Pictures of my rig with Omega Speakers

charmerci · « **Reply #200 on:** 2 Aug 2017, 05:23 pm »

Quote from: DaveC113 on 2 Aug 2017, 04:02 pm

Great article, Jorgen! I think it conveys the experience very well.

I read it using Google translate, it makes a lot of mistakes but it's not hard to decipher the meaning.

It did have mistakes - but damn, it was pretty good for me!

jorgen · « **Reply #201 on:** 2 Aug 2017, 07:34 pm »

The chapter at the end called "Slik lyder det" ( This is how it sounds) is a description of the sound. It's a bit difficult to translate because he uses wordplay. Rørende lekkert, is an example. Tubes are called "rør" in Norwegian, but "rørende" also has a meaning that would translate to something that gives an emotional experience. Maybe tubealiscius (not a word I guess) would be the best way to translate his meaning

Cheese-burger · « **Reply #202 on:** 2 Jun 2018, 07:18 am »

Took delivery of my SAM last month after an excruciating 10 weeks wait. What else can I say except it is worth every minute of wait.

My setup is SoTM SMS-200 > Chord Qutest > LTA MZ-2 > First Watt F7 > SAM

roscoe65 · « **Reply #203 on:** 2 Jun 2018, 01:37 pm »

Beautiful Cheeseburger!

There are a number of Omega owners who gravitate toward the same equipment brands. Chord, LTA, and Firstwatt seem to be among them. Peter is now running a Firstwatt J2 into SAM’s. I own a pair of SAM’s that are near-identical to yours (except in Zebrawood, which is gorgeous but not as gorgeous as your Ebony), a Firstwatt F3 Clone, and one of my DAC’s is a Chord Mojo (absolute giant killer. Anyone who wants to start building a system on a budget should start with this as a DAC/HP AMP/Preamp and build from there).

The SAM really punches above its weight. While I am driving mine with either Firstwatt designs or single ended tubes (Dennis Had or custom 421A) right now, news about Chord’s upcoming Hugo TT2 may have me rethinking my system architecture. We’ve read about the headphone guys using SAM’s or CAM’s driven directly from the Dave or Hugo2 with great success. The Dave puts out about 2 wpc while the Hugo 2 puts out about half that. The new Hugo TT 2 combines the Hugo2 architecture with a new capacitor power supply and outputs d7.5 wpc! Estimated street price is north of $4,000.

hibuckhobby · « **Reply #204 on:** 2 Jun 2018, 06:31 pm »

Get behind me Satan!

jmolsberg · « **Reply #205 on:** 28 Jun 2018, 12:10 am »

Thought I'd share a few pics of my setup. Happy listening

dapoun · « **Reply #206 on:** 28 Jun 2018, 09:03 pm »

Took delivery of my SAMs a few weeks ago. I was very fortunate because, Louis delivered them himself. Surprisingly large for a monitor, but nonetheless gorgeous! The finish is hand rubbed natural cherry.

pursuitofnow · « **Reply #207 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 12:44 am »

Love all these new posts! Some great looking and I'm sure sounding setups. Here is a pic of my new speakers I received about a month ago. Absolutely love them!

guf · « **Reply #208 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 01:35 am »

OK I'll play. Here's my new to me 3i in my desktop system. I've been talking to Louis about building a desktop speaker but then these came up in the used section. I had to get them. My fourth pair of Omegas but 2nd in my home now. I love them. I need all of them.

peckjed · « **Reply #209 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 01:56 am »

Quote from: dapoun on 28 Jun 2018, 09:03 pm

Took delivery of my SAMs a few weeks ago. I was very fortunate because, Louis delivered them himself. Surprisingly large for a monitor, but nonetheless gorgeous! The finish is hand rubbed natural cherry.

I believe I heard those last time I was at his shop - great sounding speakers! Did you get the sound anchors through him as well? I've got SAM HO's with sound anchor type stands as well.

tdogzthmn · « **Reply #210 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 02:36 am »

Evening session with the Junior 8's.

Cheese-burger · « **Reply #211 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 09:01 am »

Made an change in amp for the SAM. Sold the MicroZOTL & F7 combo and got meself a Leben CS300XS
Source is still an SoTM SMS-200 into Chord Qutest

Christmas came early when a friend carted his EAR V12 and Air Tight ATC-2 preamp and ATM-1S power amp to try with the SAM
We were very pleasantly surprised how well the SAM scaled with both the EAR and Air Tight combo. Louis definitely makes some amazing speakers

jmolsberg · « **Reply #212 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 11:35 am »

Quote from: tdogzthmn on 29 Jun 2018, 02:36 am

Evening session with the Junior 8's.

what a great album! i've probably spun it 1000 times

oskar · « **Reply #213 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 01:31 pm »

And what album is it?

uncola · « **Reply #214 on:** 29 Jun 2018, 03:22 pm »

Radiohead king of limbs. Surprised you sold the microzotl and f7 combo.. that sounds like a good setup

Cheese-burger · « **Reply #215 on:** 30 Jun 2018, 01:27 am »

Quote from: uncola on 29 Jun 2018, 03:22 pm

Radiohead king of limbs. Surprised you sold the microzotl and f7 combo.. that sounds like a good setup

It sounded good but something was missing. The combo was a little to illuminated and slightly thin for me.
It was not till a friend brought his Leben over did I know what I was missing. Finally understood why so many Omega owners pair them with tube amps.

RDavidson · « **Reply #216 on:** 30 Jun 2018, 02:27 am »

I have found, generally, that Omegas sound best with single ended class A amps (both solid state and tubes). Not making a blanket statement, just my observation. The F7 is push pull class A (I owned this amp, among about a dozen other Pass & First Watt amps over the last 4-5 years). It's a wonderful amp, but perhaps has too much grip for speakers that are benign loads (like Omegas). My favorites, among Nelson's creations are the F3, J2, XA25, and XA30.8. The F3 and J2 are both single ended class A all the way. With Pass amps, the first few watts (depending on model) are single ended class A, then push pull after that, then slide to class A/B under more extreme conditions. Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread, but couldn't help joining the conversation regarding the F7.

uncola · « **Reply #217 on:** 30 Jun 2018, 08:43 am »

I too had the f7 and it was the best amp I had for mids and treble.. so sweet sounding. but something about the bass or Dynamics was missing.. I'm used to more powerful class ab or class d amps.. but my speakers were only 85 db sensitive. I assumed a more sensitive speaker like the SAM wouldn't have that issue with it. Maybe it's a class a or low power amp issue in general.. if only I had unlimited funds to experiment and find out for sure. Just need to borrow a 100 watt fully class a pass labs or krell amp to know for sure

timind · « **Reply #218 on:** 30 Jun 2018, 10:55 am »

Quote from: guf on 29 Jun 2018, 01:35 am

OK I'll play. Here's my new to me 3i in my desktop system. I've been talking to Louis about building a desktop speaker but then these came up in the used section. I had to get them. My fourth pair of Omegas but 2nd in my home now. I love them. I need all of them.

Lookin good. What is the amp below the desk?

roscoe65 · « **Reply #219 on:** 30 Jun 2018, 12:38 pm »

Quote from: RDavidson on 30 Jun 2018, 02:27 am

I have found, generally, that Omegas sound best with single ended class A amps (both solid state and tubes). Not making a blanket statement, just my observation. The F7 is push pull class A (I owned this amp, among about a dozen other Pass & First Watt amps over the last 4-5 years). It's a wonderful amp, but perhaps has too much grip for speakers that are benign loads (like Omegas). My favorites, among Nelson's creations are the F3, J2, XA25, and XA30.8. The F3 and J2 are both single ended class A all the way. With Pass amps, the first few watts (depending on model) are single ended class A, then push pull after that, then slide to class A/B under more extreme conditions. Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread, but couldn't help joining the conversation regarding the F7.

I will concur with RDavidson in my limited experience. I own Omega speakers in three different configurations, and they all favor a similar type of amplifier: single ended. I’ve used Tripath (upgraded Sonic Impact), PP Class A/B (Redwine Audio), SET/SEP (Dennis Had and Oliver Sayes), and SS SE (DIY FIrstwatt). Power has ranged from 4wpc to 32wpc. With all speakers, I had more power than I needed.

In order of sound preference in my system:

1. Dennis Had Inspire PSE amp. This is a little unfair, since this is a pretty special piece of gear. This is a parallel SEP amp that will run just about any Pentode or Beam Power tube you can fit into (or adapt to) the sockets, plug and play. The amp has tremendous grip in the bass without sacrificing SE magic. It is also very tunable by swapping output tubes. Right now I am rotating sets of 6F6 (10wpc) and KT77 (20wpc) tubes.

2. Oliver Sayes 421A SET. Again, this isn’t really fair since this is a custom build of Don Garber’s 421A circuit by a talented custom builder with a great ear. This amp puts out 4.5wpc and with an input sensitivity of 0.65V it can be run directly from just about any source. It has an Alps pot and single input and vintage Jensen PIO coupling caps.

3. DIYAudio/Nelson Pass Amp Camp Amp (kit). This one is a no-brainer. This kit sells out almost immediately when it becomes available and is very easy to build. It is a SE MOSFET stereo amp that outputs 8wpc with the 24V PS. This amp gives an insight into the more expensive Pass/Firstwatt offerings and is better than most amps on the Omega’s. A great “entry level” system is a Amp Camp Amp ($325), Chord Mojo ($579) and Omega Super # Monitors ($695).

4. Tripath Amp. This is the slight more upscale Sonic Impact Deluxe from Parts Express. It’s still a cheap ($50) amp that sound surprisingly good. I haven’t put in any effort to improving this amp, though it responds well to reasonable upgrades (mostly PS). It was a little tizzy with my Omega Super 3’s when they had the Foster drivers, but actually sounds good with the RS5 drivers.

4. Class A/B Amp. Redwine Audio Signature 16. This is a beautifully built amp that sounds great, just mot with Omega speakers. It is battery powered, tube-buffered, with a class A/B amp putting out 16wpc into 8 ohms or 32wpc into 4 ohms. This amp had the worst match with my Super 3 HO monitors. I think the slightly lower impedance in the bass range actually gave me too much midbass power. I think the rising impedance of single drivers is also not well-suited to this amp, producing a rolled off top end. I do think this amp would sound good with my Yamaha NS-690’s, but at this point in life I am running out of time and space to test different configurations.

Other thoughts: I also own a DIY Firstwatt F3 “kit” that remains unassembled. It is a bit more daunting than the Amp Camp kit, since it comprises USA boards and parts. This is alleged to be one of the best sounding of the Firstwatt amps within its power limitations. Others seem to gravitate to the J2 for Omega’s. I would imagine the SIT series might be the best of the lot for these speakers.