[Neighborhood Troll]

this is probably old news, but if you have the money to buy a cool amp, and the 50% down for the timepieces, how can you not afford the return shipping if you don't like them? i dont understand what people are complaining about. it just sounds like people are upset at losing the prospect of taking advantage of someone.

[jackman]

Bullshit!  I was impressed with SP's guarantee and was going to take advantage of the great offer.  I have a very powerful amp and people who know me will tell you I am not afraid to pull the trigger if they are as good as the SP folks seem to think.  Know what happened?  I exchanged emails with the owner and he expressed some BS about my amp having too much distortion or something.  I saved the email but it's not worth my time to dig it up.  I'm happy I didn't waste my time.  If I didn't like them, I didn't want to have to deal with the crap and the brow beating and excuses.  I'll just stick to my current speakers.

Jack

[Neighborhood Troll]

if perhaps these speakers are as good as they claim to be, then maybe every squeak and jiggle will shine through, making it seem like the TP's are shitty, putting out alot of distortion. they dont want a bad review you know. who knows. maybe its like buying a new computer. you gotta buy all the bells and whistels that go with it to take full advantage of your new AMD 3000 proccessor. im gonna look into it. but from what SP said, if you have more than 300 watts/ch, then you should get the trial deal. i wouldn't rule them out completely if i had the money.

[Aether Audio]

Everybody

I hate to come running screaming "foul," but Mr. Jackman has made a bit of an issue where there was none.  I consider private messages from this forum or any e-mail for that matter, that come to me or from me to be just that - private!  He apparently does not feel that way himself so...in order for the "truth" of the matter concerning our communications to be known, I am going to post the entirety of it here.  Cut and paste - no editing whatsoever.

Rest assured, I do not appreciate this kind of violation and it will not be tolerated.   You can also rest assured that I will never indulge in this type of response again unless someone else chooses to trespass in the same manner.  I appologize for the following but I am just a little irritated at this type of behavior.  Up until now, I have been very impressed with the etiquette displayed by all.  For all of the posts made on our circle, I find this by far the most distasteful.

jackman's first message:

Hi,
I'd like to hear your speakers and would be willing to have other people come to my home and hear them also. Have some good stuff to compare them with and a decent system. My system consists of:

AVA 550EXR Fetvalve amp (rated at 280wpc but very powerful and has tubes in the output stage)
AVA T7R preamp (top of line from AVA)
Maple Audio IC's
Heavily modded DIO from Boldercables with Bybees in PS
Modded Cal Delta transport
Modded VPI TT with AVA cartridge (what can I say, I'm a loyal customer)
AVA modded Philips Tuner
Ellis 1801 speakers (I like them but would like to have the ability to play them at louder volume levels)

Before you say yes, please read the following. I am looking for speakers that are very accurate and transparent with lots of air (the Ellis do this so far), with the abilty to play higher SPL levels than my current setup (can't do). I don't use a sub for music and mainly listen to traditional acoustic Jazz (Miles, Evans, vocals like Sarah Vaughn, Ella, etc.) and modern music like Steely Dan, Eva Cassidy, Cassandra Wilson, Patricia Barber, etc. I can't live with harshness or sibilance but strive for accuracy and a wide/deep 3D soundstage. No hurries, but if I like them I'll buy them on the spot. I'm also very active on this and AA and will post a lengthy review either way.

Do I qualify for your roundtrip deal? I have spent too much $$$ sending things back (SOlar digital amp, Criterions from GR, etc.) but I really want to hear your speakers. Thanks.

Jack

my response:

Dear Jack,

Thanks ever so much for your interest. I have a little concern about two issues. If you were to read my posts in our circle about our new requirements and then comment back, that would be a big help. You certainly have some fine gear.

You almost have enough power to "technically" qualify for the deal, and depending on your response after reading the requirements, I could easily let that issue slide. Your not even a whole dB away to begin with. The other issue is the "air" thing. I tend to lean towards the idea that this quality has more to do with the recording and associated electronics IF (big IF) the speaker is accurate enough (i.e. low distortion) such that it doesn't mask this quality being fed to it.

The tube output stage makes me a little nervous. Not because that's bad at all either. It's just because I've had a bad experience with a high powered tube amp in the past. The distortion it produced (poor design the way I figure it) was blatantly obvious on the Timepiece. The highs were very shrill and irritating. I don't own tube gear but then again, I've heard some wonderful sounding tube systems. I've just not been fortunate enough to hear good tube gear on our speakers.

Let me know what you think about all these issues. As far as dynamics, soundstage, distortion, transient response etc, etc. - you can read the reviews and Audiojerry's personal review on AC (if you haven't already). Thanks again and let me know your thoughts.

PS - Sorry for the delay in responding. So much to do and so little time - as I'm sure you know.

Regards,
-Bob

jack's final response:

No problem Bob. Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to have to pass on the audition. I changed the tweeter resistors in my Ellis 1801's and they are sounding very good. Excellent in fact. Your speakers will definitely play louder, however I would be really surprised if they could sound as good as mine are sounding at the moment.

Thanks,

Jack

I realize I'm openning myself up to all sorts of critisizm here - but so be it. For those that would complain that I was willing to alter the deal for jack...guess what?  That's my prerogative - it's my company.  To be fair, if anyone else contacts me and they have "close" to the amount of power required as jack has, I'll consider extending the deal to them as well.  It all depends on the particulars.  I can make a deal with anybody and at anytime I choose.  We're not running a democracy in this company. The only legal rights anybody has is, once they've made an initial down-payment towards the purchase and I have granted them the free audition, we are obligated to follow through as per the offer.  Once they have finalized the purchase, they then have the legal warranty.  Besides, he was only 20 watts per channel away which is less than 1 db as I said in my correspondance with him.  

The 300 watt and "no tubes" restrictions placed on the "No Risk Deal" are there so that everyone knows that if they meet them, they automatically qualify. We do like to get to know a potential auditioner as well, but unless I were to suspect foul play (a competitor trying to get a hold of them for study), and they meet the stated requirements, we'll grant them the free audition/round trip deal - period.

I exchanged emails with the owner and he expressed some BS about my amp having too much distortion or something.

See how easily things get twisted? If you will take note, there was never any mention of jack's amp having too much distortion in my response to his inquiry.  In fact, I complimented him on his equipment and even stated that I have heard "wonderful sounding" tube systems.  I also stated that I had never heard the Timepieces on a good tube amp - just a bad one.  I didn't slam tube amps in general, just the poorly designed one I had experience with.  I've also heard some terrible sounding solid-state amps for that matter too!


Also, his comment;

If I didn't like them, I didn't want to have to deal with the crap and the brow beating and excuses.

is totaly without merit.  Ask Jerry or read his previous post concerning the treatment he received.  He returned them and I never made one negative comment to him.  He was very pleased with the treatment he received from us.  And I won't say a thing to anybody else for that matter either.  That's part of the deal, if you don't like them - send them back - period.

The point may be moot before too long anyway.  We're getting orders from dealers, even overseas, now.  The deal may not last much longer so I guess nobody will have anything to complain about anymore.  Remember, this was only a temporary offer to spark interest to begin with.  Having been awarded "Reviewer's Pick" in Pro Audio Review magazine seems to be changing things.  The hits alone on our website have skyrocketed just in the last few weeks since the award was made public.

Sorry, I really hate having to do this but I really don't like being taken advantage of.  We all make mistakes but intentionally violating someone's trust ranks at the top of my list.  I can hear it now, "Well, you changed the no risk deal on us.  You got everybody all juiced up and then pulled the rug out from under us."  To a certain degree, that is true.  But as I've stated in the past, it was an oversight.  It was never intentional regardless of what anyone says or believes.

We are a start up company lacking experience and made a mistake of not thinking things through before we started out.  I have apologized to no end and do so again. I'M SORRY!!!  I'm not a trained marketing guy and made a mistake - period.  Nobody suffered the loss of a single penny by it or has been directly mistreated because of it in any way.  We've already suffered a black eye because of it and I'll take the lumps I've got coming for it.  The one thing I won't do is stand by and be intentionally betrayed and then say nothing though.

Enough said, let the flames begin.  I've said all I'm going to say on the matter and will not be responding to the mud slingers.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

 -Bob

[jackman]

The tube output stage makes me a little nervous. Not because that's bad at all either. It's just because I've had a bad experience with a high powered tube amp in the past. The distortion it produced (poor design the way I figure it) was blatantly obvious on the Timepiece. The highs were very shrill and irritating.

What about my post was inaccurate?  You gave me this BS that you were concerned about distortion in my amp.  What did you base this on, some catch-all philosophy that all tube amps are the same?  I posted my gear so that you could see that I wasn't trying to qualify for the audition with a POS $200 Sony (no offense to Sony owners!) receiver and portable CDP.  My system is pretty good sounding (at least I think so) and I offered to listen to your speakers and would have bought them if they sound good.  Maybe my Fetvalve 550EXR amp has lots of "distortion", but it must be the good sounding kind.

I have demo'd several really good speakers in my home and have spent more time than I care to admit at local audio shops around Chicago.  I have a good idea of what sounds good to me and have spent hundreds of dollars (in '03) shipping gear that I've demo'd back to manufacturers.  I made a decision that I would not do that any more in the new year.  Your offer seemed like a real no risk deal and I admired the confidence you had in your speakers.  It's honestly no skin off my neck.  

As I stated in my email, after making some minor changes to my crossovers (tweeter resistors), I have no interest in your speakers.  I would not want to deal with the barrage questions that would result in the "off chance" that I preferred my current speakers.  I wish you all the best in your business venture and hope you sell lots of speakers.  I just know of one person who will never buy any.  

Cheers,

Jack

[Rocket]

Hi Bob,

I just thought i'd chime in with my opinion.

I guess most of us are a little sensitive about our home audio equipment and that is probably the reason you have received so much heat.  I have an aksa 100 (nirvana) which  is 109 watts per channel, a fine sounding amp imo.

Jackman,  is a real fan of his AVA equipment and probably (even subconsciously) was offended and may'be even a bit peaved as well.

My final comment, i am aware that 300 watts per channel is your minimum for your free shipping offer.  Just because someone has this requirement doesn't mean the amp is a hifi fidelity component, it may be a poor sounding amplifier.

I had a nad 2200pe (100 watts) amplifier many years ago and replaced it with an n.e.w. a20.1 (22 watts perchannel) and it absolutely trounced the nad in every way.

anyway best of luck with your company and hopefully you won't get too much heat from this thread.

regards

rocket

[Horsehead]

I see your point Jack, but I think Bob's response was pretty fair and was asking for your thoughts as he might not have been familiar with your particular tube amp.  Some further dialog about your tube amp and you guys may have agreed on the roundtrip deal.

I've spoken to Bob on the phone for quite a long time about his speakers and other things and he has been fantastic.  He is certainly NOT on a mission to make excuses and criticize other people's systems.  He really wants to be in this for the long haul and I think he realized a potentially bad marketing decision could have put him under real quick.  I still think the offer is a good one and worth a shot even for one way shipping.

BTW- could you PM me with your thoughts on the Solar HiFi amp? Thanks!

[jackman]

Thanks guys,
Although I'm not interested in speakers at the moment, I was a little harsh on Bob.  No worries, if we weren't passionate about this stuff, it would be a hobby versus an obsession.  

I'll PM you on the Solar, because I don't want to hijack(man!) this thread.  However, I don't want to create any impressions that I'm holding anything back on the Solar or that it's not a great amp.  Kevin has put together a wonderful, state of the art amp that has been refined even more since I tested it.  The Solar did not sound good on my Ellis (sorry for mentioning another speaker in this thread) but it sounded very good (refined, powerful, smooth, accurate, etc.) on Jerry's Dynaudio 25's.  It drove these speakers to very high SPL's with excellent bass.  As a result of the test, Kevin has made some changes to the design that should enable the amp to drive anything.  Talk to Kevin about the changes because he's the technical guy, but he should be able to explain it.  Kevin's a good, honest person who I really like.  The Solar has been cosmetically "improved" (I really liked the old design also) with bamboo wood case.  

Please note, I don't think the Solar amp has the 300 wpc necessary to drive some speakers.   Its 250 wpc (I'm guessing here) drove the Dynaudio speakers to near concert levels.  Any louder and we would have had serious hearing damage.

Moderator, please feel free to move this post and Horsehead's question to another (2 channel) board.  I don't want to be unfair to SP by discussing things that are off-topic.

Jack

[Marbles]

Just a quick note to mention that the manufacturers are moderators of their own forums.

Bob if you need a primer on how to delete or move individual posts, or whole threads, you can PM or email me.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programing  

[Aether Audio]

Jackman

What about my post was inaccurate? You gave me this BS that you were concerned about distortion in my amp. What did you base this on, some catch-all philosophy that all tube amps are the same?

I was basing my comment on the fact the I had a bad experience with the one and only tube amp that I ever heard on the Timepieces - that's all.

It WAS Not a slam against tube amps or yours in particular.  I just don't have any experience with tube equipment on them.  I can tell all you guys (and gals) what experience I HAVE had.  I have also NEVER heard an active preamp of any kind on them that didn't degrade the sound.  We've tried several solid-state units and they all degraded performance.  We always go direct from the CD player into the amp.  Since the CD (Onkyo dual linear DAC)has variable output, we don't need one.  The only preamp I ever heard that didn't negatively affect the sound was a McCormack Line Drive passive unit - that was sweet.

People are telling me that they can easily hear differences in cables too.  I haven't but that's because I don't have time to experiment like that.  Too busy trying to run a company.

Sorry I beat up on you.  I guess it caught me off guard.  I was actually going to give you the deal anyway - so long as YOU thought they'd do the job for you.  All I was asking was for you to read my post regarding Tubes vs. Solid-State and some of the other stuff.  After you had an idea about my thinking, I was going to leave the decision in your hands as to whether or not YOU thought it would be a good idea.  I prefer to trust other people and their judgement if they seem to have more experience than I do.  Certainly you would know more about what your equipment is capable of than I would.

I admit it, I'm a purist with LOTS of experience in amplifier design.  I believe that the equipment should add absolutely nothing to the signal coming off the recording except gain.  You know, the "straight wire with gain" concept?  When I can't even find an active preamp that I like because the speaker is so revealing, you can bet I'm going to be a little concerned when the only tube amp I've ever heard our speakers on totally sucked!  That's not so much an idictment against tube gear as it is about my own lack of experience.  I would love for someone to give me something else to go by.  I actually thought that with 280 watts of tube power, you might be the guy!

So anyway I apologize for getting so upset.  If you or anybody else wants to contact me about the round trip deal, I'm still open to the idea of slightly less than 300 watts as in your case and tubes as well.  I just need to get a feel of what your expectations are.  It's only because of two things.

1. The Timepieces ARE rather low in efficiency so if you ocasionally like to really crank it, you might be disappointed if you only have under 200 watts.  Actually, only one other person has had 300 watts or more and they've all been very happy.

2.  The Timepieces are extremely revealing.  If there's any distortion you're going to hear it.  Also, if your preamp or power amp has anything less than excellent channel seperation or any inter-channel cross talk, it will significantly degrade the soundstage and imaging that the Timepieces are capable of.  This problem often shows up as an increasing degradation of channel seperation as you go higher in frequency.  That's the characteristic manifestation of the problem and it's due to high frequency cross-coupling that results from parasitic capacitance in circuit boards and internal amplifier wiring.  Since tube amps operate internally at higher impedances than solid-state, it's more difficult to prevent.  It's NOT impossible - just more difficult.  Just ask any old ham radio guy that has tried to keep his home-made tube radio from "whistling."


Everybody

Thanks for your support.  Marbles, thanks for the info - you're great!  That's OK though, I don't ever want to remove anybody's post unless it is defamatory or profane.  I want everybody to be heard whether I agree with them or not.


Rocket

I really appreciate where you're coming from and you're right, a smaller amp can often outperform a much bigger one.  I've been involved in building some really big amps so I know.  I've heard a couple models that had plenty of juice but they hurt your ears after about five minutes.  I can't say who made them but let's just say I had "first hand" experience.

The 300 watt thing is this:  The Timepieces can reproduce an incredible dynamic range.  Many of us have heard speakers that excel as far as frequency response, imaging and distortion are concerned.  But if a speaker offers all of that AND reproduces the full dynamic range of well recorded music, the "live, you are there" effect kicks in.  That's what I feel the TP2's offer and also believe that if you give them a chance to "open up" - you won't want to send them back.  

Kinda like taking a sports car out on an open track and letting her rip - pedal to the metal.  Once that sucker slams you back in the seat and keeps you there through third gear, you just have to take her home.  You may not have been so convinced if all you got to do was tool around town a little.

Night all - its a good day after all
 -Bob

[JohnR]

Um..... I hate to be a party-pooper but the AVA FetValve is not a tube amp. It uses transistors for the output stage, the tubes are only in the input stage.

Vacuum tubes are great at manipulating voltages—you can play with 200+ volt signals where transistors would go up in smoke and flames. So, we use vacuum tubes for all voltage manipulations. Vacuum tubes, however, cannot drive difficult loads. They have very limited output current and get in big trouble trying to drive feedback loops, stray internal capacitances, and connection cables. So, we don’t let our tubes see any loads at all. They operate in an idealized mode amplifying voltages only, and do it perfectly.

Power MOSFETs are super current amplifiers. They can control great gobs of current without stress, and when properly selected and used, they perform without needing external compensation, thermal tracking circuits, or VI limiting and protect circuits. So we use all power MOSFETs for current-amplification duties.

http://www.avahifi.com/root/equipment/amplifier/fetvalve_amps.htm

[infiniti driver]

Thanks JohnR, this was Jackmans statement..which was what Bob had to go on...

"AVA 550EXR Fetvalve amp (rated at 280wpc but very powerful and has tubes in the output stage)"

Tubes on the input stage can yield certain sonic character that may or may not be what a listener is wanting...but in many cases..it can be the ticket to that "audio nirvana"


Now, about Bob not using any kind of preamplifier. This is something we must ponder. In my experience, having an actual "gain stage" between the source and the power amp inputs does change the sound quality..especially in the bottom end. Not having this gain stage makes for a different character of sound that others may or may not appreciate. I personally master recordings considering that there IS a gain stage presented between source and power amp inputs. Perhaps if I mastered without such gain stage, my mastering would take on a different sound quality (I have and I thought it was bass heavy, because lack of a gain stage tends to make things sound "thinner")

Since 90+% of the topography of consumer electronics incorporate a true gain stage after the line level, this is what I base my decision.

Impedance matching is duly important as well. Perhaps this added coloration of this gain stage that I am mastering around makes for a better overall presentation. YMMV of course.