[James Romeyn]

I just plugged in for the first time yesterday what IMO is the best loudspeaker ever built by Brian: RM30C, MLS, Black Hole 5, CDW (standard now), 40 oz magnet 6.5s (standard now, was 24 oz), outboard xo in small Parts Express piano-black speaker cabinet, TRT caps, Stan Warren-recipe cable throughout.  EQ for the CDW includes removal of tweeter horn & xo mods to mids.  Brian now hand-tweeks each speaker xo in his soundroom. 

Also yesterday opened the new latest Pathos Classic One Mk 3 integrated .  Pathos is hybrid: input is 6922 tube class-A fully-balanced, volume is a laser-trimmed resistive-ladder network, output is sum total one pair MOSFETs per ch, 135 WRMS/ch @ 4-Ohms.  Mk 3 upgrades include a beefier transformer, new op-amp & selector switch, & WBT jacks & binding posts.  Pathos powers the ribbon array only; slight treble padding but NO midrange pad.  85 WRMS tube/MOSFET power  into a 90.5 dB waveguided ribbon array must be experienced.   

An ATI 1802 bipolar, 380 WRMS/ch @ 4-Ohms powers the 6.5s.  Though there have been other system changes I prefer its bass quality over my previous Sunfire 200-five amp (same power rating).

This shows the 3-sided bass-ceiling soffit on the rear & two side walls Only the front of the room has no ceiling soffit.  Wide horizontal blinds are now installed; sound seems best w/ blinds lowered & tilted up 45 degrees, apparently diffusing the reflections. 

Even w/ only a few hours on the Pathos this is a new reference level for me & beyond any reproduced sound I've experienced.  The performance level is staggering in every audiophile & musical category except for the bass (some wooliness but system has barely been tuned, the room's bass could use further improvements & the bass of the previous Pathos amp improved with burn-in).  Before tuning & calibrating speaker positions another listener said don't touch it because it could only get worse.

Brian said the Stan Warren recipe wire I supplied is too difficult to work with & the Bolder silver remains the top wire upgrade.  We agreed on the audible differences in the SW wire vs. the Bolder silver in the 40-Supermax from last week.  I won't comment publicly in deference & respect to Brian & Wayne of Bolder. 

I'm moving so anyone who wants to hear it has to get here within a few months.  If anyone has a hard-drive based CD system & wants to bring it over, I'd appreciate hearing a comparison between it & my TRL-modified Sony.  So far I've not heard anything better than the TRL.  The system has a volume control so the CD source does NOT need a variable output.


 

[BrunoB]

I'm moving so anyone who wants to hear it has to get here within a few months.

 

Hi Jim,

I think you are not living  very far away from San Franscisco.
I will be in SF during the next two weeks (the first week I will be busy attending the American Chemical Society fall meeting). Would it be possible to come over and listen to your "Best Ever VMPS speaker"?


Thanks,

Bruno

[Berndt]

Count me in if there is a get together.
I don't think a bog standard musica will best your modded sony but I will bring it for a reference.

[James Romeyn]

You guys are more than welcome.  You can come seperate days, no need to coordinate same days because my work schedule is flexible.  Just drop me a PM (or better yet email) & I'll forward my work days, which you can work around.

Even if priced the same, I'd personally place the two above amps (hybrid integrated & ss bipolar, $3900 MSRP/pr, 500 WRMS/ch total) over the Bruce Moore all-tube pre & 100W monos VMPS used at THE Show '06 (circa $14k, my previous favorites). 

The Moore gear was great.  It may have had a deeper center stage; hard to tell because of an RPTV (damped) between my speakers.  But the Pathos has a long way to go for complete burn-in.  The Pathos/ATI seem more dynamic, has a blacker/quieter background, quicker & more musical transients, is more detailed, has more transparency, & image placement & 3-dimensionality is startlingly stable & realistic.  Images are so realisic you can touch them.  I acknowledge that this comparison is somewhat invalid; T.H.E. Show pair had Auricaps, this pair is the most maxxed out 30s extant.     

With 500 W total, midrange L-pads bypassed, & treble L-pads barely attenuated, the Pathos/ATI's playback envelope must be significantly larger than the Bruce Moore 100W monos.

I really must thank Sam Tellig of Stereophile for his Pathos review, which is where I first was informed about the Pathos. 

My 2c.

[James Romeyn]

The '06 CES TAD exhibit was at least as good as this system...source was a hard drive playing a Boz Scaggs master, recorded at Boz' home on the same hard drive.  DAC was a Pacific Microsonics HDCD, about 6 to 8 of the biggest baddest class A Pass Labs amps, then TAD top-shelf home speakers, berrilyium mid & treble, $50-$100k range.  I cried hearing Boz sing My Funny Valentine w/ only his beautiful grand piano.  There could hardly be a better version of that song.

[mr_bill]

A couple of questions if you don't mind.

Which TRL cd player are you using Jim?
Also, have you tried any other Pathos integrated's?  The MK3 must be the new Classic One?
How is the ATI amp volume controlled?

Thanks,
Bill

[warnerwh]

Am glad to see you tried the hybrid route. You were correct that when you told me that if you haven't heard tubes on the Vmps planars you haven't heard them.

Running the Van Alstine amp with Mullards the sound on my RM 40's is so real I love it. With both the Blue Circle and the Van Alstine amplifiers the planars and ribbon tweeter have more body and depth. I don't see how an SS amp can duplicate it. I also don't hear anything I'd call a coloration due to the amplifier. The sound just seems more realistic to me.

I'm not familiar with the Pathos but with my Van Alstine amp the Mullard tubes are superior sounding to me than the stock Tesla's. I just tried putting the Tesla's back in to hear the difference again and they're just not as full or natural and they came right back out after re removing all 22 screws Frank saw fit to hold the cover on with .

Tyson however told me he ended up using Amperex tubes with his AVA, which I've not tried but do have, as he thought the Mullards were a tad too tubey. They don't sound tubey to me at all however. He's also running a tube pre though too. He's one of the reasons I tried the AVA amp as I know he'd gone through alot of gear before keeping this amp which I believe he's owned for a couple of years now.

Have you tried varous tubes yet? I know there's alot of tubes in the 6922,6dj8 and 7308 world to choose from.

I'm just glad you did it. The Pathos amps appear extremely well designed and user feedback on the net has been excellent. I'd been looking forward to see what you ended up with. Overall it's my opinion that some tubes be in the chain with our speakers. You were very very correct! Thanks

How about your room these days. Tell us how that has affected your sonics. Also What you did to the room, dimensions etc.

[James Romeyn]

A couple of questions if you don't mind.

Which TRL cd player are you using Jim?
Also, have you tried any other Pathos integrated's?  The MK3 must be the new Classic One?
How is the ATI amp volume controlled?

Thanks,
Bill

Bill
This TRL is a modded Sony DVD/SACD: DVP-NS900V, ca '02-'04, received from TRL 3/06, no tubes, no video circuits & stereo output only; SACD is maintained.  Hard to believe, but I agree w/ TRL that there is some type of amusical quality to SACD when it is compared on this deck playing Red Book.



I got stuck paying $450 just for a stock used Sony 900.  Word got out after THE Show about the sound & that pushed used prices up about 40% immediately thereafter.  But I made my mind up to get it based on experience so get it I did.  Brian Weitzel of TRL says it's improved from the vintage VMPS demo'd at THE Show, though I haven't A-B'd them.   

Yes, I just sold the Pathos Classic One Mk2 to get the Mk3.  Even though the speakers are the same general model, the OXO, TRT caps, wire & 40 oz woofs are such a big upgrade that it makes judging the Mk3 upgrade more difficult.  Still it seems significant: tranny, all-WBT in/out, op-amp, selector switch.  Certainly there is absolutely no apparent downside to the Mk3.  The is my favorite amp now, price no object, as long as it is paired w/ a good large SS bass amp. 

No Pathos pre-outs & no variable input on the ATI.  I'm using what Jack Elliano of Electra-Print transformers calls a "bridging circuit" to attenuate the speaker level down to a line level: Jack prescribed only a 10 k-Ohm audio-taper potentiometer.  I made two modifications: I utilize linear 100 k pots from Mouser.  Linear pots have better tracking accuracy vs. audio taper.  A 10 k-Ohm "law-faking” resistor is inserted between the wiper & earth, converting the pot effective value from 100 k to 10 k & converting the taper from linear to audio.  I of course treat the contacts internally w/ Caig ProGold, a priceless accessory.  I use one pot from each of 2 stereo controls, the two closest matched in value, thereby further increasing tracking accuracy. 

The pots are wired inside a small plastic box, w/ fishing weights at the bottom for ballast & some little feet made from Iso-damp.    The inputs are regular 5-way gold binding posts, the outputs are hard wired to go directly to the ATI amp.  Stan Warren wire recipe is used throughout except internally.  Internally the AWG 12 is too thick so I used AWG 18; only a few inches was employed.  The wire from the Pathos speaker outputs to the box is about 4-5’, the output wire is probably less than 1’ in length.  I did not solder anything to the binding posts but rather used the binding posts only as a mechanical junction point, as described earlier.  Later I will replace the gold binding posts w/ the plastic studs earlier described.

Hope that helps.
 

[James Romeyn]

Have you tried varous tubes yet? I know there's alot of tubes in the 6922,6dj8 and 7308 world to choose from.

The Pathos amps appear extremely well designed and user feedback on the net has been excellent.

How about your room these days. Tell us how that has affected your sonics. Also What you did to the room, dimensions etc.

Warner
I'm so thrilled w/ the sound now, & the Pathos is still burning in, plus I'm selling this house & buying another & moving, so tube rolling is about the last thing on my mind now....But sooner or later I'll probably try it, at which time I'll let you know & get some advice.  The system has seperate controls now for bass, mid & treble, making for a lot of choices to alter the sound.  Though I realize that changing tubes can affect many things in a unique way.  The amp has only 2 tubes (nice); I think they are 6922's but I'm not even sure.  I think one of the reason this amp sounds so good is because it has a simple circuit & only one pair of output MOSFETs per channel.

I built a huge ceiling soffit to control bass resonances.  It works very well.  More bass controls were planned, but they are history now because of the move.  We were going to build rear corner traps & one other unique idea Scott Mayo had which I can't disclose because it's proprietary & I am only licensed to employ it.

Bass is far smoother than it was, though it's still probably the single weakest link now.  Rather than build the two front diffusors & other plans from Scott, I employed my old complete original David Green Room Tunes treatment: 4 ceiling corner traps, 2 echo traps, 3 bass traps & 3 tall floor traps.  The floor traps are located one each side flanking the RPTV & one behind the centered listener.  The TV is covered for music sessions.  Speakers & listener are located per Scott's plan.  The system is so sensitive that I noticed a big improvement by lowering the wide horizontal blinds at the 2 windows flanking the listener on the rear wall, & tilting the shades up about 45 degrees.  The room is now totally symmetrical & this made a huge improvement.  I am convinced any non-symmetrical room feature such as a cutout or stairway or alcove is a very very bad thing. 

The sound is totally enveloping & great up to all but the very loudest levels.  I'm sure w/ all of Scott's plans employed the SPL could go higher w/o distress.  I just can't get over how revealing it is in all aspects, especially related to stage & image.  I noticed though, that no matter how long I listen, there is no fatigue & no tendency to daydream (hard to stop & get anything done).  And if I notice some cut isn't the best music, I may listen anyway just because the quality is so good & appealing to the ear.     

[warnerwh]

It's wonderful to hear that you have your system so well tuned. I'd love to hear someone else's system in a room that has been treated. A couple of people, John Casler being one, have mentioned that any reflections are not part of the recording. Of course this can get very complicated but I believe having a room on the damped side is the best idea. This is because I went from a bright room and worked my way incrementally, albeit in another room, to the room I have now. I'm just mentioning this because in your next home you will be very happy to take the time and money to get the best room acoustics you can, at least this is my firm position these days. I think room acoustics are way overlooked. Some room acoustics just don't cut it.

Don't know your budget or what kind of room you will have in your new house just that when I built this room my first intention had been to not waver on getting the best room acoustics I can. Actually I should have read more as I would have used rigid fiberglass instead of 4" wedge foam for the main damping as it would work better and look better too.

 Virtually everyone has been very impressed with the sound of my system. This includes someone who's ordered a competitors speaker that is very highly praised here. He obviously couldn't believe how good they sounded. Wow's are common, had a triple wow from a guy just Sunday.

The Pathos had been something I'd have like to try but is really out of my price range. The 6922 family tube swaps can have a dramatic effect for good or bad. There's alot to know when buying tubes in this family but many aren't very expensive and it's certainly something you should consider.

When it comes to volume I'm not sure what the RM 30's are actually capable of. The other day I pulled out my Rat Shack meter to see what kind of volume I listened to when cranked the beast up. I've been hitting peaks of 103-104db at the listening position 9' from the speakers. This tells me the Rotel 991 I'm running my woofers with was close to running out of power, at least in theory. Now I've got to get a more powerful bass amp although I almost never listen to my system at that level. I do believe in having plenty of headroom as it simply can't hurt.

In particular I'd been listening to Brian Bromberg's Wood cd. This has incredible bass playing with recording quality that is also excellent. I believe he uses about a 200 year old instrument. When I saw the meter hit over 100db it didn't seem that loud. If you happen to measure what you feel is very loud on the RM 30's I'd be curious to know.

Now you can choose a house with a place for your system. Btw I also put a triple layer ceiling up to combat sound from getting out of my room into the living room. It works great. I used soundboard, resilient channel, sheetrock and acoustic tile. This combination works very good indeed as I can listen to loud levels whenever I want. Only a bit of bass makes it to the living room. There's some new sheetrock these days that's designed to isolate sound and a couple of other avenues I'd do if I did it over again. Overall what I did though works well and I sure am not redoing it

Best of luck on selling and buying a new home. I hear real estate prices down there are incredibly high. You being one of those old people though probably have alot of equity in your present home, just kidding about the old part . Best wishes on your move however.