It's time for a little update regarding the F120A fonkens.
I've moved the speakers between rooms a few times now and right now they are in the living room system where they seem to work nicely despite the fact that the volume of the room is more than 3 times that of my office.
I went through many amps trying to find something that had a natural effortless and open sound while still having excellent resolution, transparency and dynamics. All the amps I tried were good in many ways, but until the amp that is now in the system got here, nothing really brought everything home for me. So, what is this new amp, and which other ones did I try?
First, the new amp is the Audio Note P1SE, which is the power amp section of the Oto SE integrated. This is a 10 watt Parallel single-ended EL84 amp with a pair of 12ax7s as drivers, SS rectified, one set of inputs, power switch and volume control. Can't get much more basic than that -- a little, but not much. This amp sounds a lot bigger than it's rated 10 watts, is extremely quiet, and sounds just so amazingly right with the f120as (after a little tube rolling, that is.) I'm at the end of the amp search for these speakers as I just can't imagine doing any better without spennding considerably more more money.
The first amp I tried with the fonkens was the Carina -- that lovely Carina SE el84 sound, but unfortunately just nowhere enough juice to get the less sensitive f120as moving. Next was the RWA 30.2 -- another fine amp but in the end the highs were a bit rolled off compared to most of the tube amps, and the sound of the combination was somewhat overdamped. The Big alnico magnets and the aperiodic loading of the fonken cabinet really seem to prefer amps with a low DF, and although rocking out with the 30.2 was wonderful, it just didn't suit my tastes when it comes to the acoustic and more intimate musics that are the mainstay of my listening diet.
Next was a Decware Torii II dual mono, class A PP amp using KT-88s and EL34s, and producing about 25 watts. This amp was the sweetest PP amp I have yet heard and did a lot of things extremely well, but in the end, it just didn't have that ultimate transparency and tonal naturalness of a true SE amp. For a good while though I thought this amp was the end of my search. And finally I tried a low cost Yarland FV35A III SE el34 amp with 5670 drivers. This 10-12 watt amp drove the fonkens well, and again, did an amazing amount of things right but in the end, it could not hold a candle to the AN amp.
I have a set of Wright Sound Mono7s that will be for my office system, and at some point I'm sure I'll get to trying them with the f120as, and who knows what will happen, I could possibly like them better, and the f120as may move back to the basement and the Horns up to the living room (as they will also be very, very happy with the AN amp too), but the good news in all this is that I have two nice, but different speakers, and two nice, but different amps that are each capable of driving either pair of speakers, and that feels like a good place to be, and one which I probably should be content with and just leave well enough alone.
-- Jim
