[Docere]

Hey Dan, nice post re all SETs (and single driver 'speakers) not being created equal; hearing one does not equal hearing all.

Interesting comments regarding the 13EM7; electrically and sonically, I would think a 6SL7-section barely adequate for driving a 2A3-like section. I readily defer to your much greater experience tho. There must be some serious tube build superiority, implementation skill, and/or other factors at play to provide the mojo, especially in the bass, of which you speak. I guess one could use a mu out connection from a (very) good CCS to lower the driver impedance and give the 2A3-section the drive it needs... Not everyone loves a CCS tho. But hey, for $4, I may give this a shot. I am guessing the tubes would not be matched at that price. There are two sections that need close matching, tho even with paying extra for matching it would still be a good deal.

Personally, I feel that SET (as a broad topology)  can offer a little more musical magic than the run-of-the-mill types (even the better ones) are currently providing; I think it amazing what could be achieved when one does not have to consider commercial constraints.

Cheers
Raymond

[jrebman]

I am thinking that the type of musical presentation you get also depends on SET output impedance, speaker Qts, speaker impedance vs freq, cabinet design, and damping requirements vs freq. I am no audio boffin, so I could be well of track...

Yes, sorry to imply that power, dynamic headroom, etc. are the answer -- they're not, they're just a part of it... probably.

I believe that our Newtonian approach to science in general leads us to put much more stock in our overly simple models of how things work and thus we expect them to predict outcomes based on measurements made with instruments based on these same models.  Ohm's law, etc. are fine for calculating approximate real-world behaviors, but reality is far more complex than our overly simplistic models can even begin to predict.

I still have so many formally trained colleagues who swear that there is no possible way that different pieces of wire can sound different from each other -- wire is wire, and that is that. -- but the reality of it is that there *are* differences even if our working models can't tell us why yet.  I do find it rather funny that none of these people will come over and let me switch a number of different speaker cables and ICs  in and out of my system to let them hear the difference.  In the speaker cable category alone I have had everything from a pair of DIY $30 cat-5 cables all the way to a $5,500 pair of Acapella Silverkables, and the difference is immediate and unmistakeable.  Note that I do not in general think higher price necessarily means better performance because there are some incredible sounding cheap cables, and some lousy sounding expensive ones (just to be clear on that.)

So, I guess what I'm saying, and it's the same thing I think we're all saying, is that that there are combinations that work better than others (i.e., the importance of overall system synergy) and there is really no predicting that from numbers we measure with our very simplistic test equipment.  Heisenberg, where are you when I need you?

Yes, the human ear and brain are far more sophisticated instruments than anything on anybody's test bench, and they are the ultimate arbiter anyway (at least as far as they convey the information to the mind for deeper processing. .)

As one famous quantum physicist said to one of his classes, "Half of what we're teaching you is wrong -- we just don't know which half."


The 104dB sensitive spk may have had some honking driver with a lot of impedance variation, shoved in a BR, and crossed over using some complex contrivance. Maybe it was being used in a huuuuge room. Maybe it was played at a volume considered for most of us. Maybe it needs that volume / power to sound alive and dynamic just overcome x-over inertia. Maybe the amp power meters were calibrated on the generous side for WOW factor... I don't think conclusions can be drawn from the info provided.

The Klipsch K-Horn is a monster with a 15" woofer in a corner horn box (the driver is not exposed to the eye anywhere) and has a compression mid and tweeter and one huge mess of a crossover.  So yes,  this all adds up and partially attempts to explain the things I saw and heard.  Hey, it was over 30 years ago too .

In the end, I trust one thing, and one thing only -- my ears -- not merely as the physical instrument, but as the conduit to the emotional processing centers that exist somewhere between the brain and consciousness... but really, I just love to listen to good music... really.

You'll have to excuse me, I'm in transition as I withdraw from an overdose of audiophilia nervosa so please be patient with me as I relearn the differences between sound and music, and obsession and passion.

-- Jim

[Docere]

Hi Jim - awesome post. Sounds like you have some sort of science or engineering background; I hear what you are saying re the western (Newtonian) approach to science; antiquated and limiting...

Now, the one-month Mx plan for Audiophillia nervosa:

• Do not research or contemplate audio system-related issues (sorry - no forum access reading / interaction)

• Rx - several new albums, administered tds. (3x/day) as a minimum

• Do not think critically about your music play-back system as you listen to music - listen to the music, not the system

• It may help to purposefully mess with one aspect of system fine tuning, eg. remove some tweaks. This is not a long-term intervention (and is easily reversed); it may just jolt you out of equipment perfectionist mode... think of it a non-invasive electrotherapy for AN.

I often find that not thinking about audio for a few weeks helps put things - not just audio - in perspective, kind of like going on an extended retreat... and I would hardly say I sufferred AN.

Best of fortune in your transition.
Raymond

[Dmason]

With the advent of the internet, cable bandwidth, and development of internet based audio boards, and portals, such as this august audience, I subsequently was diagnosed with a rather aggressive form of high-rotation audiophilia nervosa. All it did in retrospect was to provide a disjointed, highly revealing sound that didnt' appeal to me at all. With further tweaking, I discovered the more I removed, the better the result. Symptoms of AN decreased with increased simplification. The best sound I have found in Thermionia is the straight wire with gain, the SET, and in SS, the only design I like is the T amp, and only when battery powered.

                               _________________________________


When I was a kid, and all my friends with part time jobs had their shiny Technics and Pioneer integrated amplifiers, cassette decks, AR8 speakers and so on, for those of you who remember the era, I had to make do using the 6550 based tube amplifier in my Hammond C3 organ, and the only decent speakers I had access to unfortunately, were a pair of Altec Voice of the Theaters, in the garage, which were used for a practice PA, by my progressive rock band. Not having the cash for a cassette deck, I had to resort to using a Thorens turntable provided me by a  neighbor, who was sympathetic to my plight. By the time I was 17, I realized what I did NOT want to listen to. Those shiny integrateds sounded like shit overall, and I didnt at the time understand why, and didnt investigate it much other than conclude the good stuff had tubes. I actually managed to forget this important lesson for a time.

[Docere]

Dan, you sure have a way with words... and using them to nail a point so well. Sweet intro.

Cheers
Raymond

[-Richard-]

Audio seems to have taken the place of an actual search for something like spiritual resolution...
which in former generations consisted of a thorough break with the existing societies demands
for participating in the roles characterized by child rearing and intense productivity
for the simplicity of a contemplative life... an intensification of the awareness of ones inner life ~

Ordinarily an idea like this could be interpreted as an attempt to raise the rather suspicious hobby of
acquiring the more and the more onto a higher plane... a justification of sorts for ones
self-indulgence ~

I am referring to something quite different... I think there is a residue of yearning for something
ineffable... something that transcends the ordinary day to day world which for us in these times
has been scrubbed clean of the mysterious... science with its magic has replaced the magic of
religion... a necessary interlude in order to clean our house of the sickness and morbidity that
religions breed as they move deeper into the controlling mechanisms that in the past ruled our
lives through fear and horror ~

But science cannot yet touch the real mystery... there are abstractions operating that science in
its present form is too limited to grasp... but we feel them... just outside our rational paradigms
there are energetic dimensions that interact with us... our perceptual mechanisms of awareness
have been dulled by lack of use and an overemphasis on sensational data... data born solely of
the senses ~

Music was once a shamanic doorway to other dimensions of perception... for non-industrial,
simpler societies it still is... if one witnesses the participants in shamanic dancing and singing
it quite clear that this is a very serious, highly intense life and death struggle to move out from
the ordinary daily world into a dimension that is truly mysterious... where one meets something
that cannot yet be explained by our science... and then there is the frightful journey back to our
world which is bristling with the real possibility of death ~

Our music listening is like domesticated dogs hearing the howls of wolves or coyotes... something
in the domesticated dog is stirred to remembering their true nature... we are also stirred in a
similar way when hearing music to remember our shamanic inter-dimensional traveling ~

However only a residue of those feelings still exist for us in our present mode of perception...
still it is enough to create a haunting experience... something in us is stirred on a very deep
level... but it has been relegated to the sub-conscious order of attention... in the darkness it
dwells waiting for resolution ~

Our search for nirvana in audio is stirred by that sub-conscious yearning for contact with an
entirely different dimension of awareness... on the surface it appears like a neurotic habit
that once set in motion is somewhat self-perpetuating... I am suggesting that is goes much
deeper than that... we are searching for connection... and we search for it in the only pathway
that we think has legitimacy ~

Of course there is another aspect to ones audio search and that is the yearning for sexual
fulfillment... audio has been purposely tangled in the web of sexuality through clever advertising
just like many other products... however unlike "sexy" cars (for example) which suggest that one could
be more adept at acquiring pretty girls by the look and power of the automobile itself
(cars functioning as an icon for the erectile apparatus), audio functions as a "secret" hobby that
requires that men "stealthfully" slip their audio purchases past the attention of their wives...
audio functions here like pornography ~

Music is a call to the wild... a call to different levels of perception... we must await a time when
science either evolves past its current limited concepts of what constitutes our understanding
of the real... the underlying energetic order from which the real springs... or we must elect to
begin that search ourselves... using our lives as the laboratory ~

There is a great deal more to all this of course ~

Warm Regards ~ Richard ~

[Canyoneagle]

Very well said, Richard and Dan.
Your posts offer a beneficial groundedness to these forums, and are always a pleasure (at least for me) to read.
Thank you.
 
Warmly,
Michael

[Louis O]

Hi rajacat,

It's easy to do and all you need is the Dammar and a couple of acid brushes or the small throw away bristle brushes. I coat them 6 times and make sure it dries before adding another. Don't get it on the surround, only the paper parts.

Hi Dennis,

About 5 or so years ago a pair of 6x9 Jensen's did it for me and it';s been single drivers ever since.

Thanks again,
Louis

[mshan]

The Dared MP2A3c puts out 8 wpc.

I thought these 2a3 tubes only put out about 3.5 watts.

Is this a push pull design, or is the Shuguang tube used signficantly different than other 2a3?


I am looking for a reasonably priced 2a3 for my dad's Klipsch Cornwall speakers.

[MisterBill]

Hi jrhanl,

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but it looks like you found a match made in heaven.

Which XRS speaker model are you referring to?  Is it this one: http://omegaloudspeakers.com/super3xrs.html

Thanks!

[Holygeezer]

Hi MisterBill,
Yes that is the speaker being referred to. Though back in 2006 I believe it was using a Fostex driver. It has since updated to a hemp cone driver and currently is now using the RS5 driver designed by Omega. The newest driver is simply amazing. The Super 3XRS speakers are indeed pretty special.

[Angaria]

2a3 is my fav tube... try some jj 2a340's - well worth it

[Dsaldivar]

Hi everyone!
Have any Omega speaker enthusiasts in this forum tried a TULIP MARK II DT STEREO AMPLIFIER?
any comments?
Thanks,
Dan
http://www.divertech.com/asltulip.html