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.
Schubert is right. No pop or rock singer can be a genius -- only classical musician or composer can period. Pop-ers and Rock-ers all they do is spoil music day by day! Genesis, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Dire Straits, Beatles, Temptations and other pop and rock bands simply over filled media market with wrong music. That should be stopped some day.
Schubert: I called both of them genius but it has no implication that I equate them, come on now. Also, I do not think name calling will make your case stronger because I have no objection to you or anyone calling someone genius or no genius. You are entitled to your opinion, as I said before.
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.
Schubert: ok, agreed, so you do not have to throw away words like "ludicrous" if someone praises something, right :) You can also disagree but agree to disagree also especially when it is only matter of opinion.
In my book, both Bach and Peter Gabriel are geniuses because of their musical creativity (the latter contributed to music a great deal) -- and I do not care if anyone of them was nice. Claude Debussy was a genius too but was not nice. He preferred cats over people....so it has nothing to do with being nice. Also, I disagreed with you that no rocker is a genius.
Richard: You are a brave man, driving your Scintilla with tubes only. Not many people I know who have that setup. To my knowledge, I am the only owner who is driving the Apogee Fullrange with all tubes. The CAT are good amps. Are they able to drive your one ohm load?
Yours is a great speaker, one of my favorites. I have owned 3 Scintillas in the past. It is a bit tricky speaker though because different Scintillas had different sounds. The 4 ohm version did not sound as great and even there were big variations within the one ohm version I suspect the older versions were better. The Scintillas is in a class of its own and I rank it much above the Diva (I have owned 4 Divas as well), although the latter became a reason for my picking up the funny moniker gallant_diva which does not make much sense but how does that matter :)
With regard to the comparison between the Scintilla and Fullrange, you might be interested in some background. The Fullrange itself is a misnomer because most Apogees are fullrange speaker. The history of Apogee goes back to the early 80s. Jason Bloom, an art and music/audio aficionado, had deep love for ribbon sound, which were already being used in tweeter forms in speakers. While chatting with his father-in-law, Leo Spiegel, a NASA space engineer, Jason wished how nice it would be to have a speaker made of all ribbon. Leo, an extremely creative man and with a plenty of hands-on engineering talent, told Jason that it was indeed possible and promised that he would build one for him. Leo design the Apogee Fullrange. Considering that it was built from scratch. it was indeed a master piece that took into account so many theoretical and practical parameters and engineering constraints. The passive crossover, distribution of frequencies across 3 drivers, and most importantly the flat all ribbon diaphragm for the bass panel were also design breakthrough that would be done still the same way after 30 plus years. Even the side wing of the speaker was a very smart design. On the Apogee forum, which was full of good points as well as rubbish, some people had removed the side wings claiming that it did not matter. But when I did the same I found out that bass had become so weak. So I put back on. Later I found Apogee had a patent on it because it reinforced the bass.
Apogee Acoustics was founded. The Apogee Fullrange (FR), the first ever apogee was right named the Apogee of Apogee. At the high-end audio show that year, the Apogee FR received the best sound at the show and a new era was born. Next, the Scintillas was built, then the Duetta, Diva, and so on. This series of products lasted for the next decade. But what happened was all subsequent products with the exception of the Scintilla, were a commercial commodity with lots of compromises. No Apogee speakers touches the FR because it is so complete and so without compromises. You asked me the differences between the Scintilla and FR. As I said the Scintilla is a great speaker (but only one kind out of the one ohm versions),but the difference is in almost every area of sound with the possible exception of the midrange quality (which is the same in both the speakers. The FR outperformance the Scintilla in terms of soundstage, bass quality and extension, imaging, precision. The FR is also effortless and can play large orchestral sound effortlessly. As Arthur Salvator of High-End Audio website states, all other Apogees were like toys in front of the FR. 10-12 years down the load , Apogee had to make new improvements. Then came the hybrid versions (I love the Centaur Major and Slant Series hybrids), and the Minigrand, Studio Grand and the Grand (on which Apogee spent a great deal of efforts). I have not heard the Grand but I doubt it has seamless integration of woofers with the rest of the speaker. Nevertheless, I should not pass judgment on that without hearing. But the woofer, panel integration was never there in the Minigrand and Studio Grand.
The only later Apogee that challenges the FR is believe it or not the underrated Stage. It is a marvelous small speaker ( I own a pair and would keep them forever) that has a midrange quality which is even slightly better than the FR. However, the Stage does not have the full spectrum sound and cannot play big. I love it though. The FR has got everything in its arsenal including powerful bass (again Arthur Salvator describes its mid bass as the best bass out of any speakers he has heard), mid and highs. Its imaging is pinpointed and soundstage huge, balance perfect, transparency astonishing, and resolution maximum.
Now, these were the raw potential. Apogee like Maggies is a flat panel speakers and can only sound good if the owner has the ability to experiment with amps, crossover, and placement. I have wrestled with this speaker for a decade. Only with tremendous and relentless experimentation am I able to generate the best sound out of this speaker. My humble contribution in this regard is really squeezing the best out of them and placing them in a non-conventional position. Overall I has stuck with original Apogee parameters (crossover points etc.) but improved them with better components. The best sound ultimately came when I moved them in the middle of the room (see my article on planar speaker placement at audiogon). I think most Apogee an Maggies owners have got it wrong. Their speaker positions are far from optimal but they think they listening to good sounds. It is like driving a Ferrari on 35 MPH streets and enjoying it and not knowing the real fun at 90 MPH on a freeway.
Thus speaker placement is most important, much more than the amp and other associated items. That is where the Scintilla falls short. It is titled and not completely straight. The FR is straight, dead straight, which is how its back and front waves combine with each other to create a totally 3D sound in a holographic fashion. I have almost no toe-in (1/4 inch only) and have them at 55% of the room length. Do experiment with your Scintilla and you might discover some new wonders.
Schubert: Peter Gabriel is not related to me so it doe snot offend me if you think it is ludicrous to call him a music genius. Michael Jackson was sarcastic joke but even then some people might disagree with you, although I am not a bug fan (except for the Thriller song). Since it is a matter of opinion, and not facts, we can all have different perspective. I do think Peter Gabriel is a genius, otherwise how else could he have composed the soundtrack of The Last Temptation of Christ. You may not like his music, but you are probably not familiar with his other contributions in music including bringing some great artists from around the world to international audiences.
Czarivey: Youa re so right. In freezing winter, I get the warmth of these amps to soothe me in a very comfortable way, enhancing the listening pleasure. The summers are a problem though :)
A genius would not be a pop singer, to say Michael Jackson or Gabriel are is ludicrous ! For that matter nobody who was not alive, with a reasonable amount of intelligence, before rock even existed has no idea what rock and its affects even is/are.
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?
Peter Gabriel is a music genius, who has not just with the ability to produce music combined with creativity but also has the ability to recognize other music geniuses.
Gallant_diva: Agreed on Gabriel concert videos, they are great and Levin definitely gets the job done. He's one hell of a bass player! I have several Dire Straits and Knopfler remasters on XRCD24, XRCD2 and SHM-SACD but I do not have the 2CD set. I will have to look into it!
Grannyring: Thank you. My driver tubes? I have too many and hard to recall the combination in the GT-400, GT-800, and the Dude. Think of your favorite dish and then try to recall what combination of salt, pepper, cinnamon, cumin, coriander you added :)
But it is combination of 5692 (red base RCA or Raytheons) and 6SN7s.
