Some weeks ago, a second 600R arrived to join its lovely twin. Thanks to the phase inverter option in my AVA preamp (Avastar), I was able to set these up as monoblocks, essentially obtaining something like triple the power of a 600R.
Now it's not as if I really needed that extra power. Through the 15" Tannoys, the volume knob rarely gets to 9 o'clock--and that's with a generous helping of digital equalization, without which even 8 o'clock is starting to get kinda loud.
So as far as I can tell, the monoblock setup is not really supplying
needed extra power. And yet, there is something about walking as far away from the speakers as possible, putting the knob around 10 or 11 o'clock and experiencing that. Here it's always a brief experiment.
Another brief experiment is that Mahler moment, when the relatively quiet orchestra summons up a collective effort and the decibels scale up fast and solid. With the monoblocks, there's that extra bit of confidence that, well, no straining will take place
before the signal reaches the loudspeakers.
Now, onto the real reason to even do this. As bloody excellent as things are with a single 600R, they get a bit better with two. I think the official terms for this effect are lower noise floor, greater stereo separation and stronger bass control. Yes, I would say it's true. It's ridiculous, since one already gets very healthy helpings of all that from a 600R (and the phase inverter even allows the noise floor lowering with a single amp). Nonetheless, the effect seems to be there.
Obligatory music listening reference with the 1800R: I'm listening to Abbado conducting the Wiener bunch through Mahler's 4th (von Stade sings the last movement). I've been listening to this recording since I discovered a couple of decades ago that the CSUN library would let you listen to their CDs through their headphones and DAC while you read whatever functional analysis book you could find on the shelves (our California tax dollars at some of their best work). This particular CD is beyond memorized for me, I feel that a good geneticist might find it in my chromosomes by now. Well, yes, it's true, even with this little bit of a euphonic bit of nothing that Mahler put together just because he felt like making something pretty, even here one can hear new harmonic nuances in the resonance of background strings, a further level of sharpness, definition and spatial correctness in the percussion section... all of which leads to greater layering in what is already a very well-layered musical experience.
Is it worth the $$$? Well, I had an extra 550 sittin' 'round doing nuthin' so I felt a kind of "moral obligation" to do it. If eternal salvation came at the cost of living with a single 600R then I would sign on the bloody dotted line without a moment's thought, but if the price is somewhat lower than that, hmmm...
One thing is clear--now that they're both plugged in, there's no way I'm breaking them up. These 600R are joined at the phase-inverted hip from now on.
<sigh> It's a familiar tale by now, you probably know it by memory... things sound fantastic... you can't imagine how they could get better without major overhauls to your room, or a trip to the concert hall... then lo and behold, something gets upgraded and there was a bit of room at the top after all. Monoblocking the 600R into an 1800R will give you many such moments.
The nice thing about getting stuff from Frank & AVA is that you pretty much draw the experimentation line at your loudspeakers. Move them around, change them, it all produces variety and even improvement. But tracing things back from the amp to the preamp and the DAC, I find it really easy to just smile and think "well, no need to worry about those guys there, things are quite solid there".
Congrats Frank and crew, it's a lovely setup I've got here and it wouldn't have happened without ya.
