I'm conflicted in a good way....

medium jim · « **on:** 27 Feb 2013, 03:50 am »

As many of you guys know, I'm an obnoxious Bottlehead, a few weeks ago I had my old dinosaur BGW 500D SS amp tweaked by a good friend of mine who chooses to remain anonymous, to make it sound like my Marantz 9's. I got them back last week and am totally blown away as he nailed it and have no idea what he has done and he refuses to tell me...you see, he is working on making his own amps and uses various makes as guinea pigs.

Anyway, the BGW now has the verve, openness of tubes and sounds like my 9's, but with about 450 watts per channel in 4ohm. I have both serious slam, but with all the refinement and detail at any volume. I feel a little embarrassed as I have dissed SS, but now have an SS amp that kicks ass and still sounds like what I love, truly conflicted in a good way. They sure make my Maggie's sing in a good way....I'm sure that I will take some flack, but damn, I've owned some well regarded SS amps with more than enough power, but none did it for me....even the BGW was a 2nd fiddle amp until recently.

Jim

medium jim · « **Reply #1 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 05:53 am »

What I forgot to mention was that there is no listening fatigue or glare, which was my main sore spot with SS.

Why am I posting this in the Planar Circle, because I do understand the need for lots of wattage if you go the SS road, but that you can live and love with less via stout tube amplification as well and I have both. Not bragging, just saying.

Jim

tull skull · « **Reply #2 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 06:09 am »

Congratulations Jim. I hope you will let us know more when your friend is close to releasing his own offering...

medium jim · « **Reply #3 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 06:37 am »

Quote from: tull skull on 27 Feb 2013, 06:09 am

Congratulations Jim. I hope you will let us know more when your friend is close to releasing his own offering...

Thanks, that's the plan. He's worked behind the scene for too long and it will be great if he can step into the limelight.

Jim

satie · « **Reply #4 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 08:13 am »

What you are describing is quite a feat. The only SS amps I know that don't glare and are not "dark" are Reich's designs for Classe and Theta, and Pass class A amps. The rest are priced so high it is impossible to consider them seriously. So we await your friend's commercial entries.

kevin360 · « **Reply #5 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 01:15 pm »

With such dinosaurs, I'd imagine just having the bias set would yield an improvement.

The curiosity would drive me nuts. I'd have to pop the covers and look for the changes. Anyway, that's really cool...and a little surprising to read. Use them for a week, then go back to the 9s and let us know what you think.

Rocket_Ronny · « **Reply #6 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 01:27 pm »

But do they image like tubes, with the 3D individual images?

Rocket_Ronny

THROWBACK · « **Reply #7 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 01:34 pm »

Has anyone tried the latest Sanders monoblocks on their planars: Maggies or ESL's?

SteveFord · « **Reply #8 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 01:39 pm »

It sounds like your friend did a recap and then the Bob Carver Stereophile Challange null trick.
As soon as they said the results were indistinguishable he slammed the amp in his car and burned rubber getting out of the parking lot.
See ya, whoo hoo!

Emsquare · « **Reply #9 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 01:56 pm »

Quote from: medium jim on 27 Feb 2013, 03:50 am

As many of you guys know, I'm an obnoxious Bottlehead, a few weeks ago I had my old dinosaur BGW 500D SS amp tweaked by a good friend of mine who chooses to remain anonymous, to make it sound like my Marantz 9's. I got them back last week and am totally blown away as he nailed it and have no idea what he has done and he refuses to tell me...you see, he is working on making his own amps and uses various makes as guinea pigs.

Anyway, the BGW now has the verve, openness of tubes and sounds like my 9's, but with about 450 watts per channel in 4ohm. I have both serious slam, but with all the refinement and detail at any volume. I feel a little embarrassed as I have dissed SS, but now have an SS amp that kicks ass and still sounds like what I love, truly conflicted in a good way. They sure make my Maggie's sing in a good way....I'm sure that I will take some flack, but damn, I've owned some well regarded SS amps with more than enough power, but none did it for me....even the BGW was a 2nd fiddle amp until recently.

Jim

No. No flack. I have a lot more to learn than I'll ever know about audio. It's still pretty cool though. If you are interested you can find the Bob Carver Stereophile Challenge article and it might give you a good idea as to a way to go about doing that. You can't completely duplicate the amplifier in question but you can suppress the differences down to -70 db or better if you are determined enough. And, of course, know how to manipulate the circuit. Lots of interesting snippets in the article. One that stuck out to me IIRC is that with a given stereo amplifier the difference between each channel is around -54 db.

Emsquare · « **Reply #10 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 02:06 pm »

Quote from: SteveFord on 27 Feb 2013, 01:39 pm

It sounds like your friend did a recap and then the Bob Carver Stereophile Challenge null trick.
As soon as they said the results were indistinguishable he slammed the amp in his car and burned rubber getting out of the parking lot.
See ya, whoo hoo!

Uh huh. I know the story you reference. Probably not as well though. It's actually kinda humorous now that we can reconsider it from todays perspective. He knew he was getting away with a little something or two. I don't hold it against him.

medium jim · « **Reply #11 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 03:05 pm »

Some interesting responses. No, I don't think it was any trickery or just a recap. The soundstage is different than tubes, but still wide and deep and the Maggie's disappear into music. It may be that in a week or so, I won't like them as much....I want to make it clear that I still like tubes better, but I also like the ability to have a choice of two, where both are enjoyable.

I agree that it is a feat to eliminate the glare with SS and I think that is what amazed me the most, this cannot be done with gimmicks. Hint: The guy primarily works on Guitar Amps....and that is probably saying too much.

Jim

Davey · « **Reply #12 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 04:24 pm »

I suspect you might find the difference with some before/after bench testing. A frequency response alteration similar to the Carver challenge maybe.

I'm assuming the basic topology remains the same and the active devices were not altered?

There is also the possibility that he didn't perform any changes but told you he did.

Cheers,

Dave.

medium jim · « **Reply #13 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 04:54 pm »

Quote from: Davey on 27 Feb 2013, 04:24 pm

I suspect you might find the difference with some before/after bench testing. A frequency response alteration similar to the Carver challenge maybe.

I'm assuming the basic topology remains the same and the active devices were not altered?

There is also the possibility that he didn't perform any changes but told you he did.

Cheers,

Dave.

Davey:

It definitely sounds different and can understand the skepticism. If it was someone I didn't know for nearly 20 years....I will leave it at that. The real test for me will be the soundstage, is it as transparent and as 3D as tubes.

Jim

SteveFord · « **Reply #14 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 04:57 pm »

Quote from: Davey on 27 Feb 2013, 04:24 pm

There is also the possibility that he didn't perform any changes but told you he did.
Dave.

Fiendishly clever!

I just walked Muttley and was thinking about Bob Carver.
He is one sharp cookie and what he was able to do was to produce powerful, lightweight, decent sounding amplifiers at a reasonable cost.
As TAS noted, he really changed the landscape with the big Phase Linear amps.
Tubes bring that holographic presentation which I suspect is why he spent so much time with his Sonic Holography feature for his preamps.
Now he's gone all tube so it will be interesting to see what his new preamp is going to be.

Sorry for the momentary derailment.

medium jim · « **Reply #15 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 05:27 pm »

Quote from: SteveFord on 27 Feb 2013, 04:57 pm

Fiendishly clever!

I just walked Muttley and was thinking about Bob Carver.
He is one sharp cookie and what he was able to do was to produce powerful, lightweight, decent sounding amplifiers at a reasonable cost.
As TAS noted, he really changed the landscape with the big Phase Linear amps.
Tubes bring that holographic presentation which I suspect is why he spent so much time with his Sonic Holography feature for his preamps.
Now he's gone all tube so it will be interesting to see what his new preamp is going to be.

Sorry for the momentary derailment.

Steve:

My preamp of choice is a Bottlehead Foreplay and my CDP also is tube, so maybe this is the synergy I need for the soundstage, plus the Maggie's. I will have to do some critical listening to know if the soundstage is as good as with the Model 9's. Right now, I like what I'm hearing and since I've known him (the tweaker) for almost 20 years, I feel confident that there is no chicanery going on....plus I know that he has been working on this project for a few years now.

Jim

Davey · « **Reply #16 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 06:11 pm »

Well, he won't tell you what he did, so there is (at least a little) chicanery going on.

I'm not a believer in "synergy," or some magical combination, of components. Each contributes to the overall sound, but if one is "weak" in a certain area and another "strong" in that area, the result might be good but it still means you have a "weakness" in one component.

Regardless, the basic point here is that decent performance is most likely attainable regardless of whether the component is solid-state or valve based. And from a decades old amplifier that was primarily targeted at the pro sound world.

Cheers,

Dave.

medium jim · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 07:06 pm »

Davey:

Why would he tell me or anyone for that matter, especially if it is something new or of his own invention or design? Howard Dumble who makes guitar amps actually puts a black resin over his circuits so they cannot be stolen or imitated.

I would have been better off to keep quiet as I knew there would be the naysayers and such. Look, I'm a skeptic as much as anyone, and by my history around here, know that a favor tubes over SS. For me to be impressed is saying a lot.

Jim

Davey · « **Reply #18 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 07:19 pm »

Who's nay-saying? I think you better read the comments (from everyone) again.

The comment regarding the BGW heritage was a compliment not a put down. Generally, folks in the pro-sound world have been light years ahead of the "high-end" audio industry for decades.

Cheers,

Dave.

medium jim · « **Reply #19 on:** 27 Feb 2013, 07:33 pm »

Quote from: Davey on 27 Feb 2013, 07:19 pm

Who's nay-saying? I think you better read the comments (from everyone) again.

The comment regarding the BGW heritage was a compliment not a put down. Generally, folks in the pro-sound world have been light years ahead of the "high-end" audio industry for decades.

Cheers,

Dave.

I don't know if that is the case, pro-sound being ahead of the field....I do know that the BGW 500D and 750 were designed for the movie Earthquake and supplanted the venerable Crown 350 as the amp of choice for movie theaters and the industry. It is built like a tank and while I thought it was tag boards, it is printed circuits. It was the first amp to actually have verified/documented RMS wattage back in the day of watt wars.

Jim