That's how silly I felt accidentally shorting the active speaker outputs of my LF 100 to earth on the week end.
By the time I noticed things were not quite normal there was smell, there was smoke and 3 of the 4 resistors near the fuses black beyond recognition with virtually a China syndrome through my PCB. Just a lump of charcoal where they formally rested which crumbled away to carbon dust.
Sunday afternoon ruined, I shot an email to Hugh fearing the worst. Without hesitation he invited me over . Into the car and down the hill to Hugh's ever welcoming arms with 2 kids on toe I went. I could see from what he did not say what he was actually thinking .The damage looked bad but was probably worse with the output stages likely fried as well.
To my surprise (and Hugh's?) 3 small resistors , 2 fuses and the amp was back in action, amazingly no other damage (though my pride will take a lot longer to recover from such a stupid act)
Despite being exposed to such brutal abuse - essentially a straight wire across the output terminals going to earth for considerable time - this great amp survived with minimal damage and virtually no cost to repair.
This is one fine amp but it is one damn tough reliable one as well. Probably nothing to do with excellent design?
ha ha ha!
Above all I have to mention my gratitude to Hugh's welcoming approach and ever helpfull attitude.
But all was not pain.
I had a taste of the refined version of his new speakers and the Soraya while there.
Suffice to say I went away smiling
Its probably not that hard to get detail, smoothness and beautiful sound out of good modern well designed ups these days. But all day I have been thinking
about something else, something special this combination did, something to do with the sound staging side to side and back and forward. Something holographic, or maybe I should no use that term as it implies some degree of artificiality. Something real may be a better term to describe what I heard and has lingered in my memory all day today.
I am not saying this is definitely the best sound there is, that is just a subjective judgement and rings allarm bells when I hear others make such claims, but there are some rare systems which are special and then there is the rest.
One must at least listen to this combination if you are not afraid of getting on the upgrade path again, because you surely will!
