In light of the wonderful posts on Louis's new creations vis a vis the Hemp drivers and cabinets I take you back to an earlier OMEGA creation which still shows signs of evolution and even a bit of wonder even two years after initial installation.
Background
My listening room is an all in one living room, playroom, TV room with attched dining alcove. The room is very bright and hard sounding with large picture windows directly behind the listening position and to the left in the dining area. Too bright in fact and I have recently been thinking about waf acceptable room treatment. The listening seat is approximately 10-12 feet from the super threes mounted on the lovely sklyan stands. The speakers are not in an ideal set up; they flank a large tv cabinet, about a foot from the back wall. The right speaker is in a corner and the left wide open to a hall. I sometimes will pull them out further from the back wall to enhance soundstanging and imaging-two areas which are low priorities for me. TONE is King. I augment bass of the super threes with a TBI magellan, with the TBI amp/xover set at about 60-70 depending on my mood.
The room is bit larger then I would like for the super threes, but Im in a NYC apt, with twin toddlers so options for placement, listening position a decor are limited. No OB's or larger hemp floorstanders allowed. The super threes are a custom maghony veneer which LC matched to the tv cabinet with master skill. (They are an upgrade over the standard Fostex driver cab, which I loved in the artic blue). Ive had a lot of speakers in this room
SOURCE
Source is an oppo dvd player, heavily modded by Wayne at Bolder, fed via Vh audio digital cable to a classis meitner bitstream dac, also heavily modded by John Wright. Pre amp is a joule electra la 100, speaker cable and Ics are the great reality stuff from Gregg Straley.
ALNICOS IN FACE OF THE HEMP REVOLUTION
So after this long winded introduction here is the point of this post. One of my lovely , 30 Watt, SET, mega buck monoblocks had a little glitch recently. So I threw a decades old counterpoint hybrid amp (maybe $400 used) into the system and just for fun added a vintage pilot 216A preamp (restored by ryan at Hot Glass Audio). So miracle on micracles, the heretofore totally audio-uninterested wife comes into the room not once but 3x over a 12 hour period, and starts dancing and asking about the music being player. This has not happened in years.
Stated simply, the system is singing in a way Ive never heard. Bass is forceful, mids are rich and creamy, there is PRAT up the ying yang. The positives are consistent on a wide variety of music, a crappy sounding old nina simone live recording, vintage greatful dead, chris issaak, tom petty, even the wiggles. Its "all good". My too lively room seems to have taken a break and relaxed. Make no mistake, i have had incidents of wow the guitar player is in my room when using the all joule electra set. But this is another different feel. The sound simply flows out to you in that way only a single driver can. Kinda like real music. The detail is spectacular. Downsides yup...but thats not the point of this post.
So im confused, exhilerated, happy and looking sadly at the monoblocks in that funny way. Im in no rush to take them for a check up.
How can a speaker designed for lower power, jump up and take on a whole new personality with a 100 watt, older design which utilizes a cheapo captive power cord? Hard to say, the super threes did not sound this good with a pair of 100 watt, meitner mtr 101 monoblocks, to date the only SS design i was ever able to live with for a long time.
I know its not the pre amp, as the pilot is a very underrated piece, its not tubey, euphonic or glowing in the way you might think. Just the opposite. Plus it sports nos teles, which are not the creamy mullard sounding tubes.
Is it the power alone? do the ALNIcos crave power in a way the standard fostex and hemps dont? Is the counterpoint just an underappreciated little amp?
Maybe my room is a bit too large for the narrow threes, and the counterpoint has somehow made up for this. Dont know? Love to hear thoughts and opinions
Have I stumbled onto some of that magical "synergy" often thrown about by reviewers? Could be?
Ive used a lot of equip. with these speakers, from vintage williamson kt 66 monoblocks, to fisher and dynaco tube integrateds. Never have they sounded this good.
So folks what do you think. Up next is a omega/red wine sig 30. will this be step forward??? What a crazy hobby? Just when i thought id be done tinkering my audio universe has been rearragned. Or maybe im sleep deprived. I appreciate any thoughts....
