I am afraid to post this....

flez007

flez007

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Aug 31, 2010
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...but I will post it anyway :)

Remember I said I was a happy man with my Levinson No.333 power amp?, well .. the devil knocked my door (again) dressed on beautiful valves, shinny chrome face plate, and an incredible organic, detailed and fleshed-out sound in my system...and against all odds (just 37 watts) it sounded delicious with my Avalon speakers.

So, I am back to tubes (partially) since I am still keeping the Gryphon preamp - heard the system last night with the wife and issued an acceptance word with no further obligation :)

The Levinson has gone in exchange of (another) use-less wrist watch ..it is an EAR 861 PP, pure class A, enhanced triode mode, Zero negative feedback, self biasing EL519 B/UB power amp.... tag me nuts!
 

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Congrats, Flez!!! That is great! And you got your "Investment Committee" approval quickly! Even better.
 
unfortunately she does not consider all this an investment at all :) Thanks Lloyd!
 
Fernando-Please tell us what you think you gained and what you think you lost as there is no free lunch as we all know.
 
Good questions mep:

Pros:

- incredible and real tonality
- increased detail and resolution
- roundness on acoustic instruments
- further decay and ambiance retrieval
- voices are scary-human like
- shine in strings and wind instruments
- sounds great at almost all volume settings
(the list might grow, just 48 hours with it as we speak)

Cons:

- Bass control (not bad but the Levinson was better here)
- extreme dynamics (the Levinson was short here as well)
 
welcome back to the real world of tubes Fernando

I would have said you gained richness and coloration at the expense of bass slam
 
that´s correct Steve, tubes are euphoric (generally speaking) - but those colorations and me are good friends!
 
Toobz Rule!

Brother you did the right thing.

I just can't imagine living with a solid state amp in my main system.:D

flez007 said:
...but I will post it anyway :)

Remember I said I was a happy man with my Levinson No.333 power amp?, well .. the devil knocked my door (again) dressed on beautiful valves, shinny chrome face plate, and an incredible organic, detailed and fleshed-out sound in my system...and against all odds (just 37 watts) it sounded delicious with my Avalon speakers.

So, I am back to tubes (partially) since I am still keeping the Gryphon preamp - heard the system last night with the wife and issued an acceptance word with no further obligation :)

The Levinson has gone in exchange of (another) use-less wrist watch ..it is an EAR 861 PP, pure class A, enhanced triode mode, Zero negative feedback, self biasing EL519 B/UB power amp.... tag me nuts!
Click to expand...
 
Hi Andre!

I have been in and out of tubes, and have had a great time with amps from Jadis, VTL, Viva, Manley, Acustic Plan and Audio Note among some others I do not recall now, and I tend to agree with you when one can live with the intrinsic cost of tube-based amps (TCO, noise floor, bass control, dynamics and so on) - as always, it ends in aspects such as sinergy and tastes. I am happy with my decision of course - Thanks!
 
For me their is no intrinsic cost. The new KT120 tube rivals most solid state in bass control to my ears, and Audio Research makes darn quiet amps.

Hell , I believe there is a much higher intrinsic cost to spinning vinyl.

flez007 said:
Hi Andre!

I have been in and out of tubes, and have had a great time with amps from Jadis, VTL, Viva, Manley, Acustic Plan and Audio Note among some others I do not recall now, and I tend to agree with you when one can live with the intrinsic cost of tube-based amps (TCO, noise floor, bass control, dynamics and so on) - as always, it ends in aspects such as sinergy and tastes. I am happy with my decision of course - Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
My experience with both the KT120 tube and AR amps is quite limited :( but I trust your ears! (the Transparent USB cable is sounding great! - thanks again :) )
 
flez007 said:
My experience with both the KT120 tube and AR amps is quite limited :( but I trust your ears! (the Transparent USB cable is sounding great! - thanks again :) )
Click to expand...

I make no claims to having "golden ears", I can only report what I hear!

Transparent makes excellent cables in my humble opinion. Their speaker and interconnect cables are some of the best I have heard. The interconnects work great for high level sources, like from preamp to power amp, but for some reason they do not work as well for me from source to preamp.
 
Andre Marc said:
For me their is no intrinsic cost. The new KT120 tube rivals most solid state in bass control to my ears, and Audio Research makes darn quiet amps.

Hell , I believe there is a much higher intrinsic cost to spinning vinyl.
Click to expand...

I agree that ARC makes quiet tube amps. IMO, they have always been quiet. I have the VS115 currently and it is a beautiful sounding amp and the KT-120 tubes do set a new benchmark in tube bass. However, that benchmark isn't in the same league as a really good SS amp. My KSA-250 can do things in the bass and midbass that the VS115 or any other tube amp can't quite dream of.
 
flez007 said:
that´s correct Steve, tubes are euphoric (generally speaking) - but those colorations and me are good friends!
Click to expand...

From my experience with amplifiers designed by Tim de Paravicini and amplifiers using the EL509 pentodes they are (happily ;)) less colored than the usual real triode amplifiers.
I never understood why, but all the Tim de Paravicini amplifiers I remember seemed to sound more powerful than they should, considering the rated power and weight!

Welcome back to the tube reign!
 
mep said:
I agree that ARC makes quiet tube amps. IMO, they have always been quiet. I have the VS115 currently and it is a beautiful sounding amp and the KT-120 tubes do set a new benchmark in tube bass. However, that benchmark isn't in the same league as a really good SS amp. My KSA-250 can do things in the bass and midbass that the VS115 or any other tube amp can't quite dream of.
Click to expand...

Hard to disagree.

But I will say that the ass performance of the K120, or any good tube amp in general, sounds more like "live" bass to me.

I have never heard bass in a live setting sound the way it does through a trophy SS amp. But I guess you could say the same
thing about vocals too.
 
You nailed down into an interesting subject there Andre, bass tunes coming from the EAR amp are not as powerfull or with the slam of my previous reference, but ...... tone and integration with the rest of the instruments playing is more real! .. go figure ....
 
flez007 said:
You nailed down into an interesting subject there Andre, bass tunes coming from the EAR amp are not as powerfull or with the slam of my previous reference, but ...... tone and integration with the rest of the instruments playing is more real! .. go figure ....
Click to expand...

Always a trade-off it seems. :) It's like Maggies having more snap on an upright bass vs. dynamic speaker moving more air.

Listen to a piano recording of a Bosendorfer on a ss vs. tube amp. Very telling.
 
microstrip said:
From my experience with amplifiers designed by Tim de Paravicini and amplifiers using the EL509 pentodes they are (happily ;)) less colored than the usual real triode amplifiers.
I never understood why, but all the Tim de Paravicini amplifiers I remember seemed to sound more powerful than they should, considering the rated power and weight!

Welcome back to the tube reign!
Click to expand...

I think it could be said that Tim is a bass nut. One of the most important things to him when he masters an album is bass slam :)
 
MylesBAstor said:
Listen to a piano recording of a Bosendorfer on a ss vs. tube amp. Very telling.
Click to expand...

I bite!

A Bosendorfer is a half octave down instrument in the last 4 keys (??) compared to a Stanway piano, there one needs low register resolution an tone...my bet Myles is that my previous reference would send the right impact and attack of those last keys BUT not the real tone, the EAR will deliver the right tone biut at, say...., 3 dB lower?
 
microstrip said:
From my experience with amplifiers designed by Tim de Paravicini and amplifiers using the EL509 pentodes they are (happily ;)) less colored than the usual real triode amplifiers.
I never understood why, but all the Tim de Paravicini amplifiers I remember seemed to sound more powerful than they should, considering the rated power and weight!

Welcome back to the tube reign!
Click to expand...

EL509 can be a pretty powerful tube, the amp must be conservatively rated. I had one of the old Melos high current triode amps for many years that claimed 200w per channel in push pull mode with one pair per channel.
 
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