Pensil 7 (Alpair 7)

[omegaspeedy]

Sweet Gary, mine will arrive soon and will get more tips off you prior to building them. It would be cool to see how they measure once fully run in.

[Hercules]

Hi Mark and Tony, thanks for the nice driver and cabinet, my Pencil 7 will start serving me for everyday musical enjoyment, cheers!!

[Musik007]

Hi hercules,

Hope you love the sound of Pencil 7.

Cheers,
Tony.

Originally Posted by Hercules

Hi Mark and Tony, thanks for the nice driver and cabinet, my Pencil 7 will start serving me for everyday musical enjoyment, cheers!!

[markaudio]

Hello Hercules.
Your system looks very! Assume Tony supplied the boxes? I've got a similar pair at home. Out of interest, can you tell us more about your amp? Also, more about your source components - CD player, Turn-table and anything else?
At my home (Tung Lo Wan Do), main source is Accuphase DP65 (quite old) CD player + Tony's 300B with its vintage Mr Zhu hand-wound transformers (nice). Would be interested to listen to your set-up if you'd be so kind when time permits

I've just started using more Accuphase in the studio (Chai Wan) but only on the Alp10 protos and Alp12 Pencils. I'm playing with Tony's new 6L6, using it on Alp6's, CHRs and Alp7s. Tony gave me some new tubes to try, very nice. Will post more about this on his thread later.

Cheers

Mark.

[Hercules]

Hi Mark, my system is an interesting mixing of difference gears, in order to playback multiple audio sources (LP, CD, DVD Audio, SACD, Hi-Res CAS, DAB), and put everything inside my bedroom, not to disturb other in late night, and I found the new speaker gives more solid low and details when compared with my Fostex FE87 in BLH enclosure, great for music playing at night.

Digital Sources:
SACD/CD Player - Pioneer PD-D9
DVD-Audio/SACD Multi-Channel/SACD Stereo Transport(tapping out unencrypted DSD stream to Twisted Pear Buffalo DAC) - Denon DVD-1920
CD Player - Philips CD-951 with Tentlabs XO3 reclocking module
CAS (everything from 16/44 to 24/192)- Atom 1.6G with ESI Juil@ Sound Card (Coaxial/Optical SPDIF/I2S Out)
Solid State SD Memory Player (16/44 only) - QLS QA550
DAB/DAB+/Wifi Radio: Revo BLIK RadioStation

DACs:
16-Bit - DIY No-Oversampling TDA1541A Double Crown
20-Bit with HDCD - Ultech HDCD-10 with modification
24-bit up to 192 - Musiland MD-10 with modification
32-bit/384, direct DSD / I2S - Twisted Pear Buffalo II (under-construction)

Turntable:
DIY HiFi Supply BIX+
Tonearm:
J.A. Michell Tecnoarm-A
Cartridges:
Goldring Elite(MC)/1042G(MM)
Phono Amplifier: Cambridge Audio 640P (MM/MC) / Battery powered PhonoClone (MC Only)

Pre-Amplifier:
DIY Clone Convergent Audio Technology (CAT) SL-1 Line Preamplifier

Power Amplifier:
Tube: Antique Sound Lab 6V6 Single Ended (2W x 2) for Autumn/Spring time and Summertime with AC on
Digital: Trends Audio TA-10.2 (10w x 2) for Speaker run-in overnight playing and summer for it's power saving and cool operation temperature
Solid State: Pass DIY Zen-V5 (10w Class A - 25W Class AB) for Winter time and Headphone Amplifier for AKG K-1000 ear-speaker

[CTony]

Originally Posted by Hercules

Hi Mark and Tony, thanks for the nice driver and cabinet, my Pencil 7 will start serving me for everyday musical enjoyment, cheers!!

Hi Hercules,

How is the Alpair 7 performing? Would appreciate hearing your comments. Thanks!

[norman bates]

You can improve that accuphase. That is basically a Leech amplifier from years ago.

Simple improvements include bypassing the main power supply caps with 47uF (right across the bigger caps). Next up would be tacking .1uF film caps across the feedback cap and any other coupling caps. Lastly you want to isolate the front end for a regulated supply.

Either way, these are simple improvements that cost little but make the amp sound cleaner, quicker, and flat out better for less than $10.

Norman

p.s. nice pencil 7's there, I like that deep wood color.
That is a sweet nearfield setup, many, many thumbs up.
Any baffle step ?

[Hercules]

Originally Posted by CTony

Hi Hercules,

How is the Alpair 7 performing? Would appreciate hearing your comments. Thanks!

After 4 months of use, and I believed the speakers were go through initial burn-in period, and settled on damping material, I think it's right time to tell my impression on Alpair 7 in Pencil cabinet.

It's fast and very accurate driver, can tell what power amplifier I'm connected (I got tube, digital and solid state Power Amp in my system), and capable to produce fast and tight bass of orchestra tutti and chruch organ. and extra high frequency bandwidth also capacable to hear more air and harmonics from strings and metal percussion instruments if playing SACD and Hi-Rez materials.

Althrogh it's full range unit, it's still quite demanding on power amplifer, the low frequency reproduction beats my previous fostex with more Xmax, the trade off is better the damping factor of the your amplifier, tighter and better bass you can get. Using 6V6 SE power amplifier with 2w/pc no problem with soft music and chamber music, but while I played with orchestral music, like RR's Rutter Requiem Reference Recordings of Choral and Organ Music, the driver will goes out of control easily. After switch to Pass Zen V as power amplifer, everything under control even in loud passage. So if you wish to use with tube amplifier, make sure the output transformers were high quality one.

For smaller size Fostex, it sings nicely for everything connected to it but very limited capability, but good enough for leisure listening in study room, but Alpair 7 do a lot more, a lot better but requires quality playback chain to feed it for serious listening.

Also a quality spike and spike disc/pad can change the sound and further enhance the sound quality.

Mark, Bravo!@@

[urmelz]

Originally Posted by Scottmoose

Rear vents are not especially recommended (I designed them for front-firing -it's to do with room-coupling) but the option is there if you want to experiment.

Hi Scottmoose

Regarding vents: front vents are obviously preferred to rear ones, but does the opening have to be rectangularin shape? Or would 2-3 round "holes" (so to say no port with a tube) with an equal surface do as well?

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by urmelz

Hi Scottmoose

Regarding vents: front vents are obviously preferred to rear ones, but does the opening have to be rectangular in shape? Or would 2-3 round "holes" (so to say no port with a tube) with an equal surface do as well?

not Scott here, but I'd guess it probably depends on the design, and what you mean by "do as well"

several years back we experimented with comparing round ports with "equivalent" rectangular slot vents in a small FR box, and regardless of "modeling" found the latter definitely superior in terms of bass "articulation"