Recently arrived - Audiopax Model 5 preamp

bonzo75

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Bonzo, I often have a few more drinks and want a lot more volume, please, can you talk a little more about the combination of Luxman and Tannoy?
My idea is the L509X! (120W pc)

This was with 590 (30w), older model.

Previously I compared the Vitus SIA 25 to the Luxman 509 on a three way horn built by a big Italian dealer Gian introduced me to in Pescara, where I preferred the lux. But in the same shop, on the Canterbury, the Vitus did much better than the Luxman due to better drive. The Canterbury really roared with the Vitus while it seemed loosy goosy with the Luxman. That said, the golds are much easier to drive.

They are extremely meaty, very nice midrange tone, coherence, guitar. With the Luxman I don't get the piano or the nuances that I get at Tom with his silvercore on the HPD 315a.

With the kronzilla you could get more bass and fireworks compared to the Silvercore but lose out on the tonal differences of classical. Kronzilla might have been better than the Luxman on the golds but never compared.
 
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bonzo75

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For us mere mortals, we don't have dedicated listening rooms in our modest sized homes.
Besides, music should be part of the family in a central space where all can enjoy.

I agree. Or run your own company and have it in the office at work
 

Nascimento

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Montesquieu, please excuse me if I pollute your topic with another conversation!

QUOTE="bonzo75, post: 632934, member: 5331"]
Previously I compared the Vitus SIA 25 to the Luxman 509 on a three way horn built by a big Italian dealer Gian introduced me to in Pescara, where I preferred the lux. But in the same shop, on the Canterbury, the Vitus did much better than the Luxman due to better drive.
[/QUOTE]

I have an ML336 that guarantees me a good marriage with Tannoy, but it is very big and heavy (70kg) I need someone to help me put it next to the rack! I asked about Luxman, because I am planning to buy a smaller and lighter integrated, which can always be on the rack!
My room is not dedicated and it is also small, it is a family living room, I listen to jazz, my daughter likes rock and my wife loves music, everyone has the right to put a CD, but they can't touch the turntable!
Fortunately, 90% of the time they are busy with TV!

minha sala 2.jpg
 

bonzo75

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I would suggest Vitus integrated over Luxman for those Westminster given what I heard at Canterbury. Lovely looking room btw. Or kronzilla integrated for valves
 
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Joao@altheamusica

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Montesquieu, please excuse me if I pollute your topic with another conversation!

QUOTE="bonzo75, post: 632934, member: 5331"]
Previously I compared the Vitus SIA 25 to the Luxman 509 on a three way horn built by a big Italian dealer Gian introduced me to in Pescara, where I preferred the lux. But in the same shop, on the Canterbury, the Vitus did much better than the Luxman due to better drive.

Fortunately, 90% of the time they are busy with TV!

[/QUOTE]
to enjoy the Telenovelas :)
Remembers me on my time living in Rio de Janeiro... my friend Carlos there manufactured cable and was be friends with Eduardo da Lima, so I got to know him. Later after Eduardo died we assisted the new owner to design a phono stage... long time ago and sadly my friend died some years ago.

Off topic: were do you reside in Brasil?
 

hogen

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Montesquieu, please excuse me if I pollute your topic with another conversation!

QUOTE="bonzo75, post: 632934, member: 5331"]
Previously I compared the Vitus SIA 25 to the Luxman 509 on a three way horn built by a big Italian dealer Gian introduced me to in Pescara, where I preferred the lux. But in the same shop, on the Canterbury, the Vitus did much better than the Luxman due to better drive.

I have an ML336 that guarantees me a good marriage with Tannoy, but it is very big and heavy (70kg) I need someone to help me put it next to the rack! I asked about Luxman, because I am planning to buy a smaller and lighter integrated, which can always be on the rack!
My room is not dedicated and it is also small, it is a family living room, I listen to jazz, my daughter likes rock and my wife loves music, everyone has the right to put a CD, but they can't touch the turntable!
Fortunately, 90% of the time they are busy with TV!

View attachment 62418 [/QUOTE]
Very nice looking room and setup, parabens:)
 

bonzo75

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95EE5273-B82F-4826-97EE-4E81BB0B0AFE.jpeg
 

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bonzo75

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Hogen and Leif's fellow Norwegian probably has the best tannoy view?
 

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hogen

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bonzo75

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you have tannoys too?
 

hogen

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joaovieira

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I had the Model 5 with the M88 monoblocks.
Great combination, just changed for the new L50 pre amplifier and the M100 monos.
Audiopax sound is so natural and I don’t think about changing it.
 

Nascimento

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microstrip

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And in this place I had one off my best rock and jazz moments with tannoy monitor 15 golds, Luxman integrated 30w, Sony 8000 DD. 8 hours fatigue free.

View attachment 62416

Great picture and fabulous advertising for the Ekornes chairs! :)
 

montesquieu

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Thanks for all the feedback guys and nice to see Tannoys out in force!

Ked is correct, it's very difficult to find a single ended amp that will control Tannoys properly, I've never found a 211 (or 805 or 845) that really managed it. It's not watts so much as the ability to control the cone. I don't know what Christopf has managed to do with the 833C but it's the only single ended amp I've found so far that properly manages it. Most of my life with Tannoys (bought my first pair with an early salary cheque in the mid-80s!) has been with push-pull pentodes.

The sofa doesn't really interfere with the speaker, you can't really see the angle it's pointing in at, or the gap between wall and speaker on the left ... the 'cone' of the music moves out well above the sofa arm too. I moved the speakers into the centre then back out to the edge stopping when I felt the sound might get affected. Of course in any living space there are compromises but it's really not a problem. Though when the sofa is up for replacement in a year or two I will probably get a smaller one, this one came with us in a house move.

Now this is a listening room. No frills, just come home and play the music. Go to the kitchen, the music keeps playing. Sit outside the sweet spot, it keeps playing. Play $1 LPs, reissues, digital, whatever, it also just flows musically. You should also put up your pics of Piano and other instruments Tom.

Here you go ...

Single manual English spinet made in Tonbridge Wells, Kent c1961 by Feldberg, with buff stop, perfect for renaissance and early Baroque repertoire, and all of Bach (could do with a few more keys to play Scarlatti, Rameau and Couperin though) ... I had a two manual Italian harpsichord in the old house but it was 7ft long and I couldn't find a place to put it in the new house, so I had to get something smaller, luckily there was a corner for something in the hallway. I have a piano and assorted fretted instruments as well, and a personal key for the local Anglican church in the village 10min walk away - celebrating its 800th anniversary this year - which has a really lovely Victorian era tracker action organ. I'm planning a Bach pilgrimage for my 60th birthday next year .. I plan to visit every place where Bach lived and worked, and play the organ in as many of them as will let me. I'm practicing hard to get my footwork in particular back up to where it was when I did a music degree in my 20s.

 

Audiophile Bill

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VinylSavor

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The 211s cannot drive this. Maybe if TM makes special ones with more gain he can. .

I have several customers who happily use my amps with Tannoys. This has nothing to do with gain, you are mixing something up. The gain needed depends on the gain structure of the entire system but this does not determine if an amp can drive a certain speaker. there are several possibilities in a system to change the gain to the value needed

The ones in London were made for pnoes, they could not drive the horns symphonia. The 2a3 or 46 are not sufficient for Tannoys. Maybe 2a3s will work on Tannoy blacks, if anyone can find them.

Not sure what you are referring to. To amps I built? I never built any amplifier specifically for Pnoes. If an amp works in a certain constellation depends on the entire system, room size and listening habits and personal taste besides the matching to the speaker
 

bonzo75

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Sorry Thomas, the 211s of yours that worked with the pnoes, did not drive the horns symphony. That is what I meant. It might not be gain might be something in entire structure as with the pnoe it was an entire Mayer chain
 

VinylSavor

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As I was not present I cannot judge, but I am very sure a system with Horns Symphony and my 211 amps can be set up to work.
I have used 211 amps to drive much more demanding speakers as these with success. Of course personal tastes always also play a role,
 

montesquieu

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As I was not present I cannot judge, but I am very sure a system with Horns Symphony and my 211 amps can be set up to work.
I have used 211 amps to drive much more demanding speakers as these with success. Of course personal tastes always also play a role,

Hi Thomas (I'm also Thomas, by the way) let me first say that your room at Munich last year was one of my highlights, we spent some time playing with mono. Unfortunately a stereo + mono pair of your phono stages wasn't in budget or they would have been top of my list.

I've owned Tannoys in some shape or form since the early 80s and in particular have had classic 'vintage' Tannoys from when I got back into proper hifi in the mid 00s as the kids grew old enough to know not to trash my gear. I've had others but mainly focused on 12in and 15in Monitor Series, mainly Golds and HPDs, in all sorts of cabinets from factory to custom (including Eaton, Chatsworth, Cheviot, Lancaster, GRF, Lockwood Major and Universal, Canterbury and Autograph). There are differences between the various eras of the Monitor Series - late 1950s to early 1970s, before the core dual concentric design was changed radically by Tannoy to follow fashion in power amplifiers, not least that the models before the Gold - Black, Silver and Red - are 16 ohm - but being dual concentric designs in more or less the same basket, they share more than they differ.

Why do I like them? Well they just sound like music. They fill the room, the aren't fussy about on or off axis, my wife can sit at to side and mark exam papers while listening, and not miss out unduly. You can engage with them and listen deeply, or you can let them wash over, either way there are no nastyness or edgyness or irritations. The dual concentric approach is so coherent musically that I sometimes find it hard to listen to multi-driver non-concentric speakers now.

In the last decade or so of focusing on optimizing Tannoys, I've had more than 50 amplifiers through, of all stripes - from flea power single ended 45, 2A3, 300b and SIT, to various sizes of OTL, to giant Krells and Levinsons, push-pull valve amps to big buck Kronzillas to Nelson Pass home projects. I have some limited experience of later Tannoys (and some of what I say below applies, up to a point, to some of these). However I have, I think, quite a lot of specific first hand knowledge about the various Monitor Series speakers and cabinets, including the most common custom options.

Power is not really the issue with this early era of Tannoys. It's about a balance of competing factors. The 15in cones, and to a large extent also the 12in versions, are quite hard to start and stop. Golds are happiest with about 15-20w, but can sing perfectly well with 10w of valve power, so long as it's push-pull. HPDs in general tend to need a bit more, at least 20w upwards to 40w or even 50w, again usually push-pull. In my experiece, what all Tannoys of this era need, in my view, is a respectable damping factor. Not masses of damping - indeed that's why I've found often quite highly regarded muscle amps like the Krell KSA100, can sound dull with vintage Tannoys - overdamped. The sound seems best with a middling sort of damping factor, high single figures to maybe 20 or 30. Beyond that, the life can get progressively sucked out. This applies as much to solid state as to valves.

At the other end of the spectrum, the vast majority of single ended amps I've tried have disappointed, occasionally by having no bass at all, but more usually by having too much woolly, overhanging, vaguely placed or boomy bass. This I have come to believe is due to the high output impedance (low or close to non-existent damping factor) of your typical, no negative feedback single ended amp (often designed by faith rather than by measurement, it seems), which simply can't control the cone properly at the same time as drive the compression tweeter in the centre. Not all 211 amps are the same by any means and I would love to hear a pair Thomas Mayer 211s into my 12in HPDs ... the Silvercores were actually the first single ended amp that convinced me it could be done effectively. I'm sure they aren't alone.

Anyway I found the most straightforward fix for vintage Tannoys is a top notch push pull valve amp - some of the best results I've ever had were with Radford (the sweet little STA25 in particular) and Leben (660p and especially 1000p). Even an old Beard 35w EL84 power amp sounded pretty good. It doesn't take a huge amount of cash, generally, to get them to sing. Then you can focus on getting the front end right. (I hasten to add there are some pretty poor push-pull valve amps out there at the moment, not least a raft of poorly done Chinese amps using recycled, barely-understood circuits from 1950s DIY magazines).

Any time I make a post like this, recounting my conclusions from a decade of at times quite intense practical experimentation, I come across people who tell me they love their Tannoys with 8w of single ended whatever; I never quite know what to make of this as any time I've tried it I've been disappointed. But each to their own and I suppose it was keeping an open mind on the topic that allowed me finally arrive at the Silvercores. I'd like to know how they measure, for curiosity, but Christoph doesn't publish anything on the subject.
 

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