[Wind Chaser]

So what it sounds like is that we have someone here who's only answer to things is the OB design...

Tone,

If you make the effort to read the thread thru, you might better understand how this fits into the original Q.

[TONEPUB]

I get it just fine. We started a discussion about going from tube amplifiers
from solid state and about 20 posts through the thread, you went off topic
saying that "open baffle speakers with midfi electronics" sound much better
than any box speaker with great electronics.

You then went on to talk more about open baffle speakers and how superior
they are to everything else...

As happens so many times in these discussions, we get a person on the
thread in question that is completely bought into the one thing they own.

There are many ways to skin the cat and I have heard fantastic examples
of each kind of speaker.  If the OB design was so superior to everything
out there, I would think there would be more examples of it and having
heard excellent examples of box speakers, panel speakers, horn speakers,
etc. I find it hard to believe that everyone else is doing it wrong and you
are one of the few that has "figured it out"

If the OB speaker is your favorite slice of heaven, that's just fine,
but please don't admit your lack of experience with
good hifi by telling me that that is the ONLY way to go.  It's not.
There's a big world out there with a lot of interesting solutions to
the puzzle.

[Jampot]

You then went on to talk more about open baffle speakers and how superior
they are to everything else...

Besides, Bsuhy's desire is to make his gear more child friendly. Now I will grant that an OB design is unlikely to harm the child but I'm not so sure that the opposite applies - seen too many fingers poked into cones

Get the cages Brian - BTW the Super 3s are still sounding great! Have to see about having Louis fit the hemp drivers....

Jim

[JLM]

bushy,

Here's a vendor of small class D amps:  audiomagus.com

Between what they offer and the other similar products mentioned in their linked reviews, you'll find nearly every serious contentor. 

I owned a Red Wine Audio Clari-T (no longer made), but it was too small for my speakers and the batteries provided no audible advantage in my previous (very average) and current (very good) A/C supplied homes.  For my 89 dB/w/m 30 - 20,000 Hz single driver speakers a pair of Channel Island Audio VMB-1 chip based monoblocks work much better (tighter imaging/detail focus, and of course much harder hitting).


As far as the off-topic open baffle discussion goes:  Dipole/bipole presentation is very different from box speakers, to each their own.  OB works well for mid/high Qts drivers, but bass is typically limited, need lots of free space to work best, and they are not kid-friendly.  They are not the end-all speaker, as I and others have stated before, there is no perfect speaker.

[BrianM]

And when you try and make something sound like something completely other than what it is, you just end up with the audio equivalent of margarine. And I think that's a mistake made by a lot of solid state designers. Although I think a 300B amp can sound very good, I don't want a solid state amplifier that was designed to sound kinda, sorta, somewhat but not quite like a 300B amp. I want a solid state amplifier that sounds good, period.

Not to keep beating the same drum, but are not Double Ugly's dearly departed Butler amps also hybrid designs?  I don't really know beans about what qualifies something as a hybrid, but if all these people are trying to split the difference between tubes and solid state it seems like something literally "in between" (i.e. that uses both technologies somehow for the current) would be worth checking into.  I certainly think my amp (and preamp) contains qualities of both. (And, the tubes are inside the chassis and safe from kids!)

On the speaker question (open baffle vs. box) it's self-evident that there are good and less good examples of both designs, and that much of the outcome depends on your room.  I think Wind Chaser's main point was that boxes can't really sound *the same as* OBs, not necessarily that they're always better.

[Thebiker]

Brian,
Good luck with switching.....I tried and failed .  I have a good relationship with a local high end shop and brought in a McIntosh Pre & power amp for a week long trial.  These Mac's were broken in as that had been a set the shop used for demos in one of their listening rooms. 

It started out well enough, but after a couple of hours I just couldn't stand it.....and neither could the wife (the lady is a musician).  Long story made short....I returned the Mac pieces, brought home the Cary toys, and kept the Cary.  Then moved my Manley from the living room to the master bedroom....damn I love my tubes and they are worth the maintenance (which isn't really that much).  My advantage however is that I don't have small children any more and the granddaughter is not permitted to get close to my serious toys, and that's her mom's (my daughter) rule

[bsuhy]

And when you try and make something sound like something completely other than what it is, you just end up with the audio equivalent of margarine. And I think that's a mistake made by a lot of solid state designers.

To what extent can a designer actually predict what something will sound like before the execution?

I had the same question.....Steve's response is about what I would have thought, but I was worried the question might start some subjectivist vs. objectivist flame war. I wish I had the knowledge to get that "inkling," it would be interesting to see how often I was close to the mark.

Jim - glad to hear the Super 3's are sounding great, those certainly are nice little speakers.

[Steve Eddy]

Not to keep beating the same drum, but are not Double Ugly's dearly departed Butler amps also hybrid designs?  I don't really know beans about what qualifies something as a hybrid, but if all these people are trying to split the difference between tubes and solid state it seems like something literally "in between" (i.e. that uses both technologies somehow for the current) would be worth checking into.  I certainly think my amp (and preamp) contains qualities of both. (And, the tubes are inside the chassis and safe from kids!)

Well there's a bit of a difference between using both devices to try and exploit the qualities of each and trying to make transistors sound like tubes. And I wasn't intending to imply that one must use either tubes or transistors.

My main point was simply that one should design for that which sounds good. Period.

se

[BrianM]

Steve-
Got it. I agree...

[Wind Chaser]

I get it just fine...

No, you don't get it at all.

We started a discussion about going from tube amplifiers
from solid state and about 20 posts through the thread, you went off topic
saying that "open baffle speakers with midfi electronics" sound much better
than any box speaker with great electronics.

Here is the original question...

Has anyone out there ever made this type of change?

And...

If anyone has any stories or advice I would love to hear from you.

So in response to the above, I shared my success story and advice on how to go from tubes to SS.

Assuming you have enclosed box speakers, here's how you make an easy painless transition from tubes to SS.

Get rid of the enclosed box speakers and go for a free air / open baffle design. The difference between these two designs in the way they present music is vastly greater than the difference bewteen tubes vs. SS.

Personally, I much prefer a wingless OB with mid-fi than an enclosed speaker with superior electronics.

That's pretty succinct.  Not overly complicated or off topic at all.

You then went on to talk more about open baffle speakers and how superior
they are to everything else...

Wrong again Jeff, go back and read.  Time to exit the pub and sober up.

My next post was in response to someones elses comments on OB.  If you pay attention you'll see that I went further addressed the original question with another experience I had by going from a ARC tube amp to a Pass Labs SS.

If the OB speaker is your favorite slice of heaven, that's just fine,
but please don't admit your lack of experience with
good hifi by telling me that that is the ONLY way to go. It's not.
There's a big world out there with a lot of interesting solutions to
the puzzle.

The key to any solution is being able to think and not parrot.  You know nothing of my experience nor do I owe you an explanation.  I've been into audio for over 30 years.  I've owned planners, stats, horns, etc.  I've built a number speakers and just sold a pair to a professional designer who manufactures a commercial product using the same driver.  He's astonished at how good they are and is replacing the BBC LS3/5a with them. 

Don't try to make me look like an inexperienced idiot, Jeff.

[95bcwh]

wow...with so much praise on the open baffle design speaker, can anyone tell me a OB speaker that I "MUST" audition in order to appreciate its superiority over box-speaker?

(Pls don't tell me to audition Linkwitz Orion, because I have done so previously and it didn't light my fire)

[KCI-JohnP]

DoubleUgly,

I tell ya, I have been eyeballin that Spectron for quite some time. One thing that concerns me is that I see posts from new owners usually along the lines of "this is the best amp I've ever heard PERIOD" and/or "my amp search is over" etc. and then three months later it's up for sale. I wonder why, are they falling in love with this "new sound" and then after a couple of months tiring of it?? Man I want to try one of those babies as I have a gut feeling(could be just a bad case of gas!!) that the MIII SE is damn good amp. On the other hand I also have a serious hankering for tubes.....decisions decisions

Regards,
John

[TomS]

DoubleUgly,

I tell ya, I have been eyeballin that Spectron for quite some time. One thing that concerns me is that I see posts from new owners usually along the lines of "this is the best amp I've ever heard PERIOD" and/or "my amp search is over" etc. and then three months later it's up for sale. I wonder why, are they falling in love with this "new sound" and then after a couple of months tiring of it?? Man I want to try one of those babies as I have a gut feeling(could be just a bad case of gas!!) that the MIII SE is damn good amp. On the other hand I also have a serious hankering for tubes.....decisions decisions

Regards,
John

Brings to mind the Moscode 401 of a year or two ago.  Flaming hot product for awhile, couldn't find one used, but several have finally turned over in the past few months.  I liked it the several times I heard it (in other systems), but never pulled the trigger for some reason.

I sold some Cardas cables to a guy last year.  When he came by to pick them up we chatted at some length about this crazy quest.  He said he had a Spectron (older - II?) and it was the "last amp" for him other than upgrading it.  I'd never heard of it and assumed it was just another in a long line of switching amps I wouldn't like.  Now this one seems to be emerging from that crowd and it sounds like they're finally getting some attention.  Definitely one to watch.

Tom

[Double Ugly]

Hi John,

I understand your frustration.  Fortunately, I was able to listen to it for hours during our listening session in Denver, so I felt I had a pretty good take on the amp itself, and how it works and plays with my speakers.

Best I've ever heard?  No, but I believe it's a pretty decent amp.  I'm told most like and appreciate the result of pairing it with a good tube pre-, and I'll probably give it a try at some point, but I'm not dissatisfied with the source  --> amp --> speaker arrangement I have now.

I haven't had mine quite 3 weeks yet, so I'm still getting a feel for it.  So far, so good, but I need more time before I'll feel comfortable saying much about it.

I do wonder about the "new sound" you mention, though.  I'd not paid much attention to Spectron until going to Steve's that evening, so this is all still new to me.  Even so, I'm surprised at folks selling them after such a short period of time.  I wondered if I'd made a terribly mistake early on (I all-but stopped listening for almost 2 weeks ), but things are much better now. 

Best of luck with your decision, and don't hesitate to ask if I can be of assistance.

Regards,

-Jim

[95bcwh]

Audiophiles like to flip equipments..that's part of the game aa aa, it doesn't mean the equipment is no good, you just can't expect people to visit the same restaurant every day for 10 years.

Brings to mind the Moscode 401 of a year or two ago.  Flaming hot product for awhile, couldn't find one used, but several have finally turned over in the past few months.  I liked it the several times I heard it (in other systems), but never pulled the trigger for some reason.

I sold some Cardas cables to a guy last year.  When he came by to pick them up we chatted at some length about this crazy quest.  He said he had a Spectron (older - II?) and it was the "last amp" for him other than upgrading it.  I'd never heard of it and assumed it was just another in a long line of switching amps I wouldn't like.  Now this one seems to be emerging from that crowd and it sounds like they're finally getting some attention.  Definitely one to watch.

Tom

[BrianM]

I can only assume people fall in love with an amp, then trade it a few months later, because they don't really have a clear idea of what sound they're looking for.  I'm personally guided by "how close does it sound to live music?"  So that's maximum tonal accuracy and realistic reproduction of the original venue, plus great imaging.  In my experience the most reliable way to judge that is only with acoustic, unamplified recordings.  For amplified music the original venue is a recording studio, which has no acoustic.  So if I was using some studio track, however great it sounded, to decide which amps or speakers I liked best, I'd probably never decide, because you can pretty-up a miked voice or amplified guitar eighteen different ways, and there's no real standard for what something should sound like.  It's all manufactured.  In the mixing room they can do whatever they want to the musicians; whereas a string quartet (say) is just naked on stage.  I don't want my rig to be a second mixing board.

I think a lot of the high-end amps out there have a sound that you can either like or not, but not necessarily one that just sets out to recreate the unadorned live experience.  If a manufacturer's ideal is "smooth" or "euphonious" or "great bass and sweet highs" he's not taking a holistic approach to amplification.  He's fixated, however consciously or not, on some part or parts of the ideal and not the whole thing.  So I've heard amps that sound really good coming through the speakers, but it's not always the same good as real, as long as you're holding the general aural memory in your brain of what that wind octet or string ensemble really sounds like in person.  This is why I can't get really sold on any pure tube amp that I've so far heard (and I haven't heard 'em all); the ultimate realism just isn't there.  You can't recreate an honest-to-god flute or oboe when you're coloring the sound with tube distortion.  It may still sound cool, and it will undoubtedly make Pop Star X's voice sound really enticing, but at the end of the day I want that pure & simple flute or oboe.  So I figure the best amp should sound like nothing at all.  Not too wet, not too dry, nothing accentuated, nothing cheated.

It's also a blessing not to have the luxury or opportunity of hearing everything that's out there, which could lead to madness...Especially when you're mixing and matching this amp with that preamp, etc.  I would hate to have to "compensate" for an amp's shortcomings with a different preamp, or vice versa.  They should both just get out of the way and let the music come through.  Soften this strident amp with that tube preamp, no thank you.  The amp should just reproduce whatever stridency is upstream from it, not contribute any of its own.  Take it back to the source, clean that up, and then don't f%$* anything up on your way downstream.

Finally, I have little doubt that all these mega amps do the job pretty well, that any of them would be a keeper if you had a bit less disposable income for amps, and that people tend to fetishize relatively small differences.... 

Well, that turned out to be damn windy, but oh well, those are me thoughts on the matter.

[Wind Chaser]

...can't expect people to visit the same restaurant every day for 10 years.

Billions and billions apparently do.

[BrianM]

Hm, that young lady must've dropped one of her fries in Ronald's lap.

[pardales]

I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience with tube amps per se, but have owned a few -- I have owned more SS amps. I have heard and owned tube amps that just did not sound like a different genre than other solid state amps I have owned. I have owned SS amps that some have said sounded "tubey". This is probably another one of those false distinctions that we should refuse to entertain too seriously as it blurs more important discussions of different design philosophies and technology choices.  

[95bcwh]

That's why they're not audiophiles... remember Audiophiles belong to an exclusive club...

Most people are happy with Bose..

Billions and billions apparently do.