Oltos,
My reference was to passive not active analog xo's. I think that with the tube outputs you would just be giving up to much loss to make that practical without high powered vacuum tube amps. If you are using a SS amp that changes things. It will also change what Gary is listening to and commenting on. Bi-amping is a good idea, especially if you are going to turn this system up and push the bass section. Many people wouldn't consider a low powered amp for the bass section, at least nothing less than 200 watts for some headroom on heavy bass notes.
Don't forget I have no idea what the actual speakers in this configurations is going to sound like. I have 15" and horns above with 1" driver but it is a very old system that I just won't touch so I don't devalue the collectors item value of these excellent condition Altec Barcelona speakers. At the same time they go much lower on the bottom end than what Gary is getting with those different drivers in a sealed enclosure. We are talking about the difference of 70hx vs 30hz, a very wide difference.
My reference was to passive not active analog xo's. I think that with the tube outputs you would just be giving up to much loss to make that practical without high powered vacuum tube amps. If you are using a SS amp that changes things. It will also change what Gary is listening to and commenting on. Bi-amping is a good idea, especially if you are going to turn this system up and push the bass section. Many people wouldn't consider a low powered amp for the bass section, at least nothing less than 200 watts for some headroom on heavy bass notes.
Don't forget I have no idea what the actual speakers in this configurations is going to sound like. I have 15" and horns above with 1" driver but it is a very old system that I just won't touch so I don't devalue the collectors item value of these excellent condition Altec Barcelona speakers. At the same time they go much lower on the bottom end than what Gary is getting with those different drivers in a sealed enclosure. We are talking about the difference of 70hx vs 30hz, a very wide difference.
Regarding my amps, I have only Nelson Pass's First Watt J2 SE ss amp and the F4 pp ss amp. The J2 i'll use to drive the horns; the F4 to drive the Altecs. Depending on what I hear when I finish cloning Gary's system, I may sell the J2 amp and (I hope can afford to) buy whatever tube amp Lynn Olson says would be great for driving the horns. But I strongly suspect that i will be very happy with the F4 amp driving the Altecs. Its not a SE amp like the J2, but its also Class A, direct-coupled and no feedback. And it will be driven by Nelson's BA-3 SE line stage that I'm building with Evan Cotler from the BA-3 thread, using the best parts I can afford. True, the F4 is only 25 wpc (40 wpc into 4 ohms). But the 416s are 98db sensitive and Gary's sealed boxes cut off their low end below 70Hz, where my powered subs take over. Btw, Gary's subs are 15" Acoustic Elegance (model?) with passive radiators, driven with a Parasound ss amp (no doubt a lot better sounding than my Rythmik's Burr-Brown Op-Amp, Class AB plate amps).
But with the Altec's efficiency, their limited work load, my sensitive hearing, my 18 ft x 14 room and active biamping to very closely match the levels of the Altecs with the horns, shouldn't the F4 amp work fine with the Altecs? That said, because Lynn and Gary designed Gary's speakers to driven with tube amps in mind, the sound I'll get wit my ss amps will be considerably different. A little scary. [/QUOTE]
Last edited:
Oltos,
With that Pass amp on the bass I would say you are looking at about 112db output if you leave yourself a 3db headroom. While you are cutting the cabinets off at 70hz don't fool yourself and think that there isn't a lot of information in that range. Most people don't realize it but that has been a very common range, 60-75hz where a lot of rock and roll bass is boosted to make most consumer speakers sound like they have strong bass, a real common trick.
As far as the Parasound amps go I am personally not impressed with them and I have three of them in my collection. They are okay, definitely not great sounding. I much prefer the sound of my Harmon Kardan over the Parasound amps. Of course that is a personal opinion and many people speak highly of them. This is the problem with listening to all of our opinions, they are just that. We all seem to like something different and clue into different sounds.
I'll be using modified versions of a CFA type amplifier as designed by OStripper on the CFA vs VFA thread. If you decide you want a high powered amp and don't want to pay the cost of a commercial unit I would look at what can be done. They are somewhat based around the Harmon Kardan output stage. There must be a dozen input sections for those amps now and you can choose your poison so to say. They are all very low distortion designs. I will be getting a specific design to work with my self powered speakers I am working on, I don't need anywhere near the output power these amps are capable of.
With that Pass amp on the bass I would say you are looking at about 112db output if you leave yourself a 3db headroom. While you are cutting the cabinets off at 70hz don't fool yourself and think that there isn't a lot of information in that range. Most people don't realize it but that has been a very common range, 60-75hz where a lot of rock and roll bass is boosted to make most consumer speakers sound like they have strong bass, a real common trick.
As far as the Parasound amps go I am personally not impressed with them and I have three of them in my collection. They are okay, definitely not great sounding. I much prefer the sound of my Harmon Kardan over the Parasound amps. Of course that is a personal opinion and many people speak highly of them. This is the problem with listening to all of our opinions, they are just that. We all seem to like something different and clue into different sounds.
I'll be using modified versions of a CFA type amplifier as designed by OStripper on the CFA vs VFA thread. If you decide you want a high powered amp and don't want to pay the cost of a commercial unit I would look at what can be done. They are somewhat based around the Harmon Kardan output stage. There must be a dozen input sections for those amps now and you can choose your poison so to say. They are all very low distortion designs. I will be getting a specific design to work with my self powered speakers I am working on, I don't need anywhere near the output power these amps are capable of.
It sounds as if there is some confusion about which amplifiers I am actually using. My tube amps (Amity PP 300B) power the 416's and the Radians. The bass cabinets (TD15H and passive radiators) are powered by individual 250 W/ch plate amps, and easily handle the lowest frequencies. The Parasound HCA-1500A (modified by Rick Krzemien, Big Sky Audio) isn't currently in the system, but is envisioned for eventual use with my QSC DSP-3.
Kindhornman, what H/K amp do you have? My favorite was my first (and greatly missed!) tube amp, a Citation II. I also enjoyed a Citation 19 for a number of years back in the 1980s.
Gary Dahl
Kindhornman, what H/K amp do you have? My favorite was my first (and greatly missed!) tube amp, a Citation II. I also enjoyed a Citation 19 for a number of years back in the 1980s.
Gary Dahl
Oltos, if you can't afford failure (several months of work that results in the regretful sale of all the parts at a financial loss), don't even think about this project. Go to a store and buy what you like.
This is NOT a kit. I'll repeat that. This is NOT a kit. The same applies to the Karna amplifier, which is where my focus is going to be for the next several months.
As you can tell, there are several posters (on this thread) with radically different ideas of what a loudspeaker should be. Disagreements between designers, including a fair amount of mutual insults, have been part of the speaker-design community since the Thirties. It comes with the territory.
My feeling is that you are trying to "split the difference" between several different designers, which results in the famous designed-by-a-committee camel. If you don't want a pair of big ugly camels in your living room, go for one designer's approach and stick to it 100%. That includes the entire system, not just the speaker. Do NOT "modify" or "improve" it unless you have several years of experience in the field, measurement gear that works, the ability to understand the measurements, and a clear understanding of your own personal goals.
That's why I urge, in the strongest terms, to hear for yourself what Nelson Pass is up to, meet Siegfried Linkwitz at the shows, and listen carefully to the efforts of other innovators. Meet the designer, chat 'em up, and bring your own music. Take Pierre up on his offer, and make a little holiday. There are probably still some members of the original New York Triode Mafia in your area; track them down and listen to what they've got.
Don't believe one single word you read in the magazines, or in this newsgroup. Or from me, or any other posters. Discount it to zero.
I have friends in the biz I've known for decades. They bring the latest-new-thing DAC, amplifier, or speaker for me to audition and I am quite often appalled and disappointed in the sound. They're my friends, so I'm as diplomatic as possible (my father was an actual diplomat for the US Foreign Service, but it doesn't come naturally for me). I'll have (very) high expectations of XYZ technology, and will be shocked to hear what it actually sounds like.
That's what happened in the year after I left Audionics and my great friend Bob Sickler bought one of the very first CD players, the Sony CDP-101, along with a fair-sized collection of DGG classical CD's (all-digital-recordings, of course). I was a member of the AES at the time and was really looking forward ... finally! ... to master-tape quality sound in the home. Bob's roommate was a violin player in the Portland Symphony, and Bob had great taste in equipment ... in fact, his system was a tri-amped all-TAD studio-monitor setup, which wasn't cheap in 1981. It was a very advanced system then, and would have classic status now.
As the Play button activated and music emerged out of the characteristic digital dead-silence, Bob and his roommate were grinning ear to ear, and exclaiming over and over again, "There's no noise! No scratch! It's all so clear!"
I was horrified. It sounded like experimental broadcasts of Stereo AM radio, horribly distorted on the massed violins, grossly unnatural tonality, and no impression of space at all. (These were pre-dithering-technique recordings, recorded at 44.1/16 PCM, and the Sony CDP-101 used a single Sony-made 16-bit DAC that was time-switched at 88.2 kHz rate between the two channels. All very primitive by modern standards.)
That was a real scales-from-the-eyes moment. Bob Sickler was my bestest audio-friend, and an all-round audio-guru to me. He knew all kinds of things I didn't. I was just a lowly speaker designer that didn't know jack about electronics ... that came after I joined Tektronix.
But he and his symphonic musician friend thought the sound was completely awesome, and I couldn't leave fast enough. It gave me a ringing headache and didn't sound remotely like any music I'd ever heard. It just sounded very distorted and extremely harsh and gritty.
(Now we know why, of course. Carefully shaped dither is a necessity for digital recordings to avoid gross distortion at low levels, and it's good practice to record the original in a higher-resolution format so there's room for studio adjustments in level, equalization, and compression. That wasn't known in 1981.)
That's when I left the AES, particularly after the magazine became dominated on articles on lossy-compression algorithms ... squeezing quarts into the pint pot of wireless phones, and movie and HDTV soundtracks.
I didn't buy a CD player until Philips/Magnavox came out with their TDA chipset units around 1989 ... those were the first units I could tolerate. I didn't expect the TDA chipset to develop a cult following decades later.
That experience of expecting great things (based on the glowing descriptions of my old-time audio-friends or reviews on the Net) has happened many times since then. Every now and then I'm surprised in a favorable direction. It's rare enough that I take notice, and am very curious about how it was done. More usually, it's a "diamond in the rough" experience, where hints of greatness shine through.
That's why I think it's reckless in the extreme to believe one word that anyone says here. You have to settle on a sound that works for you, and see what the practitioners have to say on the subject.
This is NOT a kit. I'll repeat that. This is NOT a kit. The same applies to the Karna amplifier, which is where my focus is going to be for the next several months.
As you can tell, there are several posters (on this thread) with radically different ideas of what a loudspeaker should be. Disagreements between designers, including a fair amount of mutual insults, have been part of the speaker-design community since the Thirties. It comes with the territory.
My feeling is that you are trying to "split the difference" between several different designers, which results in the famous designed-by-a-committee camel. If you don't want a pair of big ugly camels in your living room, go for one designer's approach and stick to it 100%. That includes the entire system, not just the speaker. Do NOT "modify" or "improve" it unless you have several years of experience in the field, measurement gear that works, the ability to understand the measurements, and a clear understanding of your own personal goals.
That's why I urge, in the strongest terms, to hear for yourself what Nelson Pass is up to, meet Siegfried Linkwitz at the shows, and listen carefully to the efforts of other innovators. Meet the designer, chat 'em up, and bring your own music. Take Pierre up on his offer, and make a little holiday. There are probably still some members of the original New York Triode Mafia in your area; track them down and listen to what they've got.
Don't believe one single word you read in the magazines, or in this newsgroup. Or from me, or any other posters. Discount it to zero.
I have friends in the biz I've known for decades. They bring the latest-new-thing DAC, amplifier, or speaker for me to audition and I am quite often appalled and disappointed in the sound. They're my friends, so I'm as diplomatic as possible (my father was an actual diplomat for the US Foreign Service, but it doesn't come naturally for me). I'll have (very) high expectations of XYZ technology, and will be shocked to hear what it actually sounds like.
That's what happened in the year after I left Audionics and my great friend Bob Sickler bought one of the very first CD players, the Sony CDP-101, along with a fair-sized collection of DGG classical CD's (all-digital-recordings, of course). I was a member of the AES at the time and was really looking forward ... finally! ... to master-tape quality sound in the home. Bob's roommate was a violin player in the Portland Symphony, and Bob had great taste in equipment ... in fact, his system was a tri-amped all-TAD studio-monitor setup, which wasn't cheap in 1981. It was a very advanced system then, and would have classic status now.
As the Play button activated and music emerged out of the characteristic digital dead-silence, Bob and his roommate were grinning ear to ear, and exclaiming over and over again, "There's no noise! No scratch! It's all so clear!"
I was horrified. It sounded like experimental broadcasts of Stereo AM radio, horribly distorted on the massed violins, grossly unnatural tonality, and no impression of space at all. (These were pre-dithering-technique recordings, recorded at 44.1/16 PCM, and the Sony CDP-101 used a single Sony-made 16-bit DAC that was time-switched at 88.2 kHz rate between the two channels. All very primitive by modern standards.)
That was a real scales-from-the-eyes moment. Bob Sickler was my bestest audio-friend, and an all-round audio-guru to me. He knew all kinds of things I didn't. I was just a lowly speaker designer that didn't know jack about electronics ... that came after I joined Tektronix.
But he and his symphonic musician friend thought the sound was completely awesome, and I couldn't leave fast enough. It gave me a ringing headache and didn't sound remotely like any music I'd ever heard. It just sounded very distorted and extremely harsh and gritty.
(Now we know why, of course. Carefully shaped dither is a necessity for digital recordings to avoid gross distortion at low levels, and it's good practice to record the original in a higher-resolution format so there's room for studio adjustments in level, equalization, and compression. That wasn't known in 1981.)
That's when I left the AES, particularly after the magazine became dominated on articles on lossy-compression algorithms ... squeezing quarts into the pint pot of wireless phones, and movie and HDTV soundtracks.
I didn't buy a CD player until Philips/Magnavox came out with their TDA chipset units around 1989 ... those were the first units I could tolerate. I didn't expect the TDA chipset to develop a cult following decades later.
That experience of expecting great things (based on the glowing descriptions of my old-time audio-friends or reviews on the Net) has happened many times since then. Every now and then I'm surprised in a favorable direction. It's rare enough that I take notice, and am very curious about how it was done. More usually, it's a "diamond in the rough" experience, where hints of greatness shine through.
That's why I think it's reckless in the extreme to believe one word that anyone says here. You have to settle on a sound that works for you, and see what the practitioners have to say on the subject.
Last edited:
Lynn,
Two thumbs up on this last set of comments. As I have also tried to tell Oltos most everything he is hearing and reading is just a bunch of opinions, mine included, that are meaningless in the overall scheme of things.
I was also trying to point out to him that changing anything from what you and Gary and Pierre have developed would now be something different. perhaps okay but different none the same. It is just so hard to convince people that it is the entire system they are listening to and once you start making changes you have to start over. That was why I also suggested he go and hear these speakers and the related electronics before he goes down this road and wastes his time and money and then wrongly says that you are just another charlatan, misinformed by this mass of opinions.
I think we probably can come to some consensus on a few things this way but not much. We are all looking for something different, it has been part of the audio pursuit since the beginning, trying to find the Holy Grail. There is no arch that I know of, Moses has set no ten commandments to follow in audio design, and Noah didn't carry a pair of speakers out of the depths to bring forth and multiply. We are on our own to find our own solutions, you can't truly go by any one gurus mantra. you have to develop your own.
I have to fight this every time I think I know something and somebody else says different. Bringing forth a commercial product is fraught with these decision, what are the masses going to say? It looks like I have just gotten two of the brightest minds in both electronics design and loudspeaker development and testing to come on board with me and help to complete the journey I have been on for most of my life now. I want to end the endless searching and settle on something that I truly believe will bring a great product to the masses. It surely hasn't been easy. It is amazing when I think how long this journey has been going on and my first dreams of building great speakers began, it has been now over half a century!
Though I believe we would probably have different final personal opinions I think we have a similar passion for what we do. I don't think we can assume that any two people will ever come to the exact same conclusions for the same reasons. It is no different than being married, you may come to know what type of reactions the other person will have, but you won't ever truly know why they came to those conclusions, our minds are all wired differently depending on our life experiences.
Two thumbs up on this last set of comments. As I have also tried to tell Oltos most everything he is hearing and reading is just a bunch of opinions, mine included, that are meaningless in the overall scheme of things.
I was also trying to point out to him that changing anything from what you and Gary and Pierre have developed would now be something different. perhaps okay but different none the same. It is just so hard to convince people that it is the entire system they are listening to and once you start making changes you have to start over. That was why I also suggested he go and hear these speakers and the related electronics before he goes down this road and wastes his time and money and then wrongly says that you are just another charlatan, misinformed by this mass of opinions.
I think we probably can come to some consensus on a few things this way but not much. We are all looking for something different, it has been part of the audio pursuit since the beginning, trying to find the Holy Grail. There is no arch that I know of, Moses has set no ten commandments to follow in audio design, and Noah didn't carry a pair of speakers out of the depths to bring forth and multiply. We are on our own to find our own solutions, you can't truly go by any one gurus mantra. you have to develop your own.
I have to fight this every time I think I know something and somebody else says different. Bringing forth a commercial product is fraught with these decision, what are the masses going to say? It looks like I have just gotten two of the brightest minds in both electronics design and loudspeaker development and testing to come on board with me and help to complete the journey I have been on for most of my life now. I want to end the endless searching and settle on something that I truly believe will bring a great product to the masses. It surely hasn't been easy. It is amazing when I think how long this journey has been going on and my first dreams of building great speakers began, it has been now over half a century!
Though I believe we would probably have different final personal opinions I think we have a similar passion for what we do. I don't think we can assume that any two people will ever come to the exact same conclusions for the same reasons. It is no different than being married, you may come to know what type of reactions the other person will have, but you won't ever truly know why they came to those conclusions, our minds are all wired differently depending on our life experiences.
I once got a sample track from a Bassist, his instrument mostly peaked between 40hz to 60Hz. If you can go lower than that, you catch a good perspective of the music. For a small active speaker, I had to cut off at 40Hz to avoid extreme excursion, but he was still amazed that he could not detect significant distortion while listening in a small room.
Gary:
That little tidbit of information has helped me tremendously (re: Big Sky Audio) At one time, I had two units of the Parasound HCA-1000. One modded, one stock. Night and day ! I had purchased the modded unit from a kind seller on audio-gon. All previous sales contact info has been lost. It's a good possibility that the mod was done by Big Sky. The amplifier promptly mops up the floor against almost anything else I have tried. The same goes for my "line-drive" pre-amp/linestage. Excellence can be had for a bargain and a lot of luck.
Lynn, I’d have to second Kindhornman’s two thumbs up on your thrashing of my slapdash way of system building: Listening to “experts”-and even far worse to the reviewers, who are so often biased by a palm greased with silver-rather than actually hearing the equipment.
That could have led to possible mistake #1: Buying expensive ss amps based on reviewer say-so, and on what I read by the designer. Primarily, lots of what I read by Nelson Pass on his design approach made perfect sense to me in several ways; and that we are after the same sonic goals. And because he, like you, gives of his time to the DIY community, I also consider him to be an honorable man first and a businessman second.
That said, I spent weeks, if not months searching forum after forum for owners of these amps who might invite me to hear them. Lots of people do own them and clone them but not one could be found anywhere within a 300 mile radius of me. Again, I don’t fly and due to an accident in 2009, I lost over six weeks of my paid sick time and many vacation days. So even via Amtrak, taking several days off is a considerable subtraction of sick days and snow days. Therefore, acting on what I thought was still a reasonably informed decision I went ahead and bought the First Watt J2 and F4 amps. How much of a mistake that was will depend on what I hear though the speakers I build. And build now I must.
Frankly, I’m no kind of masochist. Being laughed out of court as often as I’ve been here is not my thing. But I sense no hostility from anyone here; at worst an annoyed but healthy and basically good-natured intolerance for ignorance, and with the patience to educate and to caution. That is why I dare to post my sometimes (frequently?) baseless questions and improbable proposals: To at least benefit from a process of elimination. That is, when its explained here why my speaker ideas A, B, C and D won’t work, then, with my curiosity satisfied, I can then confidently pursue the proven speaker ideas that will work-and which I might very well enjoy listening to.
Curiosity (which I guess is partly a result of ignorance) can often amount to wasted time, rather than bountiful discoveries. But I think that the hardest lesson that I learned-and possibly learned too late-was that unless one is willing and able to travel great distances in order to actually be able to hear complete systems, then they are foolish to pursue high end audio-and perhaps even more foolish to pursue high end DIY audio. But as I lamented several times here, I simply can’t do long distance traveling. So I’m largely screwed from the start.
And now for possible mistake #2: My pair of Gary’s midwoofers will be delivered next month. The cabinets-made to Gary’s exact specs-cost me $1800/pair + the 416s.
I wasn’t sure Gary or Pierre said that Pierre built Gary’s system. Indeed, I logged onto the thread some two hours ago to email Pierre when I got yanked through the wringer here once again.
Were it not for this self-imposed fait accompli, I’d jump at Pierre’s invitation to hear his system. But now it’s either building the rest of Gary’s system or what? And trashing what I just spent lots of money having built is not an option. I really need some "expert" guidance at this point.
But if there’s a real chance that I can transform the mistakes that I likely have made into something that truly pleases my ears without suffering much more financial loss (i.e. taking a loss on possibly selling the J2 amp to buy a great sounding tube amp to drive the Azurahorn AH425/Radian 745NeoBe is no big deal) then I’ll take my lumps and go for it.
Last edited:
Honestly, I don't think that you made any "mistakes".
If I were you, I'd just try the 416 + "Gary's box" and the 745NeoBe + AH425 with the amps you've got.
Chances are they'll sound great.
But you will have to work on the crossovers.
Marco
Oltos.
Yes, just build the speakers and the networks exactly as Gary, Lynn and Pierre have developed. Then you can try your Pass labs amps and see if you are satisfied. You may or may not want to add a subwoofer, that is to be determined after you listen to what you have. If the cost of the enclosures wasn't already so much I would have suggested that you could always try a ported enclosure for the same speakers and get lower bass. If you are handy at all with a saw and some good grade plywood you could just knock together some cheap boxes to see how these drivers sound in a ported enclosure. That is up to you, I surely wouldn't pay someone $1,800 for an experiment. I have to make the assumption from Lynn's comments about CD players that he listens mostly to vinyl, but perhaps I am wrong on that point. You say you listen to digital media so you are already coming from a different perspective. Only time will tell if you are a happy camper. Sometimes the journey is the fun part to some, with others they just want to listen to the music.
Yes, just build the speakers and the networks exactly as Gary, Lynn and Pierre have developed. Then you can try your Pass labs amps and see if you are satisfied. You may or may not want to add a subwoofer, that is to be determined after you listen to what you have. If the cost of the enclosures wasn't already so much I would have suggested that you could always try a ported enclosure for the same speakers and get lower bass. If you are handy at all with a saw and some good grade plywood you could just knock together some cheap boxes to see how these drivers sound in a ported enclosure. That is up to you, I surely wouldn't pay someone $1,800 for an experiment. I have to make the assumption from Lynn's comments about CD players that he listens mostly to vinyl, but perhaps I am wrong on that point. You say you listen to digital media so you are already coming from a different perspective. Only time will tell if you are a happy camper. Sometimes the journey is the fun part to some, with others they just want to listen to the music.
Well, it sounds like money has already been spent, and travel is very difficult. That limits your options. I concur with Kindhornman and Marco and suggest finishing what you've started. Contact Gary and Pierre directly and get hints and tips about the crossover and construction details.
I assume you know how to solder, so you can build a crossover using a pegboard, ty-wraps to tie down the components, and point-to-point wiring. I strongly recommend an external crossover for two reasons: during the tuning phase, you'll want quick access to the components so they can be easily swapped out and replaced, and there's also a subtle benefit in reducing crossover-board vibrations. (Capacitors are just a little bit microphonic ... I've measured it and it is real.)
If you want to bi-amp and use an active crossover, well, you're on your own. I can say from experience that most active crossovers have a pretty obvious solid-state signature that makes subjective speaker tuning difficult. The commercial vacuum-tube active crossovers are frankly not that well designed. Put another way, an active crossover is a pair of linestages with additional capacitors and a mix of positive and negative feedback to get the desired response shapes. If you think all electronics sound the same, no problem. But if you're picky about the sonics of linestages, you're going to have hunt around for a decent-sounding active crossover that also works at consumer-audio signal levels.
The other approach is to make a computer the heart of your system and use a professional-quality multichannel DAC. This is what Gary Pimm has done, complete with using a 55" HDTV as the computer monitor when tuning the software. Fair warning: this is really going down the rabbit hole, with a lot of arcana about Windows audio drivers and VST plug-ins.
My own system, perhaps surprisingly, is all-digital at this time. I've been using the Monarchy DACs with their Burr-Brown PCM-63 and PCM-1704 converters since the mid-Nineties. I also use the Audio-GD DI-2014 as a S/PDIF reclocker and USB -> S/PDIF interface. I don't find much difference between the Denon DVD player as a transport and the MacBook Pro using Pure Music and Audirvana software.
My friend, Thom Mackris, who lives just down the road, is a turntable builder (Galibier Designs) and has recently completed a new version of the Reichert Silver 300B amplifier with great success. Thom is 95% vinyl-centric but has fairly similar tastes to mine, so we'll be doing an update of the Karna amplifier, inspired by Zigzagflux's very welcome postings and Thom's beautiful-sounding new amplifiers.
I plan on eventually getting a phonograph running, partly because I have a modest collection of LP's (about 300) that I haven't heard in a long time. I have a new-in-box Technics SL1200 sitting in the basement, along with a Peter Ledermann refurbished Supex SD900E cartridge also sitting in a box, so I'm only one preamp and a Salamander rack away from playing records. Thom's putting the finishing touches on a new rim-drive turntable, so I might end up with one of those instead.
I assume you know how to solder, so you can build a crossover using a pegboard, ty-wraps to tie down the components, and point-to-point wiring. I strongly recommend an external crossover for two reasons: during the tuning phase, you'll want quick access to the components so they can be easily swapped out and replaced, and there's also a subtle benefit in reducing crossover-board vibrations. (Capacitors are just a little bit microphonic ... I've measured it and it is real.)
If you want to bi-amp and use an active crossover, well, you're on your own. I can say from experience that most active crossovers have a pretty obvious solid-state signature that makes subjective speaker tuning difficult. The commercial vacuum-tube active crossovers are frankly not that well designed. Put another way, an active crossover is a pair of linestages with additional capacitors and a mix of positive and negative feedback to get the desired response shapes. If you think all electronics sound the same, no problem. But if you're picky about the sonics of linestages, you're going to have hunt around for a decent-sounding active crossover that also works at consumer-audio signal levels.
The other approach is to make a computer the heart of your system and use a professional-quality multichannel DAC. This is what Gary Pimm has done, complete with using a 55" HDTV as the computer monitor when tuning the software. Fair warning: this is really going down the rabbit hole, with a lot of arcana about Windows audio drivers and VST plug-ins.
My own system, perhaps surprisingly, is all-digital at this time. I've been using the Monarchy DACs with their Burr-Brown PCM-63 and PCM-1704 converters since the mid-Nineties. I also use the Audio-GD DI-2014 as a S/PDIF reclocker and USB -> S/PDIF interface. I don't find much difference between the Denon DVD player as a transport and the MacBook Pro using Pure Music and Audirvana software.
My friend, Thom Mackris, who lives just down the road, is a turntable builder (Galibier Designs) and has recently completed a new version of the Reichert Silver 300B amplifier with great success. Thom is 95% vinyl-centric but has fairly similar tastes to mine, so we'll be doing an update of the Karna amplifier, inspired by Zigzagflux's very welcome postings and Thom's beautiful-sounding new amplifiers.
I plan on eventually getting a phonograph running, partly because I have a modest collection of LP's (about 300) that I haven't heard in a long time. I have a new-in-box Technics SL1200 sitting in the basement, along with a Peter Ledermann refurbished Supex SD900E cartridge also sitting in a box, so I'm only one preamp and a Salamander rack away from playing records. Thom's putting the finishing touches on a new rim-drive turntable, so I might end up with one of those instead.
Attachments
Last edited:
The ideal amplifier is "A straight wire with gain."
Stewart Hegeman, who designed the original Harman Kardon Citation line of electronics, is credited with coming up with the saying, "A straight wire with gain."
Everything else is a filter tuned to the owner's personal preference.
In California we favor Wine Tasting to find out what we like.
Stewart Hegeman, who designed the original Harman Kardon Citation line of electronics, is credited with coming up with the saying, "A straight wire with gain."
Everything else is a filter tuned to the owner's personal preference.
In California we favor Wine Tasting to find out what we like.
I'm also in agreement with the "Build it Like They Did" train of thought. You are already at least a 1/3 the way down that path. As stated above, you WILL need to tune the crossover. Your room and your amps are different enough to need crossover changes. Your amps will be just fine for a system like this.
But that can come after you build the known factor. You need to start somewhere solid, and you are well on your way there. FWIW, it took me a very long time to get my big horn system sounding right. I was starting with some of the same stuff I had heard and loved many years before, but not all of it. That meant a lot of crossover work and system tuning.
But that can come after you build the known factor. You need to start somewhere solid, and you are well on your way there. FWIW, it took me a very long time to get my big horn system sounding right. I was starting with some of the same stuff I had heard and loved many years before, but not all of it. That meant a lot of crossover work and system tuning.
Pano knows what he's talking about. If anyone has wrestled the Altec beast to the ground, it's him.
To get anywhere in this field, you have to know what your goals are, and be willing to accept many setbacks, along with outright failures. That's why trying to "average out" different pundits ain't gonna work. The pundits have different goals ... and don't get fobbed off with the tired old "accuracy" chestnut.
You have to find out what appeals to you. Taste your own wine, eat your own dinner, and make your own assessments. Tune into pleasure. Forget the audiophile obsessions pushed by the glossy magazines. If you heard the famous-name reviewer's system you might be surprised what it sounds like ... I got into this gig and was startled by what I found behind the magic curtain.
Here's a hint: Reviewers get paid to write memorable phrases. They don't get paid to build great systems, or have a knowledge of electronics, acoustics, music, or perception. As all writers know, what makes you a "professional" is that nice check you get in the mail. That's the only difference between you and John Q. Blogger.
To get anywhere in this field, you have to know what your goals are, and be willing to accept many setbacks, along with outright failures. That's why trying to "average out" different pundits ain't gonna work. The pundits have different goals ... and don't get fobbed off with the tired old "accuracy" chestnut.
You have to find out what appeals to you. Taste your own wine, eat your own dinner, and make your own assessments. Tune into pleasure. Forget the audiophile obsessions pushed by the glossy magazines. If you heard the famous-name reviewer's system you might be surprised what it sounds like ... I got into this gig and was startled by what I found behind the magic curtain.
Here's a hint: Reviewers get paid to write memorable phrases. They don't get paid to build great systems, or have a knowledge of electronics, acoustics, music, or perception. As all writers know, what makes you a "professional" is that nice check you get in the mail. That's the only difference between you and John Q. Blogger.
Last edited:
Same here ,J2 F4 are the best SS amp you can buy now (diy F6/SIT) ,I prefer tube but a lot of user here can only dream a NP amp.....relax build the Gary system and remember mods never end 😀 we need fun !!
Last edited:
Oltos, I'm a bit confused here. People like Lynn and Gary are very picky and difficult to please because they have sensitive ears and very long experience with audio (so they have "options"). You don't seem to have long experience so how can you be sure that you will not be pleased if they don't??
And you have heard about Lynn/Gary preferences, but you don't know yet about it's relative importance (between those preferences).
(1) Speaker is very important (for me it is the heart of the system). Speaker design is not as simple as all outsiders seem to think of. Stick with Gary's design. It is already a blessing you are allowed to have the result of their hard work.
(2) If Gary's speaker is sealed at 70Hz, you have to know that 70Hz is far from high-end and thus the sub is mandatory. There is a real issue with integrating a subwoofer to a speaker. This is more important than you might think. Most likely you can still use your own cheaper subwoofer but you should get information from Gary regarding the method he used to integrate the subwoofer, and many others here can help you with that. You can even experiment later on with active AFTER you finish your speaker according to the original design.
(3) If you want to dish the subwoofer, you can design a vent, but make it possible to sealed the vent in case you have to retreat to the original design. With the box volume you have, calculate what is the lowest frequency possible. The Altec is capable of below 40Hz but may be with your box you cannot go that low. Low frequency is important (many music are made of such frequency), but sealed will most likely give you more enjoyment if you can accept higher cutoff (below 60Hz of course).
(4) Don't worry about your amplifiers. Tube preference is more subjective than objective. Objectively, with a certain speaker, changing amplifier from SS to tube is more risky than the opposite. SS in general have better damping factor and can drive lower impedance. Some people put resistor in series with their speaker to emulate tube sound from SS amp.
BTW, what system are you listening right now? Some of us here are really music lovers, some are just Electronics Engineers. You can use your system for bragging (the sound or the measurement), but if you are a music lover, it is something personal and private, and it is strange if you like building/designing/planning more than listening.
One review that springs to mind, (from around the time the Manley amps came out, but it wasn't them), the reviewer seemed reluctant to give a glowing amp a glowing review. It was clear that he liked this amp very much but seemed, I don't know, almost embarrased to admit it. He went on and on about the atypical measurements, apparently unsure how to say that he didn't think they were a problem.