It sure a great get together. Special thanks to Gary for hosting it and also to they guys that bought Pizza.
Comparing amps and pre-amps was a lot of fun and very enlightening.
We used a pair of Alpha LS's as reference speakers for all comparisons.
Mark Nash showed off a little chip amp that I think he said he had less than $100. in. It was a 20 watt per channel amp. Not bad sounding and a real steal for what he had in it.
But for a little bit more money there was a small tube amp kit built by Mark Childs. I think he said he spent about $250 in parts on it. Hey guys, what tubes were those? I belive it was rated at 17 watts.
First we tried it with his passive pre-amp. It was not bad. Had a nice tonal balance but really lacked involvement, no dynamics, and a little dry.
Then we tried it with one of Gary's pre-amps and it really came alive. This amp really sounded good across the board. Nice vocals, nice upper end... really musical. This amp went way beyond what any amp should for no more than the cost of the parts. It was clearly greater than the sum of its parts. The only thing this amp lacked was power and headroom to hit high levels.
Mark's hand built all wood chassis looked really good too. I hope someone posts some pics of it.
We also A/B'ed the Ampzilla amps to the Dodd Audio 120 watt mono-blocks.
That was very interesting too, and not completely what I would have expected from the Ampzilla amps.
First I want to thank Dan for bringing them over. Dan was a really nice guy.
The Ampzilla gets the edge in bottom end control and tight bass response, but not by a lot. Most tube amps are pretty soft in the bottom end. Gary's tube amps are quite the contrary. His tube amps are among the best I have ever heard at maintaining a bottom end that will compete with some of the best big solid state amps.
What really surprised me about the Ampzilla was how smooth the vocals sounded. It was a little "tube like" in that regard. This drove me to immediately try some female vocals to see if it handled them as well as the Lyle Lovette. I threw in some Jennifer Warnes right away. While her voice was soft it was really dry and lacked the lushness and emotional evolvement of the 120's.
Then there were the highs. The highs in the Ampzilla struck me as a bit bright, sharp, edgy, a little grainy, etc. Recreating the sound of a trumpet kind of made me want to say "eeeek". We listened to a few songs at high enough levels that the Red peak lights were popping on and I must say that it was rather fatiguing. I was ready to turn it down.
This was not the kind of amp I could live with or listen to for very long. Not musical to me at all, but it would make a nice sub-woofer amp.
With the Dodd Audio 120's there was a high goose bump factor that really allowing one to connect with the music. Smooth tonal balance with lush vocals and deep layering of instruments and had a way of making acoustic instruments come alive with a high sense of realism just not there with the other amp.
Next we tried a big Denon integrated amp that Marvin brought in. Marvin please tell more about it. I believe he said it was 80 watts into 8 ohms and 160 watts into 4 ohms.
This thing had a typical solid state sound but a nice balance. Nothing stood out that was bad at all, but the sound stage was kind of flat and congested.
Since it had an auxiliary pre-amp input we were able to by-pass the internal pre-amp section and drive it with one of Gary's pre-amps. We hooked up his $450. entry level unit that is based on the Melos 333.
Wow! What a change in performance this was! Sound stage opened up big time and this amp sounded really good. It had lots of drive to it and a really nice overall sound. It did not quite have to lushness of the big tube amps but it was really musical. This was an easy combo to live with for a while too. We were all really impressed (all of us). Eyes were opened. I liked this combo much better than the Ampzilla's and the Ampzilla amps were used with a much better Dodd Audio reference level pre-amp.
Ka brought in his 80 watt tube amp from _______? What kind of amp was that again? Give some info on it guys. This amp had a really soft bottom end to it, but it was a nice match for the system since the Alpha LS speakers really loaded up the bottom end in Gary's small room. But the soft bottom end that seamed like a plus in one way also offered little bass control too. So the bottom end was a little mushy. Over all sound, other than the bottom end, was pretty nice though. It was very smooth across the rest of the board. Nice vocals.
We also compared a pre-map from _____? What was it called guys? Transient Sound or something?
Not a bad overall sound as far as tonal balance but it shifted the vocals forward and stacked everything up on top of each other. Very 2-D. It really made me appreciate Gary's pre-amps all the more.
Gary had a new prototype amp too that I spent quite a bit of time with after most had left. I think he has another real winner on his hands. I matched the sound quality, and sounded nearly exactly like his big 120 watt monos, but had less power, 50 or 60 watts maybe. Should be a pretty inexpensive set of mono-blocks.
That about sums it up from me, unless I am forgetting something.
Nice group of guys all around. It was good to meet some of you for the first time and good to see some of you again.
The rest of you chime in your comments now.
