way from Idaho to install the tonearm and overall turntable tune up.
6. many visitors who have graced my listening room with their presence.
7. All audio friends who are not mentioned above.
8. Audiogoners who continue to post interesting and thought provoking comments here.
Thanks, Gallant-diva, always ready to hear more stories. If you're ever in Charleston, SC, please look me up, love to have you come listen and offer advice.
Thank you for that wonderful bit of history, I'd heard some, but learned more. Maybe the only speakers built by a rocket scientist (just for fun at that)!
I checked with Ken Stevens before I bought the Scintillas, he said his amps would drive them with no problem, estimated they'd put out 800-900 watts into 1-ohm (amps rated at 150 into 8-ohm, but each has 16 K120s). The bias meters on the amps dance all over at high volumes, Ken said this is normal, they do it on his MBLs as well. The sound is phenomenal. I've been a full-range Acoustat guy for 30 years, but this is a revelation. Did the electrostatics really sound "veiled" in comparison? Absolutely! The only negative is at extremely high volumes on some high frequency peaks I get a "popping" which I assume is the ribbon torsion distortion I've read about; no problem, I just back down the volume a notch, all is well.
I think my Scintilla was modified by TrueSoundWorks. The old owner had them wired for 4-ohms, I opened them and re-wired for 1-ohm internally. Just as an aside, the copper binding posts are so enormous and radiate heat so well, I ended up having to use a blowtorch for the soldering.
Your suggestions on positioning are appreciated. I'd already considered it might be interesting to raise the Scintillas a bit, and angle them forward to make them vertical.
So good now, so much potential remaining! Thanks again for your insights.
Glad to see you back! I'm one of the many who has admired your system for years. I recently took a step in the direction you've gone, aquired a pair of restored 1-ohm Scintillas, ably driven by Ken Stevens latest JL-3 Statement monoblocks. The sound is so close to perfect, I get chills most times I listen. I can't help but wonder, though, since I haven't had the opportunity to listen to the "big" Apogees (Fullrange, Divas) what does one gain sonically by moving up?
