What speakers are you using for your ARC tube amp?

tdh888

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Nov 4, 2010
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Greetings to fellow ARC enthusiast,

I just joined the WBF today and its nice that there is a dedicated forum for us ARC fans. What kind of speakers are you using w/ your ARC tube amp(vintage & current ARC amps).Let me start:

For my Snell Type A2 Im using a pair of D79B( in biamp mode ) vertical configuration w/ an EC 21 electronic crossover.

For my Duntech C5000 Princess I use the D250 MK2 servo or the Classic 150 monoblocks.

Hoping to know what you guys are using.

tdh888
 

DaveyF

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Jul 31, 2010
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tdg888, I am using a pair of Sonus Faber Guarneri Hommages with my ARC D70Mk2 with rolled in tubes. Fantastic synergy and best tube based sound I have had in my system. The preamp is a CAT SL1 Sig with rolled in tubes.
BTW, I have a very good friend who still owns a pair of Duntech Princess's. I should think with your D250Mk2 w.servo and the Duntech's you must be getting a good sound.
 

tdh888

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Nov 4, 2010
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Hi DaveyF,

Those SF Guarneri Homage speakers are quite good. My 1st encounter w/ a SF was w/ the original Concertino (loaned by a friend) drove it w/ my D79B and it sounded musical that even my sister was convince to get one for herself. Second encounter was w/ a Cremonna Auditor tried this speakers also using my D79B less musical, neutral but still sounds great. As if this speakers have a special affinity Vintage ARC tube amps.My D250MK2 SERVO mates well w/ the Duntech Princess but My Classic 150's can control the woofers better than the D250MK2SERVO, but this hybrid is more neutral but its also musical because of its triode configuration. A bit of trivia during the era of the D seies(70, 115,250,M100, M300) until the era of the Classic series ARC was using Duntech Princess aside from the Magnepans were use as reference for voicing they're equipment.This was mentioned to me by they're Chief tester during my tour of the ARC facilities , 2007.

tdh888
 

karma

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Jun 17, 2011
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HI,
I am driving Martin Logan CLS IIA electrostatics with my ARC D250 MkII Servo amp (250W/chan). Because this is a biamped system with subwoofers, the D250 does no work below the 67 Hz crossover frequency. The subs are driven by a Mark Levinson No. 23 (400W/chan into the subs 4 ohm load) solid state amp.

The CLS IIA's present a brutal load to the D250 dipping to about 1 ohm at 20 kHz. The D250 handles this amp busting situation very well. It has never failed in 20 years of use (except for a couple of crummy Chinese 6550's which failed early in their lives) and the treble is only very slightly rolled off. Very impressive performance.

Oh, did I mention, the D250 sounds great in this system?

Sparky
 

jadis

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I saw this thread only now. I am using a pair of Magnepan 2.7QR on my ARC VS115 which was bought just 2 months ago. Previously, an ARC VS110 was driving the Maggies for about 7 years. There seems to be some synergy with the Maggies and the ARC amps. Is it a coincidence that both companies are in Minnesota? :) And, their dealer in HK in the 80s and 90s were the same one, Excel Hi Fi. :)
 

karma

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HI jadis
The first time I saw Audio Research was at an Albuquerque hi fi store where they were paired with Maggie Tympanies (sp?). That would have been around 1980. I was told that ARC and Magneplanar, both in Minnesota, were working closely together. This supports your idea.

The sound blew me away. I don't remember the ARC model numbers and since I had never heard of the company, I probably would not have recognized them.

But five years later I had an ARC D115 MkII and a SP-10 MkII. The Albuquerque Demo must have impressed me a lot.

Sparky
 
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DonH50

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Jun 22, 2010
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I was there when ARC had Maggies in their showroom in MN. In fact, there are plenty of old adverts showing their tight relationship.

On-topic, I recently sold my old D79, but prior to that it was the upper amp driving Magnepan MG-IIIa's. A Counterpoint SA-220 drove the bass, and a bridged Hafler the sub (using a custom-designed servo/crossover circuit I still have but am afraid to power on). My personal experience has been that tube amps in general prefer more benign loads and favor the middle and upper frequencies; with few exceptions (and I have heard some) they are less impressive on the low end.

YMMV - Don
 

microstrip

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MylesBAstor

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jadis

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HI jadis
The first time I saw Audio Research was at an Albuquerque hi fi store where they were paired with Maggie Tympanies (sp?). That would have been around 1980. I was told that ARC and Magneplanar, both in Minnesota, were working closely together. This supports your idea.

The sound blew me away. I don't remember the ARC model numbers and since I had never heard of the company, I probably would not have recognized them.

Sparky

Hi Sparky,

I would have loved to hear that combination of the Tympani and an ARC amp during those days. I've heard ARC driving many other speaker brands in olden times over here but not a Maggie. And good to hear that indeed these 2 companies had a close working relationship, their match is very much to my liking. I am curious to hear a Maggie paired with a CJ though, I never heard any such matching.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
The first time I ever heard Tympani speakers was in 1979 at a friend's home in South Orange county where I lived at the time. He also running them with Audio Research preamp and amp however model numbers escape me. Suffice it to say it was that audition that directed my mind to tubes and Tympani (which I bought). The sound was spectacular
 

tdh888

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I had the oppurtunity to meet Warren Gehl during my visit in Audio Research in 2007. He worked For NASA before transferring to ARC. He was a understudy of Jack Hjelm for 15 years. This was the guy who voice Bill Johnson's ARC electronic design from the start until he retired from the company. ARC used to market Tympani for Magnepan during the early 70's. I also wanted to have Tympani's in the early 90's right after I passed the Board Exam for Medicine .I had my D79B's back then but I heard the Snell type A2's and was blown away.


tdh888
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Hi Sparky,

I would have loved to hear that combination of the Tympani and an ARC amp during those days. I've heard ARC driving many other speaker brands in olden times over here but not a Maggie. And good to hear that indeed these 2 companies had a close working relationship, their match is very much to my liking. I am curious to hear a Maggie paired with a CJ though, I never heard any such matching.

Oh I had the combo for years. Highly modded Maggie 3As (built an external xover with Solen chokes, a 160 uF bank of Solen chokes on the bass bypass, rewired with triple stranded MIT hookup wire, a Rel cap polyprope on the tweeter, Cardas binding posts, hardwired from the speaker binding post to the panel, no fuses and a solidified frame) with two cj Premier 4 amplifiers horizontally biamped. Pure heaven. Tubes tend to like Maggies because of their nice and stable 4 ohm load (despite the speaker being somewhat on the low side when it comes to efficiency). Many people wrongly blame the "sound" of the panels on the speakers/diaghrams when it's really the parts involved. Much of that Maggie bass is the crappy caps they used back then and few have really heard that tweeter sing since Magnepan used a mylar caps yesteryear.
 

jadis

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Oh I had the combo for years. Highly modded Maggie 3As (built an external xover with Solen chokes, a 160 uF bank of Solen chokes on the bass bypass, rewired with triple stranded MIT hookup wire, a Rel cap polyprope on the tweeter, Cardas binding posts, hardwired from the speaker binding post to the panel, no fuses and a solidified frame) with two cj Premier 4 amplifiers horizontally biamped. Pure heaven. Tubes tend to like Maggies because of their nice and stable 4 ohm load (despite the speaker being somewhat on the low side when it comes to efficiency). Many people wrongly blame the "sound" of the panels on the speakers/diaghrams when it's really the parts involved. Much of that Maggie bass is the crappy caps they used back then and few have really heard that tweeter sing since Magnepan used a mylar caps yesteryear.

Very interesting, Myles. Your 'mod' on the 3As sound impressive but in this part of the world, doing those things should void the factory warranty. That's our fear as we are so far from help, and shipping here and there of parts plus duties and taxes are always horror stories. Now that you mentioned that the problem was really the parts involved, I now recall a good friend of mine who had a 3.6 but can't seem to tame the ribbons' 'brightness' even when he used the resistor jumpers provided by the factory to tame the highs. Could it be parts of the 3.6's crossover too? His amp then were the Jadis JA 500 and in the end, he sold the Maggies.
 

jadis

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And talking about their then flagship Tympani, I had the opportunity to hear a Tympani IVa back in the 1990 at a HK dealer's huge showroom. It was the most realistic sound I heard then and one of the best till today. Electronics were ML's Cello and they were playing a DMP CD of John Tropea and boy, it was like I can 'see' the band players in the soundstage. Eerie.
 

MylesBAstor

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Very interesting, Myles. Your 'mod' on the 3As sound impressive but in this part of the world, doing those things should void the factory warranty. That's our fear as we are so far from help, and shipping here and there of parts plus duties and taxes are always horror stories. Now that you mentioned that the problem was really the parts involved, I now recall a good friend of mine who had a 3.6 but can't seem to tame the ribbons' 'brightness' even when he used the resistor jumpers provided by the factory to tame the highs. Could it be parts of the 3.6's crossover too? His amp then were the Jadis JA 500 and in the end, he sold the Maggies.

Well first the speaker was out of warranty :)

I seem to remember using a 0.75 to 1 ohm resistor on the tweeter. Yes some of the the "brightness" of the tweeter was the polyester caps, the internal wiring (alpha core something--that Infinity also used at the time), etc. I also thought that the Jadis was also a little edgy and that may contributed; the best Jadis I heard was the 60 watter on the top end (and Krell 300 wpc amps on the bottom end) of modded RS1bs!
 

tdh888

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Since were talking about Magnepans and Tympani'w/ ARC has anyone tried Paul Speltz Autoformers Zero impedance transformers w/ their Maggies driven by ARC tube equipment? If so whats your comments /review?
 

jadis

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I also thought that the Jadis was also a little edgy and that may contributed; the best Jadis I heard was the 60 watter on the top end (and Krell 300 wpc amps on the bottom end) of modded RS1bs!

I would agree. The sweetest Jadis amp for me was the JA30, I believe at 30 watts. Long ago, we did a shootout with the JA30 and the ARC Classic 60, most of us present like the JA30 more. :)
 

MylesBAstor

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Since were talking about Magnepans and Tympani'w/ ARC has anyone tried Paul Speltz Autoformers Zero impedance transformers w/ their Maggies driven by ARC tube equipment? If so whats your comments /review?

Why would one use them with Maggies? :) I thought they were meant for tube amps that didn't like seeing low impedances such as that presented by estats. Maggies are a nice 4 ohm load and most tube amps I know have 4 ohm taps.
 

tdh888

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Nov 4, 2010
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I would agree. The sweetest Jadis amp for me was the JA30, I believe at 30 watts. Long ago, we did a shootout with the JA30 and the ARC Classic 60, most of us present like the JA30 more. :)

Regarding the Jadis JA 30 it was a disappointment for our group here in the South. We compared it w/ a audio research ST 70 ( Dynaco heavily modified by Bill johnson w/ 6L6 output tubes w/ power transformer upgrade) Associated equipment used for the test ( Gyrodec MK3, SME 309, Zyx 3D gold, ARC SP10 MK2, Rogers LS3/5a 11 0hms biwireable) The ST 70 performed better than the JA 30 in all parameters. We were so disappointed and we brought (JA 30)it to my other friends house a former JA 30 0wner(sold and replaced it w/ a DEFY 7 MK3 w/ KT 90's) ( associated equipment use was the Forsell Air force Ref, ZYX 3D silver,CAT SL 1 reference, Rogers LS 3/5a 11 0hms ) Using the ARC Classic 60 w/ svetlana 6550c ARC supplied ,w/ IEC connector upgrade using the Shunyata Anaconda power cord , it slayed the Ja 30 in all performance parameters. Maybe what we had was a bad sample( JA30) or maybe mismatched equipment .The prospective buyer of the JA 30 back out from the sale because of this listening sessions. But I recalled JA 30 was at its best when we were using it w/ the Spica TC 50, it was the best amp I heard when partnered w/ this speakers.
 

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