Frank Zappa ? The Grand Wazoo - YouTube
A small update.
I have finally managed to be all alone with my Paradise and listen to it properly.
Got the F5 warmed up and on the spinner The Grand Wazoo (Reprise Records K44209).
Not everyday cup of tea but Just look at the front cover to get an Idea of what this record is all about.
If you haven’t got a decent copy I am sorry for you
It is really a battle of sounds coming out of the speakers with really good dynamics and staging, accomplished musicians and any single note is just perfect.
How did Paradise do?
Really really well full stop.
It is just there extremely solid and fast and well capable to reproduce the smallest details and to disappear at the same time.
If you think that over 200 sets of boards is impressive just wait for the first few to roll out you got loads and loads of work in the next few months.
If you haven’t built it jet I am one up on you….
A small update.
I have finally managed to be all alone with my Paradise and listen to it properly.
Got the F5 warmed up and on the spinner The Grand Wazoo (Reprise Records K44209).
Not everyday cup of tea but Just look at the front cover to get an Idea of what this record is all about.
If you haven’t got a decent copy I am sorry for you
It is really a battle of sounds coming out of the speakers with really good dynamics and staging, accomplished musicians and any single note is just perfect.
How did Paradise do?
Really really well full stop.
It is just there extremely solid and fast and well capable to reproduce the smallest details and to disappear at the same time.
If you think that over 200 sets of boards is impressive just wait for the first few to roll out you got loads and loads of work in the next few months.
If you haven’t built it jet I am one up on you….
The Grand Wazoo
Good choice, very good choice.
Even my son loves Peaches...
...in regalia.
Yes good one as well but it does not have dinamics complexity and tiny litle details that make The Grand Wazoo a realy tough test for any Phono stage.
For the super duper version of the paradise you might want to wait until I have testeded it listened it and measured it...then if well worth I will re-do a 4 layer PCB with Texas resistors and hopefully v-cap and other parts.
So what I meant is having a group by to build the unit as is with wima caps and standard resistors which will be more than enough for me to taste the potential of the design.
For phono, only interesting if the circuit has a high parts count (fully symmetrical) and/or a bunch of the parts are really small (smd).
Naked Texicants and V-caps are the opposite, not an inch of PCB trace to short-cut.
Think that a four layer PCB with a full GND plane a full Signal GND area would be a real winner. the circuit is fast and we really have no more compensation than the RIAA circuit. If we use neumann pole we may run into high frequency oscillation.
regarding the Caps, then i belive it a matter of taste...teflon may be better dielectric, but it's not really good for capacitors as they get too big (high induction) and too loose (Teflon can't be shrinked to form a mechanical solid).. to me they sound diffuse and non focused compared to the other caps i like to use. I really like the tinfoil's, and also the Panasonic SMD PEN film that really sound open and focused.
regarding the Caps, then i belive it a matter of taste...teflon may be better dielectric, but it's not really good for capacitors as they get too big (high induction) and too loose (Teflon can't be shrinked to form a mechanical solid).. to me they sound diffuse and non focused compared to the other caps i like to use. I really like the tinfoil's, and also the Panasonic SMD PEN film that really sound open and focused.
MiiB,
if you run a cap test measurement, you will see that the Teflon will exceed all the other caps in all the interest area such as ESR, dissipation factor, vibration test.
For Vibration on the board, I agree with you, but so do most of other round shaped film cap and you can easily fix it in many more/less elegant ways.
All in all, other than simple measurements you have to listen to the cap and like it.
I can say that a good Teflon V-Caps will perform way better than anything else, but the design has to be very, very good and so does your audio equipment system.
Joachim brought up a good point on a previous post by saying that it makes no sense to have a high quality cap if you have a denon 103 and a Rega P3.
Now I don't know what you are using to test your caps, but I can tell that in my experience, with Pass Labs Power Amp, B&W 800signature, MIT Magnum M1.3 cables, VPI Classic 3 + SDS and ZYX 4D and Linear arm, I can tell you for sure the difference to a point that even my wife walks in clueless I have changed caps from Aura Teflon to V-Caps and she noitices the significant positive ingrement.
It is still perhaps a matter of taste like you said, but I can't certainly feel to share that V-Caps looses focus, and resolution, in my case it was the other way around.
The CU-TFT also added joy to the music and more texture, and at the end of the day it is real winner for me.
Just my two cents.
if you run a cap test measurement, you will see that the Teflon will exceed all the other caps in all the interest area such as ESR, dissipation factor, vibration test.
For Vibration on the board, I agree with you, but so do most of other round shaped film cap and you can easily fix it in many more/less elegant ways.
All in all, other than simple measurements you have to listen to the cap and like it.
I can say that a good Teflon V-Caps will perform way better than anything else, but the design has to be very, very good and so does your audio equipment system.
Joachim brought up a good point on a previous post by saying that it makes no sense to have a high quality cap if you have a denon 103 and a Rega P3.
Now I don't know what you are using to test your caps, but I can tell that in my experience, with Pass Labs Power Amp, B&W 800signature, MIT Magnum M1.3 cables, VPI Classic 3 + SDS and ZYX 4D and Linear arm, I can tell you for sure the difference to a point that even my wife walks in clueless I have changed caps from Aura Teflon to V-Caps and she noitices the significant positive ingrement.
It is still perhaps a matter of taste like you said, but I can't certainly feel to share that V-Caps looses focus, and resolution, in my case it was the other way around.
The CU-TFT also added joy to the music and more texture, and at the end of the day it is real winner for me.
Just my two cents.
sorry to say,, but I do wonder how you can test a cap with a tweeter and speaker like that. This should not be an equipment battle. but I can assure you I have plenty..
The big Teflon caps does suffer from induction alone to size.. also to mechancal stability.. as the Teflon cant be baked to shrink the way a material like polypropylene can.. I have had my way around Cap production for quite a few years.. I have even designed some. Here you're talking against substantiated knowledge.. It may be so that it performs better in your system, but then only because it suits your taste better.
The big Teflon caps does suffer from induction alone to size.. also to mechancal stability.. as the Teflon cant be baked to shrink the way a material like polypropylene can.. I have had my way around Cap production for quite a few years.. I have even designed some. Here you're talking against substantiated knowledge.. It may be so that it performs better in your system, but then only because it suits your taste better.
The caps in the Paradise RIIA will produce much less distortion compared to be directly in the signal chain or in a conventional passive or feedback stage. That is because we feed them with current and they are shunted to ground. You could even use a rusty nail.
I did not talk much about this before but we use modulated current here.
On the other hand i am looking forward to Stefanos build. We can only learn when we allow freedom of choice.
I did not talk much about this before but we use modulated current here.
On the other hand i am looking forward to Stefanos build. We can only learn when we allow freedom of choice.
mmmm I wonder if you ever listened properly to an 800 Signature before
Anyway, I don't question you have knowledge on how a capacitor works.
The fact that the V-Caps performs better is not only my personal taste.
You can read a ton of capacitor's comparison online and I personally think that all these people are not dumb.
And in the end I test it my own and most of the time I share the same impression they had.
When I design high frequency equipment, or embedded circuits, or power generators or switching supply for avionic industry whatever, I do consider all these parameters such as parasitic capacitance, inductance, vibration strenght and bla bla bla.
When I switch to audio, my final judge is my ear when fine tuning.
That alone tells me that in this case size don't matter and again, this is not only my opinion!
I don't know what system you have but again final result will be stricktly correlated to it!
Anyway, I don't question you have knowledge on how a capacitor works.
The fact that the V-Caps performs better is not only my personal taste.
You can read a ton of capacitor's comparison online and I personally think that all these people are not dumb.
And in the end I test it my own and most of the time I share the same impression they had.
When I design high frequency equipment, or embedded circuits, or power generators or switching supply for avionic industry whatever, I do consider all these parameters such as parasitic capacitance, inductance, vibration strenght and bla bla bla.
When I switch to audio, my final judge is my ear when fine tuning.
That alone tells me that in this case size don't matter and again, this is not only my opinion!
I don't know what system you have but again final result will be stricktly correlated to it!
Thank you very much.
I do have a lot of respect for this design as you know already!
