After almost a month visiting family in Australia, I returned to Michigan excited to plug in my new amplifier. It arrived about an hour before I left for the airport a month ago, and had to sit there all alone for all that time.
The new amp is a Music Reference EM7. It was originally a 2.5 w/channel version, but was then sent off to Roger and reincarnated as a 5w/channel beast. Roger also added an EQ circuit to boost bass output a little to suit my single driver speakers. Right now, Led Zeppelin is sounding pretty damn good - even if they want to pretend that "The Lemon Song" is something other than "Killing Floor."
Here is the complete system:
Source: Squeezebox II with some incarnation of Wayne's analog mods and his very, very earliest Basic Power Supply
Pre: Space Tech Labs QA-001 employing a pair of 6sn7 tubes
Amp: Music Reference EM7 (5w)
Speakers: Omega Super 3 XRS with the original fostex drivers
I'll live with the amplifier for a while, and then switch the old amps back in to see which sounds best. The others are Channel Islands VMB1 monoblocks (Dusty's now discontinued 40w/channel chip amps). I loved the sound of the system with the CIA amps, and had no reason to change other than curiosity about the whole SET experience.
Right now I'm very happy. Everything sounds very musical, which to me is a lot more important than imaging issues or frequency extension. I suspect that vocals are not quite as forward with the new amp, and that the treble might be a little less bright. But I won't really know until I do some direct comparisons.
If anyone in the SE Michigan area wants to come for a listen, just let me know.
Chad
