[guest1632]

Frank, I want to tread very carefully in my response to your post. I do not want to get into an audiophile pi$$ing contest. In my particular case it is primarily a matter of economics and feasibility WRT my living space. If you are familiar with the Diapasons you will know they work best with two separate speaker cable runs per channel, as each channel is a mid/high frequency module and a low end dual woofer cabinet. Living space problems aside (although they make this a non-starter from the get go), I know ...

Hi Tony,

Yep, I rmember hearing the first Shahinian speakers. I was living with a guy at the time who sold them out of his house along with Bedini. So John had come over quite frequently. He brought over this little amp that he said put out about 25 watts. We all agreed that this little giantkiller trounsed his big amp. I don't remember whether it was the 100 150 or 250. I just remember they all got very hot due to being Class A. So much for the archives.  

Anyway, I would suggest that you buy the VanOlsteen amp, and see how it does with what you have. You have 30 days, of total satisfaction. Then if you have to do the cable thing, well, ok.  I can guarantee you one thing, the Van Olsteen amps aren't as big as the Bedini. That might count in your favor as far as the Wife Acceptance Factor goes. I think, if memory serves me right, Frank has some samples built in other types of cabinets. That's something to discuss with him.

Ray

[tonyptony]

I appreciate all your input, Ray.

From your description you may have been listening to the old 25/25. I actually had one of those for a while. I rebuilt it with better caps, wires, etc. It was maybe the sweetest sounding transistor amp I ever heard. Used it to drive my Obelisks. Didn't have enough grunt when I moved to the Diapasons. Should have never gotten rid of it.

[skrivis]

Frank, I want to tread very carefully in my response to your post. I do not want to get into an audiophile pi$$ing contest. In my particular case it is primarily a matter of economics and feasibility WRT my living space. If you are familiar with the Diapasons you will know they work best with two separate speaker cable runs per channel, as each channel is a mid/high frequency module and a low end dual woofer cabinet. Living space problems aside (although they make this a non-starter from the get go), I know ...

Which is why I suggested an AVA preamp or line driver. It's probably the least expensive solution to your dilemma.

You have long ICs, and this, combined with the input impedance of your amp, presents a nasty load for your current preamp.

You can either shorten the IC run (which doesn't sound like an option), raise the amp input impedance (which an AVA Ultra amp will do), or you can get something that will drive the ICs better.

I do suspect that an Ultra amp would be the best solution, but it's also more expensive. In fact, you can get an OmegaStar amp _and_ preamp for less than just an Ultra amp. (Which would be my recommendation actually, but it didn't seem like you wanted to replace everything.)

[tonyptony]

Which is why I suggested an AVA preamp or line driver. It's probably the least expensive solution to your dilemma.

skrivis, I guess I'm a little confused by this. The AVA preamps are nice, without a doubt, but with the same length of IC I don't understand how it will change the impedance / reactance being seen at the input of the amp, which its input stage seems not to be able to handle?

[guest1632]

I appreciate all your input, Ray.

From your description you may have been listening to the old 25/25. I actually had one of those for a while. I rebuilt it with better caps, wires, etc. It was maybe the sweetest sounding transistor amp I ever heard. Used it to drive my Obelisks. Didn't have enough grunt when I moved to the Diapasons. Should have never gotten rid of it.

Hi Tony,

I had the little Class A A25. He had just come out with the big amps. This was like 1981. I don't think he ever put the little amp that several of us got to hear in production. It was just an experiment. Anyway, don't want to hijack this thread any further. Thank you Fank Van Olstine for the bandwadth.

Say, Frank, a question for you. Since the Omegastars seem to get better over time, approximately 200 to 300 hours as a guess, does that same reasoning apply here to the SS preamps too? I did ask this before, but never got an answer.

Ray

[guest1632]

Which is why I suggested an AVA preamp or line driver. It's probably the least expensive solution to your dilemma.

skrivis, I guess I'm a little confused by this. The AVA preamps are nice, without a doubt, but with the same length of IC I don't understand how it will change the impedance / reactance being seen at the input of the amp, which its input stage seems not to be able to handle?

Both sets of amps and preamps seem to be centerjistic with each other.

[avahifi]

Please consider that the price of the cable has nothing to do with my essay above.  The problem is capacitance in a long interconnect cable, and unfortunately, some of the most expensive cables are the worse capacitive loads.

Its hard to get into a p---ing contest with a capacitor meter

Frank Van Alstine

[skrivis]

Which is why I suggested an AVA preamp or line driver. It's probably the least expensive solution to your dilemma.

skrivis, I guess I'm a little confused by this. The AVA preamps are nice, without a doubt, but with the same length of IC I don't understand how it will change the impedance / reactance being seen at the input of the amp, which its input stage seems not to be able to handle?

It isn't the input stage of the amp, but the input impedance. An amp like the Utra has a very high input impedance, and that reduces problems with your long ICs and the output stage on your preamp.

An AVA line driver or preamp (OmegaStar or Ultra) will have a much beefier output stage than your current preamp, so they'll drive the long ICs and your power amp better.

However, as Frank points out, capacitance becomes a problem with long ICs. So it's best to use short ICs and long speaker cables. You're into fancy (expensive) wires though, and I didn't want to get involved in persuading you otherwise.

[tonyptony]

Hi Tony,

I had the little Class A A25.

So Ray, to get this back on to an AVA track, how good is your audio memory? Can you take a stab at describing what Frank's amps sound like in comparison to the Bedini "house" sound?

[guest1632]

Hi Tony,

I had the little Class A A25.

So Ray, to get this back on to an AVA track, how good is your audio memory? Can you take a stab at describing what Frank's amps sound like in comparison to the Bedini "house" sound?

To be fair, haven't heard Frank's stuff. But I would think that Frank's amps would sound better than Bedini's stuff. I sure wish he had brought out the diode amp. the bass was extremely fast and lean. I don't remember anything else now. It's been 20 years or so. He did tell me I'd never forget that bass though.

Like I said, you ought to try the Ava gear and let me know how it sounds.

Ray

[tonyptony]

I think you would be really happy with a Fet Valve Ultra 350 amplifier.  It has a 1 meg ohm input impedence and could care less about the length or the interconnect to it or the output impedence of the preamp driving it.

Frank, I spoke to my friend who has an older 550HC (?). Still as happy as a clam. One remaining very important thing to find out. If you are not familiar with my Diapasons, they are a - I don't want to say satellite - multipiece system. The low frequency driver on each channel is a pair of paralleled transmission line woofers. It has an easy phase characteristic, but the low end on each channel presents a nominal impedance of about 2.3 ohms. My friend does not have these so I don't know whether this would present some kind of problem for either the 350 or 550. Please advise.

[avahifi]

Any of our larger amplifiers (OmegaStar 260 and up, solid state or hybrid) will drive 2 ohm loads with no problems at all.  Power will be limited by the size of the speaker fuses used, and going bigger than 5 amp quick blow speaker fuses risks melting speaker parts and is not normally recommended.

However the dips in impedance of many speakers presents no problems at all to our amplifiers.

The interaction of the input to the amplifier mentioned above probably means that amplifier does not like a big capacitor (long interconnect cable) tied across its input circuits.  That is kind of a strange design.  An amplifier should not care what the load at its input jacks is.  Again, a short interconnect cable would be suggested in this case.

Frank Van Alstine