[corndog71]

I think this brings us up to 8 official Super 7 Owners in this thread now

I'm looking forward to joining that group in the coming months! 

[JBELT01]

Happy birthday Danny!

[Danny Richie]

Happy birthday Danny!

Thanks, I'm 52 today. 

[mlundy57]

Happy Birthday young'un 

Mike

[Tyson]

I got a new toy   If you remember a couple of months ago I got a Korneff 45 SET amp that I was loving (produces about 2 watts):




Well I loved it so much I decided I needed to find out what a higher powered SET amp might offer.  So I picked up an Almarro a318b here on AC, which is an SET capable of producing 20 watts.  10x the power of my Korneff 45!  I also modded the Almarro.  I bypassed the volume control and the input selector switch.  So it's a pure power amp not an integrated anymore.  It already had some teflon coupling caps installed by the previous owner, but the output caps were crap so I dropped some .22uf Jupiter Copper Foil Wax Paper caps instead.  I also replaced the good-but-not-great RCA and Sylvania input tubes with Tung Sols (best sounding tubes around IME).

Oh man, it now sounds as good as it looks.  Beautiful:

[corndog71]

Tyson, you inspired me to check out the Jupiter caps on my custom-made VTA M125 monoblocks.  I heard an immediate increase in soundstage.  Singers seemed to have dropped back a few more feet.  But at the same time something was off.  I'm sure they just need to break in.  Not looking forward to breaking them in but at the same time appreciating the positives now. 


Untitled 

[HT cOz]

Looking great

[Tyson]

Tyson, you inspired me to check out the Jupiter caps on my custom-made VTA M125 monoblocks.  I heard an immediate increase in soundstage.  Singers seemed to have dropped back a few more feet.  But at the same time something was off.  I'm sure they just need to break in.  Not looking forward to breaking them in but at the same time appreciating the positives now. 


Untitled 

Yes, they take about 500 hours to fully burn in.  Some things sound immediately better (details, clarity), other things will sound wonky for the first 100 hours or so.  The Jupiters are weird, thy go from sounding very open, to very muffled (but still smooth), to gritty, to harsh, and you're thinking "wait, I paid how much for these things????"  But once you get through that, you're still not done!  Because from hour 100 to around hour 200 they stop sounding actively bad and now sound actively mediocre.  You'll spend a lot of time thinking "Wait, these caps aren't bad but they certainly aren't great, they sound kinda meh".  Push through that.  After 200 hours they start to improve and they just keep getting better and better and better till around 500 hours then they level out. 

Only caps I've had that were as bad for burn in were the old Black Gate electrolytics that were used in power supplies.  Those took forever too and they would sound downright nasty at times. 

Anyway, you might want to put in some cheap tubes in your amps during the burn in process.   I keep several Sovtek, Svetlana, new production Tung Sol tubes around for just this purpose. 

Oh, and nice amps!  I have the stereo version of those amps, they sound great.  I imagine the monos sound even better!

[SoCalWJS]

Congrats John.

Thanks Sunil! Really looking forward to these.

[SoCalWJS]

Congrats!!  You are going to LOVE those speakers. I think this brings us up to 8 official Super 7 Owners in this thread now

And Happy Birthday Danny!!!

Thanks Tyson! Love your new Amps. I'd love to have the ability to try some SET's with these at some point. I heard a Demo at one of the shows where they had an Amp that was capable pf being switched in and out of SET mode. More power (bass especially noticeable), but the mids and highs were just soooo much better in SET mode.

[SoCalWJS]

Congrats  John 

Happy  birthday  Danny   

jay

Thanks Jay! Love all the hard work you've done with Danny on trying to bring these out in Kit form. I think they're pretty special speakers.

[Captainhemo]

Thanks Tyson! Love your new Amps. I'd love to have the ability to try some SET's with these at some point. I heard a Demo at one of the shows where they had an Amp that was capable pf being switched in and out of SET mode. More power (bass especially noticeable), but the mids and highs were just soooo much better in SET mode.

I think don may be considering  letting these go to a  new home.  The designer  chimes in   regarding them in this  thread...
https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=146403.msg1566535#msg1566535

jay

[Tyson]

Thanks Tyson! Love your new Amps. I'd love to have the ability to try some SET's with these at some point. I heard a Demo at one of the shows where they had an Amp that was capable pf being switched in and out of SET mode. More power (bass especially noticeable), but the mids and highs were just soooo much better in SET mode.

That's the beauty of the Super 7 design - since the bass is always handled by the superb active section, you are free to choose a smaller, more refined, more beautiful amp for the mids/highs.  The reason most "reference level" tube amps are so expensive is because they have to be over-built in order to drive the bass in a full range speaker.  Since your new Super 7 speakers don't need any bass at all from the tube amp, you can get reference level performance in a much smaller and less expensive main amp. 

That, plus the 97 db efficiency and the flat 8 ohm impedance make the Super 7 just about the most tube-friendly speaker load around   Seriously, you will never ever need more than 30 good tube watts with this design.  Hell I can get pretty damn loud with just 1.5 watts from my Korneff 45.  I would never have believed it if I hadn't experience it in my own system over the past few months.  Anyway, you're at the beginning of a VERY fun audio journey  

[corndog71]

Danny,  I noticed in your old pic of the Super 7's you have your big blue amps there.  Even though they are pretty efficient, can they handle that kind of power?  I was just wondering since my tube amps are around 140w/ch.  I also have a 60w/ch stereo tube amp I can use.  I only bring this up because Tyson seems content with way less power.

[Danny Richie]

Danny,  I noticed in your old pic of the Super 7's you have your big blue amps there.  Even though they are pretty efficient, can they handle that kind of power?  I was just wondering since my tube amps are around 140w/ch.  I also have a 60w/ch stereo tube amp I can use.  I only bring this up because Tyson seems content with way less power.

They sounded great with those amps, but I had plenty of power to spare. Nothing wrong with having a lot of power. It's just a lot more expensive to produce a lot of power cleanly.

[Tyson]

Hey Danny, I've noticed that with the Super 7 Neo 10 drivers, it's not really necessary to limit the low frequencies that you send to them - they sound fine and they don't get damaged, even when sending very loud/dynamic full frequency signals to them. 

Why is that?  With other speakers, it's often necessary to high pass the midrange driver or the driver can get damaged - what is it about the Neo 10's that makes them not need that?

[Danny Richie]

Hey Danny, I've noticed that with the Super 7 Neo 10 drivers, it's not really necessary to limit the low frequencies that you send to them - they sound fine and they don't get damaged, even when sending very loud/dynamic full frequency signals to them. 

Why is that?  With other speakers, it's often necessary to high pass the midrange driver or the driver can get damaged - what is it about the Neo 10's that makes them not need that?

Drivers have mechanical limits and thermal limits.

The Neo 10's simply run out of mechanical travel pretty easily and simply can't move enough air to produce lower ranges. And unlike cone drivers they won't bottom out or beat themselves up if driven too hard in a lower range. The diaphragm will move as far as it can and that's it. So they just physically won't play down very low.

And each driver can handle about ten watts or so with a full range signal without hurting them at all. Times four drivers they'll be playing pretty loud before they are even being driven hard.

Limiting the low end signal does help a little and minimizes diaphragm movement. You guys just aren't playing them hard enough for it to matter too much.

Thermally they can handle 100 watts each easily and continuously if the power is clean. 

[Tyson]

Drivers have mechanical limits and thermal limits.

The Neo 10's simply run out of mechanical travel pretty easily and simply can't move enough air to produce lower ranges. And unlike cone drivers they won't bottom out or beat themselves up if driven too hard in a lower range. The diaphragm will move as far as it can and that's it. So they just physically won't play down very low.

And each driver can handle about ten watts or so with a full range signal without hurting them at all. Times four drivers they'll be playing pretty loud before they are even being driven hard.

Limiting the low end signal does help a little and minimizes diaphragm movement. You guys just aren't playing them hard enough for it to matter too much.

Thermally they can handle 100 watts each easily and continuously if the power is clean. 

Interesting!  So, 10 watts per panel, with 4 panels that's 40 watts continuous (not peaks!) before they even start to sweat.  Hmm, lets see how loud that is.  Since they're 97db efficient, 1 watt is making 97db at 1 meter.  2 watts is 100db.  4 watts is 103db.  8 watts is 106db.  16 watts is 109db.  32 watts is 112db.  So 40 watt is around 113db.  Continuous!!!  Holy shit!

Yeah, you are right, I'm not playing them anywhere near their limits

[Danny Richie]

Interesting!  So, 10 watts per panel, with 4 panels that's 40 watts continuous (not peaks!) before they even start to sweat.  Hmm, lets see how loud that is.  Since they're 97db efficient, 1 watt is making 97db at 1 meter.  2 watts is 100db.  4 watts is 103db.  8 watts is 106db.  16 watts is 109db.  32 watts is 112db.  So 40 watt is around 113db.  Continuous!!!  Holy shit!

Yeah, you are right, I'm not playing them anywhere near their limits

Yeah, but by 2 meters you're down 6db from the distance doubling.

That's still really loud.

[nrenter]

Danny,

Just curious...When you were designing the Super 7 (and / or redesigning the DIY version), why didn't you go with a thin vertical MM T MM arrangement to minimize baffle width (kinda like the wedgie)? Why the compact horizontal arrangement? Was there a sonic advantage or was it simply to better aesthetically sit atop the OB sub?

- Nicholas