[Philistine]

I have talked to Dan & will move to the upgraded power supply sometime.  I'm kinda watchin the board
because the upgrade seems to have created a rethinking on the accompanying tubes & somebody had asked about 'increased gain' that I haven't seen resolved.

I believe what happened is that the Turbo Mod caused some of us to do a fresh round of tube rolling, just because we heard an improvement and wanted to experiment.  Probably most of us have gone back to the original tube combo we had before the mod - if I'm wrong then I'm sure others will jump in and correct this.

I've not tried the silver or gold Bybees.

[ted_b]

Since the hypermod I've not been able to go back to one of my standard faves, the DR's.  Too much punchiness since the mod.  My fave right now is the RCA Silver label 6SN7 (w/ Wayne's octal adapters). 

Strangely enough, after speaking with David (Rydenfan) his signal tube holes are 1.5 inch widths, mine are 1 inch (probably cuz my TP was the first off the line).  Wayne's new V2 sturdier adapters will likely not work in my TP (and it was my idea in the first place!!  ARGh).   

Edit:  as per usual Modwright customer service they already contacted me proactively and offered to enlarge the hole by sending in the lid/cover only, etc.  Great companies do this...thanks Dan and John...again.

[zybar]

Since the hypermod I've not been able to go back to one of my standard faves, the DR's.  Too much punchiness since the mod.  My fave right now is the RCA Silver label 6SN7 (w/ Wayne's octal adapters). 

Strangely enough, after speaking with David (Rydenfan) his signal tube holes are 1.5 inch widths, mine are 1 inch (probably cuz my TP was the first off the line).  Wayne's new V2 sturdier adapters will likely not work in my TP (and it was my idea in the first place!!  ARGh).   

Edit:  as per usual Modwright customer service they already contacted me proactively and offered to enlarge the hole by sending in the lid/cover only, etc.  Great companies do this...thanks Dan and John...again.

Great service by Dan.

FWIW, mine are 1.5" as well.  I already provided that info to Wayne and I am anxiously awaiting the adapters.

George

[WG]

Well, the diameter differences got me curious.  My signal tube holes are 1.25" while the rectifier hole is 1.5".  What minimum diameter will be needed for the adapters?

Will

[rydenfan]

They are just larger than an inch so you would be fine

[WG]

They are just larger than an inch so you would be fine

Thanks.  I may want to explore the adapters.  I do have some 6SN7 tubes not in use.

Will

[JG2]

Just noticed a thread on Audiogon that has only 2 replies and neither from a MW Transporter owner.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1232771742

This might spark an interesting discussion!

John

[ted_b]

John,
Thanks.  I just posted.

[tdangelo]

that was me asking the question

[KCI-JohnP]

The signal is weakest, from source to pre.  Thus that interconnect should be properly shielded.  It is not as important after that as the signal is stronger.

The KCI is silver w/a very thin gold coating.  The silver is VERY brittle & snaps when bent.  I have found this out by having mine repaired twice.  I don't know why they use the silver they do, maybe cost, but it is brittle & does break easily.  I guess that is what we get from not being able to afford the really expensive gold cables. 

I use a pr. of Redrocks graphite shielded from tp to pre & amps to spkrs.  The KCI works best pre to amps.

iluzun,

After reading your posts in this thread I have to admit that I'm a little confused/perplexed here. I'm not sure where you or your tech got that info but you couldn't be any more misinformed. We currently do not make nor have we made in the past any cable that is "silver w/a very thin gold coating". We make pure 24 karat 99.998% gold cables(Silkworms), pure 99.999% silver cables(Firefly) and gold alloy cables(Mandarina). None of the wire we use is "brittle" and will not "snap" unless it is severely abused/stressed and/or put under quite a bit of tension. Gold and silver in it's purest form is any thing but brittle, and in fact is VERY flexable and would not just "snap" from simple bending/use. I will admit that over the years we have had a few cables broken and it is almost always from mishandling, and, every single one of them was broken at the solder joint, never have I seen the wire break in the manner in which you describe.

Our cables come with a no questions asked 5 year warranty and if your cable has truly broken three different times may I ask why wasn't I contacted to have it repaired? I would have gladly repaired the cable for you for no charge less return shipping. Please understand that I did not come here to attack you so please don't take my post as such, but, I pride myself on being honest and offerring the best product that I am able to build for my customers. I guarantee the purity of my metals and I rely heavily on word of mouth and I've worked very hard to get KCI's reputation to where it's at. So, I hope you can see how a post such as yours is upsettling for me and can cause harm to a small company such as mine. So, forgive me if I sound a little frustrated but I am human and to be honest I am a little frustrated and confused. I would like to add that the next time you have a "problem" such as this PLEASE consider contacting the mfg prior to posting such statements to have the problem taken care of correctly.

If you would like to send me this cable I would VERY much like to take a look at it. I will inspect your cable, update it to current standards, test it, treat it, give you a new 5 year warranty starting as soon as you receive your "repaired" cables and return it to you, all free of charge-IF it is a true KCI cable. Now, the only reason I say IF is because something sounds amiss here so Please contact me so we can try and get to the bottom of this(If you have your serial number off of your cable handy that would be helpful)and I'll be glad to take care of you at no charge to you. You can pm me here or you can email me directly at John@koolcables.com   I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
John Prator

PS-Oh yeah, welcome to AC!! 

Edit to add:
08/12/09 
I wanted to post here as this thread is still being read and the incorrect statements made by iluzun have caused KCI harm. I'm guessing that when someone does a search on KCI this thread comes up, I say this because I have been questioned several times about this so called "information" shared by iluzun. After my post above I spoke with iluzun via pm and he agreed to send his cables to me for inspection/repair. He promised to come into this thread and correct his previous incorrect statements but since that hasn't been done as promised. So, here I am attempting to clear the air so to speak.....
 

iluzun did send his cable to me for repair/inspection and it was in fact an older original Silkworm. I disassembled the cable and found the break was, just as I and a few others suspected, on the Eichmann return pin right at the solder joint. The wire WAS NOT and HAD NEVER BEEN been broken "2 or 3 inches down the line". It was broken right off at the pin as can happen from misuse/mishandling. We had the wire tested and it is in fact 24 karat gold. I have the test results to prove it should anyone need verification. I completely repaired and upgraded his cables and returned them to him all at no charge. Never heard from him again....

iluzun made a few incorrect statements and I would like to clarify a few things;

He stated 

Careful moving it as it has at its core a very brittle silver.

Wrong. Silkworms use a 26 a.w.g. 99.998% pure 24 karat gold wire and always have. We have documentation to prove that and should anyone care to they are more than welcome to have their wire tested.

Another thought, it may already be broke.  My initial break 'worked' for quite some time as long as the rca
was 'turned a certain way'.  Later it went kaput totally but I am sure it had been fractured prior.

A sure sign of a break at the solder joint/RCA pin and that is exactly what we found.

The KCI is silver w/a very thin gold coating.  The silver is VERY brittle & snaps when bent.  I have found this out by having mine repaired twice.  I don't know why they use the silver they do, maybe cost, but it is brittle & does break easily. 

Wrong again. First off I think most of us with a lick of common sense know that most precious metals in their purest form are VERY pliable, bendable and not "brittle" at all. I can take a Silkworm wire and tie it in a knot it's so flexable(can do the same with Firefly and Mandarina wire as well). The ONLY silver in standard Silkworms is the silver in the Eichmann Silver Bullet plugs, that's it-period.

Hey, just trying to help! 
I live outside Denver & have had the cable repaired by Intrinsic Audio twice.
In business since '73.
I watched as the cable was taken apart & repaired.   It is silver w/a gold coating.

Do w/the info as you wish....

Jeez, thanks for the help.. You state factualy that "you watched as the cable was taken apart & repaired. It is silver w/a gold coating".  You might reconsider your techs assesment skills as well as yours. 

Your "info" is completely false, misleading and has caused damage to KCI's reputation.

It is not at the soldier joint, each time the cable snapped it was 2 or 3 inches into the cable itself.

Again, another false statement. I personally disassembled this cable and inspected it myself. There is no way it "snapped 2 or 3 inches into the cable itself", the wire was all still there and intact. I could see the techs "attempt" at repairing it at the joint but that's it. If this had truly happened the broken cable would have had to of been at least 2-3 inches shorter than the other one wouldn't it??

Well he states that it is not the ic, so the matter is pretty much moot.
I don't have a 'problem' w/KCI.  I like the cable (tensionless) but only from pre to power amps.
"snip"
Just saw he was running the KCI's & thought I would share what I've learned.

Thanks for all the "sharing what you've learned".....

It's a 1 meter silkworm that I am the second owner of.  It has a very fine, solid silver core that is
very smoothly plated in gold. Pure gold is a terrible conductor so I am guessing that all of these are a combination of materials, but I could be wrong.   

Here we go again with the "Very fine solid silver core plated in gold"  and then this;
"Pure gold is a terrible conductor"   

Wrong again. Gold is actually a very good conductor, with silver being one if not the best then copper and gold is just behind copper.

And finally;

The tech claimed that besides being very fine, the conductor tended to vaporize at the touch of his solder gun, somewhere around 600 degrees, which is way below the melting point of gold or silver.

I believe that would be due to a reaction known as amalgam/Amalgamation and if you don't know what you're doing while soldering pure gold it will "melt" at around 600F. The melting point of pure gold is 1947.52 ?F.


Please understand that I didn't come here to stir up any trouble. I came here because I have had customers question us due to the above posters statements, it has put doubt in their minds so I'm trying to seperate fact from fiction here. Even though some of his previous posts are riddled with inaccuracies I wanted to address at least these few. I guess that's enough, I just needed to make a few things clear because as I mentioned above I've had a few customers question me about his posts.

Thank you,
John

[rydenfan]

Guys, I just wanted to say that anyone who has an iphone/ipod touch really owes it to themself to get the ipeng native app from the app store. I helped Pippen with the older (non-beta version) and with a bit of beta testing on the native app. I installed it yesterday on my iphone and it is sooo good now  I literally press one button have have my entire squeezecenter at my fingertips complete with album art and everything. Highly, highly recommended 

[Marco Prozzo]

I wonder if any of you MW TP fans have done much in the way of comparing various formats and routines of ripping files?  I've just been participating in a very surprising experiment, or rather the results were surprising.  My friend, Peter, called up and told me he had three files of the same song ripped in different ways and he wanted me to do a blind comparison between the three.  I thought bits were bits, but both of our hearing if these files on two diverse systems suggested otherwise.  Rather than cutting and pasting to this thread I'll just point you to the thread on Audiogon where you can pay specific attention beginning about half way down the current list of posts to the input of Peter_S, jax2 (yours truly),  as well as Audioengr's (Steve Nugent) single comment, since it was his suggestion for Peter to actually try this rather unconventional experiment that started all of this.  Have any of you done experimenting with ripping different formats to the point where you've formed a strong preference in terms of sound quality?

PS can anyone tell me how to make a thread on this forum "Sticky"?  Dan thought I'd be able to do it from an option that showed up in my posting to a thread, but I have a feeling it is an option only offered to the moderator.  If not, would someone point out just where it is? TA in advance.

[rydenfan]

It is something only the moderator can do.

Marco, is this the same Peter with the "magic" server box from CES?? I only ask as they were against FLAC files.

[Philistine]

I wonder if any of you MW TP fans have done much in the way of comparing various formats and routines of ripping files?  I've just been participating in a very surprising experiment, or rather the results were surprising.  My friend, Peter, called up and told me he had three files of the same song ripped in different ways and he wanted me to do a blind comparison between the three.  I thought bits were bits, but both of our hearing if these files on two diverse systems suggested otherwise.  Rather than cutting and pasting to this thread I'll just point you to the thread on Audiogon where you can pay specific attention beginning about half way down the current list of posts to the input of Peter_S, jax2 (yours truly),  as well as Audioengr's (Steve Nugent) single comment, since it was his suggestion for Peter to actually try this rather unconventional experiment that started all of this.  Have any of you done experimenting with ripping different formats to the point where you've formed a strong preference in terms of sound quality?

PS can anyone tell me how to make a thread on this forum "Sticky"?  Dan thought I'd be able to do it from an option that showed up in my posting to a thread, but I have a feeling it is an option only offered to the moderator.  If not, would someone point out just where it is? TA in advance.

Marco,
My bet is that most of the TP owners are using either EAC or dBpoweramp to rip either to WAV or FLAC, the other variable is to perform any encoding at the server or the player.  With the decreasing cost of storage there is one camp that believes WAV is superior, and another that claims there is no difference between WAV and FLAC.  I'm agnostic on this and have not seen any conclusive evidence to support either claim, but a fair amount of hearsay.  From my perspective the topic of ripping format is still up in the air, consequently any topic that explores this is going to add some value.
Phil

[Marco Prozzo]

It is something only the moderator can do.

Marco, is this the same Peter with the "magic" server box from CES?? I only ask as they were against FLAC files.

Many thanks.  I thought so.  I'd posted a (MW TP) question that was driving me nuts and it ended up in the catacombs of the forum collecting dust.  I couldn't even find it myself without going to my own profile.  Eventually I found it and realized it had been posted I just hadn't searched hard enough.  By then I'd somehow managed to figure out the answer (and later posted it to my own query).  So when you start a new thread, does it always go to the bowels of the forum? I would have thought it hovered at the top for at least a little while, but it wasn't there for any time at all.   Seems like the same ten threads hover at the top - I guess they've got stickies.  Sorry, just getting used to these forums - it's a different format for me. Thanks for the quick answer, Rydenfan.

[Marco Prozzo]

Marco,
My bet is that most of the TP owners are using either EAC or dBpoweramp to rip either to WAV or FLAC, the other variable is to perform any encoding at the server or the player.  With the decreasing cost of storage there is one camp that believes WAV is superior, and another that claims there is no difference between WAV and FLAC.  I'm agnostic on this and have not seen any conclusive evidence to support either claim, but a fair amount of hearsay.  From my perspective the topic of ripping format is still up in the air, consequently any topic that explores this is going to add some value.
Phil

Hey Phil - Thanks for the response.  I don't know dBpoweramp so it must be a PC thing.  I'm on Macs.  As far as WAV being superior; in the world of ripping using error correction and iTunes I've never been able to consistently tell a difference.  I am quite confident that with the three files Peter ripped for me that I could consistently tell the difference.  I'm not willing to jump through the hoops necessary to make that file, but it certainly implied to me that all lossless rips are not the same. 

[ted_b]

Peter (Blue Smoke Audio; creator of Black Box music server) believes Wavpack and WMA are superior to FLAC cuz FLAC decoders are asynchronous??  Dunno any more than that..  I don't know.  I rip to both (wavpack for hirez, FLAC for redbook).  I do think I can tell the difference between server side and player side decoding, as sated in the Discless Forum (thread about SC 7.4).

However, the Audiogon test is really a comparison of EAC and Itunes as a lossless ripper, not really of format differences.  It is the conventional audiophile wisdom that EAC rips to bit perfect, if set correctly, and that iTunes is a relatively miserable ripper (compared to EAC, Plextools, etc.), even when set for error correction.  It's error correction and read-until-right capabilities are not robust enough for anything but nearly perfect discs, IMO. 

Thread hijack over. 

[Philistine]

Guys, I just wanted to say that anyone who has an iphone/ipod touch really owes it to themself to get the ipeng native app from the app store. I helped Pippen with the older (non-beta version) and with a bit of beta testing on the native app. I installed it yesterday on my iphone and it is sooo good now  I literally press one button have have my entire squeezecenter at my fingertips complete with album art and everything. Highly, highly recommended 

David, I've migrated away from Apple mp3 players over the last few years so have lost touch (excuse the pun) with the itouch developments and revisions.  In the past I've also bought Apple refurbs (been very impressed with them) and notice they have first generation ipod touches for sale at the Apple store.  For principle use as a remote is their any benefit in buying a second generation itouch or is the first generation a good choice?
Phil

[ted_b]

I bought David's first gen iTouch and it's good (as long as it has latest firmware so you can buy any/all apps on iTunes store).  The main diff is the physical volume control on the side in v2, but volume is not controlled via iPeng anyway unless you are doing digital (i.e transporter) volume via computer.

[Marco Prozzo]

Marco, is this the same Peter with the "magic" server box from CES?? I only ask as they were against FLAC files.

Sorry, I missed this question and later on the same inference: NO this is not the same person. My friend, Peter, who is contributing to the thread is a hydro engineer - I've never heard of the magic server box Peter you guys are talking about.  Peter's just a longtime friend, and fellow audiophile.  His system/room is one of the best I've heard.  He has a good ear...two actually.  No intere$t whatsoever in the industry.  Steve Nugent (Audioengr), is  the owner of Empirical Audio.  He had suggested to Peter to try the experiment.