The system has evolved over a 20 year period and will probably continue to evolve. It is in a dedicated room that is approximately 19' by 27' by 10' with oak floors and oriental carpets. I also use a minimal number of diffusers on the wall behind the speakers and eight of the 16" ASC Tube Traps. The room has 5 dedicated circuits for the audio.
There have been a number of evolutionary changes over the last year, primarily with respect to the power cords, speakerwire and interconnect and one rather dramatic change, the replacement of the EMM Labs XDS1 with the Esoteric P-02/ D-02. This yielded lower noise and increased detail and bass control while maintaining the musicality of the EMM Labs. I would consider the Esoteric pieces breakthrough products. Funny how you sometimes deviate from your plans. My system seems to go through extended periods without major changes, then have a number at the same time. I do have my eyes on a new cartridge and perhaps a new preamp.
I purchased an early Sirius from Andy Payor thinking that I had purchased the ultimate turntable, only to spend the next five years updating. The updates have included the air isolation base, a series of different motors and tonearms, an outboard power supply for the motor, a 50# platter, new arm wiring and a variety of different belts culminating in a custom aramid fiber belt. As currently constituted, I think that it combines the high definition of the Sirius II without its tendency toward coldness.
Einstein The Tube Mk II
Similar in many ways to the CTC Blowtorch but harmonically richer and more complex with greater dynamics and significantly better image density. Phenomenal bass, ultra quiet, very extended upper octaves.
Yamaha CT-7000
Ebony with black faceplate. Particularly nice top end coupled with an ability under the best circumstances to recreate a three dimensional soundstage. After owning a number of Magnum Dynalabs, this has been a real eye opener.
Acapella Triolons
The Triolons are an imposing sight. Two woofer towers, each 14" by 28" by 7' tall, each weighing 650# plus a cross piece holding a plasma tweeter attached to the woofers and a sword bearing two horn loaded speakers, one horn 30.5" in diameter, the other 18.5" in diameter. The Triolons can be driven by a single amps of 18 watts or higher power but must be triwired and have an efficiency of 97 db. Each side weighs 850# total. The crossover points are 200, 700 and 5000 hz. The sound from 200 hz up to 40,000 hz emanates as a spherical wavefront. The Campanile Highs are similar but crossover to their woofers at 700 hz, use the plasma tweeter plus a single horn and are much lower in efficiency (92 db). The Triolons are typically a 6 ohm speaker but have an impedance at 30 hz of 28 ohms. The same is true of the Campaniles. Neither is a particularly easy load for an amp to drive; however the greater efficiency of the Triolons does open up the possibility of driving them with the right low power amplifier. Unlike the ribbon tweeter of the Magnepans, the Acapella's tweeter does not over shadow the other drivers. Extremely dynamic.
Jorma Prime
The Jorma Prime, either in balanced or single ended configuration is superb, particularly between amp and preamp but also on other inputs. I still use the balanced 7N Mexcel on the X01 and the Valhalla on the TT but otherwise have switched to the Jorma Prime.
Finite Elemente Pagode Master Reference
5 shelf version installed as well as the amp stands. Again a nice and very audible improvement. Amazing the things that you blame on the equipment until you solve the resonance problems. Basically a no brainer. More improvement than changing a major piece of equipment.
Jorma Prime
I have been mildly dissatisfied for a number of years with my JC-1 amps when used to drive the Acapella speakers but have yet to find something that combined the ability to drive the speakers and give me the other characteristcs that I desired although I have been much taken with some tubed amps (small, single ended or OTL within their power limits. Let's just say that the insertion of a combination of Bi-wire and single wire prime has cused me to re-think the amp question. The Primes are simply the most musical natural top to bottom cables that I have ever encountered.
The KB's have been on continuously since Fridat at noon and as Neli suggested, this has positively affected the sound. Stage width is again dictated solely by the recording and bass has more impact. The KB's are approaching 100 hours.
I have spoken at length with Neli about power cords for the amps. They like the Elrods and also the Acrolink Mexcel equally, but feel that they do different things well. Beyond that, I believe that you would need to ask Mike or Neli. I am currently using Isoclean Super Focus cords which were a good match for the JC-1's but may not be as good a match for the KB's. This will be hard to determine until I have further progressed break in. The Stealth Dreams are on my list to audition.
I am finding the top end to be more extended than with the JC-1's and certainly more natural and detailed. The midrange is also improved. If I were to characterize the mids and highs of the KB's, I would say that they have much more energy and life than those of the JC-1's without any brightness or peakiness. Please note that the presentation and tonal balance of the Einsteins are much effected by the choice of tubes. In my case, I have chosen to use NOS Amperex 7308's, and Siemens and Telefunkens from the 60's as well as a particular CBS variant for the buffer. The soundstage is in general similar to that of the JC-1's; however, it is much more likely to change from record to record, images have much more substance and body and positioning within the depth field is improved. To date, the stage has mostly remained slightly behind the speakers but I would expect that after more breakin, it will be more likely to "ghost".
I hope that some of this is helpful. I should have a better handle on this after a little more breakin. A friend listening the other night felt that the KB's were a significant improvement over the JC-1's even art this relatively early stage of breakin. I tend to agree.
Thanks for the answers, I read where Mike made reference in saying the ceramic drivers on the Coltrane Supremes being controlled when paired up with the KB's and that there was no longer an audible driver (ceramic) sound.
I was impressed the KB's were able to do that, all those drivers would be a task and made me think these amps have to be special. Mike went on talking about the bass notes etc. which was very interesting indeed and has really peaked my interest in learning more about these specific amps. The bass comparison between the JC-1's and KB's, your thoughts mirror my own experience also when I had the CAT's and compared to other solid state amps I tried, I most defiantly prefered the tube bass. Power cords; I saw you were asking opinions of others, I noticed the Importer was using Elrod on the amps so are you using these also? Any of my audio buddies systems that I have heard and Elrod was within the owners told me it's a great product and they seem very happy using it. I personally have not got around to trying them but I will at some point, I went from Shunyata to VD Genesis and presently have Stealth Dream through out my set-up. In the bass region I did notice a difference (VD being solid core and Dream strands) but over all prefer the Dreams especially in regards to the actual fittings, the flexibility and just easy of use.
Regarding the stage presence is that the characteristic of these amps or do you know if the Importer while demoing had a different exspearince. I'm sure allot will come into play here, pre-amp being on-top of the list, speakers etc. How are you finding the top end and mid, your speakers are very revealing so any down sides going on should be noticed? I was told that the Einstien presence is forward but what you have said differs, did you have the same stage presence when set-up with the JC-1's?
Do you get any "ghost" holographic images? That's one area that just awes me with my MBL's, it's so spooky real and depending on the recording you just don't know what is going to happen which really adds excitement and emotion making you forget all about the electronics and just embraces you. When I first got the MBL's I was not getting things done along with loosing sleep because I was always listening, staying up way too late. To date I still can't wait to get home and listen to some music, my wife had to call three times saying dinner just tonight. My wife says these are her favourite out of all that I have owned which is a good thing but she does not like there appearance, I had Avalon Isis, Eggleston Andra 2's, W/P 7's, Mag 20's, Monoliths in no specific order.
Look forward to your ongoing journey and thoughts with these.
I will try to answer your questions one at a time: 1)the importer is Audio Federation in Boulder so they have used their pair of KB's with a multitude of different systems/speakers. The most common matching is with the Marten Coltranes and Coltrane Supremes which they sell. They use EMM Labs and Lamm with the KB's and have just gotten an M-9 with phonostage. The KB's were introduced at the 2007 CES but may have been avilable slightly beffore that in Great Britain. 2)They are doing an excellent job of controlling the low bass but sound different from a high powered transistor amp. I prefer the bass of the KB's but it is not as tight as the JC-1's but does a much better job of differentiating drum heads and other percussion instruments and retains the ability to provide slam. The KB's sound more realistic to me. In comparison the JC-1's sound mechanical. 3) These throw off the same amount of heat as the JC-1's in high bias. 4) The Einstein integrates well but I am considering an AN preamp in the future. 5) At this point, the stage begins behind the speakers.
If it takes 200 hours or even a 1000 hours then that is what it is, just curious but as you mentioned in your reply back in time you will find out.
The importer who you make reference to, what is the rest of that system composed of or is it many? When you make reference to the importer having these for almost two years now, how long have these actually been out?
So how are you finding them driving your speakers in the lower frequency so far? are they controlling but at the same time providing realistic bass? I found listening to the Pass and Cat's I preferred the bass when using the Cat's, was not as tight as I would like but sounded more realistic to me, others who heard my set-up preferred the Pass. I also had a pair of MBL 9008's on demo and every person including my self felt there was just too much bass and sounded mechanical.
How much heat do these throw off in comparison to your JC-1's? I was shocked with my CAT JL3 Sig. MK2's with all those tubes which actually threw off less heat than my Pass X600.5's mainly due to that they are not being run hard so I was told by Ken Steven's.
How is your Einstein integration with them? Do you have on the horizon a AN pre to pair up say the 9.
You have a really nice set-up there and I'm sure it sounds absolutely marvelous.
Regarding your stage, where is it? In front of your speakers, in the middle, a bit behind your speakers or ???
Perhaps, it would have been more accurate to say that the amps will continue to improve up to 1000 hours. I do not have enough experience at this point to speculate with respect to where they will be after 200 hours. The tubes are driven in a conservative manner and except, perhaps, for the 300b's, are quite robust. Only time will tell, but that is certainly the opinion of the importer who has significantly more experience in this area than I do and who has a pair of the same amps which are almost 2 years old and are often run 24/7. I do know that replacement tubes are available from the manufacturer. Like many other products manufactured in Europe, the devaluation of the dollar has significantly impacted pricing over the last 5 years. Likewise the price does reflect that these amps are handbuilt one pair at a time and that there are no economies of scale; however, it is not my intent to get into a discussion about their pricing. What I hope to do is to talk about whether they serve the music and whether they are a good match for my particular speakers. Anyway, thanks for your comments.
The KB's are now at 50 hours and continuing to change. This is particularly evident with respect to image width. They went through a period over the weekend when the stage was limited to the inside edges of the Triolons, but by late last night the stage was almost wall to wall again. Bass impact has improved with breakin and the top end above 6000 HZ is unbelieveably nice, particularly cymbals and other metallic struck instruments. Through out this period, tonality has always been spot on. I spoke with the importer last night who recommended that I just leave the amps on 24/7 until they accumulate 1000 hours. Although I am not ready to do that during the week when no one is home, I will probably try to start doing this on the weekends.
The amps have now reached about 15 hours. Although the breakin is fairly linear, I was able to discern a nice cumulative change at 10 hours. The midrange and lower treble are very natural, particularly male voices. Pavrotti in particular is absolutely breath taking. The same can be said for Callas. Soundstage varies from recording to recording, but there is absolutely no tendency for parts of the frequency range to localize on the horns. Images are very stable and individual instruments/singers are portrayed very three dimensionally. Depth is also excellent, again depending on the recording. The plasma tweeters have a control which varies the intensity of the plasma field, thereby controlling volume. With the JC-1's, I had backed off /lowered gain to get the most natural tonal balance as I am somewhat sensitive to high frequency brightness. With the KB's, the control is now back to the factory setting, i.e. increased. At 15 hours, leading edge is a touch soft, but improving.
As of last night the KB's were installed and playing without any smoke or explosions. Cold, straight out of the box, they were somewhat underwhelming; however, during the course of the next four hours the sound changed pretty radically for the better and by the end of the evening they were beginning to show some promise. Even at this early stage, two things are abundantly clear, the KB's image in a manner that the JC-1's have never approached. Second, the quality of the reproduction of human voices is superb in the way that it conveys nuance and emotion.
The Audionote Balanced Kegons arrived while I was out of town at RMAF. As it turned out the shipper actually delivered two crates of GE aircraft parts which were meant for Irvine, CA. Fortunately, the amps were still in the shipper's warehouse and not gathering dust at some GE aircraft plant. After some tense moments, the aircraft parts were exchanged for the amps which are now unboxed and in place in my system. More to come...
Below are my comments to Constantine Soo's further thoughts on Brian Ackerman's Triolon system in this month's Dagogo issue (www.dagoggo.com)Spotlight #4.
It has been a while since Dagogo published a SPOTLIGHT article on my Acapella Triolons speakers. While I stand by my comments to the original article, the passage of time has allowed me to do further listening. That in conjunction with changes to other parts of the system has yielded a few additional insights. With respect to a few of the specific points raised in my earlier comments:
Wiring Choices: As Brian Ackerman once told me, proper wiring choices are critical with a speaker at this level. Although I have, to date, chosen to use a single amp rather than to bi-amplify, I recently replaced my speaker cables (a bi-wire set ) with a tri-wired set of Jorma Prime cables hoping to achieve an improved tonal balance, as my Triolons had always sounded somewhat lean with the Parasound JC-1's, which they did. Rather unexpectedly, the cabling change also extended the bass, tightened the mid bass enhanced dynamics, increased musically-significant low-level detail, extended the top-end in a way that is musically consonant, slightly improved image specificity (particularly the ability to hear things at the rear of the stage), and improved the coherence of the disparate drivers.
Bass Extension: Since the wiring changes, I no longer use the Cabasse subwoofers. Even given the extension that resulted from the wiring changes, the Triolons are still not flat much below 28Hz; however, the tradeoffs inherent in adding even a world-class subwoofer to these speakers are even more audible, particularly with respect to a loss of coherency in the region below 100Hz.
Amplifier Choice: Although I continue to have great respect for what John Curl and Parasound have accomplished with the JC-1's, I have come to realize that as Constantine suggested in the original article in his comment that the JC-1's have become a limiting factor in achieving what these speakers are capable of producing. The challenge has always been to find a single amp, although some would argue that bi-amping with identical amps is the right answer, that could: 1) control the eight 10" SEAS woofers, 2) have the magic of a low-power SE triode or OTL on the horns and plasma tweeter, 3) render the sound of the disparate drivers coherent, and 4) enhance the dynamics of the system. In re-examining my listening impressions with a wide variety of amps on these speakers, only two amps have for me been "magical": Audio Note UK Kegons and Lamm ML2.1's. Both shared very similar circuit topographies. The Kegons sounded more powerful which is to say that they were more dynamic and did a better job of controlling the bass. Based on several listening sessions with the new Kegon Balanced at CES and on PQ's comment that the KB would do a better job of controlling the bass and be a bit more dynamic, I have ordered a pair of Audio Note Kegon Balanced for delivery in August.
Low-powered vs. high-powered amps in the bass: I have also spent some time thinking about the difference in the bass produced by a really powerful solid-state amp and a well designed single-ended triode. While the bass of a high-powered solid-state amp clearly has a steeper leading edge and is tighter and more controlled, it often lacks the tonal richness and complexity and ability to differentiate timbre that is a hallmark of the single-ended triode, often sounding overdamped and dry rather than rich and lifelike. My preference is clearly for the harmonically richer alternative.
I just spent a delightful and insightful weekend with Raul Iregas as my house guest. Raul is making a circuit that will take him through Dallas (Albert Porter) to Boise, then Los Angelos and then back through Dallas demonstrating his Essential 3160 preamp/phonostage. He and I spent the last two days listening to records (Decca widebands, shady dogs, Merc's and similar fare with a smattering of Janis Ian, Patricia Barber and Dire Straits. I do not want to put words in his mouth but I think that it would be fair to say that he liked the Rockport TT/Lyra Titan i and loved the Acapella Triolons. Hopefully, he will comments when he returns from the trip. I had heard an earlier version of the 3160 about a year ago but was unprepared for the improvement that Raul has achieved. Apparently the circuit is basically the same but some voltage have been adjusted and a few parts tweaked. The end result is absolutely stunning, particularly the phonestage. The inner detail and tonal accuracy are clearly evident; however, what really makes the unit a standout is the extension at the frequency extremes (particularly in the bottom octave) and the stunning dynamics.
From what I've read, your cartridge and preamplification are top-notch. One thing that we have in common is that we both owned a CTC Blowtorch at one time.
Why did I go the Mastersound route rather than the Kondo? 1. Money. 2. I could audition Mastersound in my home but not Kondo.
The Mastersounds are the best amps I've heard in my home but, then again, there are lots of great 300b amps that I've never heard in my home, including the Kondo amps.
A couple of Kondo folks that are 'in the know' have told me that the greatest strength in the line-up are the cartridge, SUT, phonostage and linestage.
P.S. I have a Kondo IO-M cartridge coming next week(!)
The same could certainly be said for your system. I would add that your aesthetic sensabilities seem congruent with mine. The new amps should arrive in early August as promised and I can already see that I will at some point want to audition an Audio Note preamp, phonostage and step up. I am curious why you chose to go the Mastersound route rather than the Kondo.
By the way, your system is lovely and, I am sure, makes lovely music.
System edited: I am using the Halcyonics currently under my Esoteric sited on the Finite Element Pagode Reference. Prior to this the X01 was sitting on the same shelf on Cerabases. Unfortunately, the effect was clearly audible and clearly positive. Please understand that it did not transform the unit into a tube based dac nor did it totally change the sound. Let's say for the sake of argument that it enhanced areas where the unit was previously strong making them stronger and remedied some weaknesses that I had previously failed to identify. The bass in particular is better, tighter, better controlled, displaying more texture and extending lower in frequency. The highs also seem cleaner and more extended. At first, I might have said that the Halcyonics softened the top end a bit but after further listening, I think that would be incorrect. The top definitely displays more detail, but in a more natural way. Imaging, both the ability to focus and the dimensionality of instruments on the sound stage has improved with better depth and a better impression of image height and the ability to differentiate the heights of differenet instruments. The noise floor also decreased which in turn improved micro dynamics and low level detail. Finally, the combination of all these things has been to improve the coheremce of the speakers and the transitions from one driver to another.
Peter tries to use the original Western Electric 300B's in these amps whenever possible, but I am unsure with respect to what he will be using in mine. I do know that the balanced Kegons use a circuit which is very similar to that used in the 211 Gaku-oh's rather than the circuit used in the unbalanced Kegons which results in many fewer parts but is dependent on the use of interstage coupling transformers which must be very tightly matched. The KB's are to use Peter's terms a level 5 (silver wiring, including the transformers; Black Gates and Nickel cores in the transformers) implementation of the P-4. A nice description of the P-4 with pictures can be found at http://www.audionote.co.uk/products/amps_monoblock/p4_bal_01.shtml. I think that Peter would agree with you that the ability of the amps to drive the woofers is more a function of the transformer design and implementation, particularly the core material and sizing. He has stressed on a number of occasions that the transformers used in the P-4 Balanced and the KB are significantly oversized to guarantee the ability of the amp to deliver large amounts of current and that the core material in conjunctions with the silver wire and winding guarantees that power transfer is equal at all frequencies. Talking to Neli at Audio Federation, she stressed that many amplifiers have significant problems evenly delivering power at all frequencies and that Peter feels that this is key to dynamics.
Wonderful. Congratulations on building what must be a fantastic system. I look forward to hearing about the Audio Note amps when they arrive. Do you know which model of 300Bs you will be using? I humbly suggest Sophia Electric S.E.T. Princess 300B Mesh Plates. They are the cleanest, least distorted, most effortless and airy tube that I've come across. I have no idea, however, how well they would do driving the 4 woofers. My guess is that this will be determined more by the output transformers in the amps than the model of 300B tube that is used.
