Natural Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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And now for something completely different....
I have always been a fan of the big three: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. I do not have any original recordings because I sold the early reissues that I had for years when I moved to NYC after college. What a huge mistake that was. Anyway, years later now, I have managed to find some early pressings. I also took a chance on two Black Sabbath recent reissues because they included second LPs of outtakes and the packaging looked great. Sadly, the sonics did not match my expectations. They both sounded a bit thin and flat with a tipped up tonal balance. My friend Madfloyd, also a big fan agreed, saying that the remastering was a bit "hot".
Fast forward a couple of years to my new audio system with corner horns and more capable amplifiers and turntable. This afternoon I decided to listen to the first Black Sabbath album again on this new system. It is Friday afternoon after a lovely spirited sail through grey, rough seas. Now inside with a hot cup of tea in hand, I lowered the needle. The music sounded completely different from what I remembered. I put my tea down and started to pay attention. Perhaps the highs are still a bit hot on this remastering, but suddenly I hear the bass. It was completely absent before now transformed.
After the first side revelations, I flipped the record over to listen to side two. OMG, the drums and those bass and guitar riffs blew my mind. I cranked it up even more waiting to hear distortion but there seemed to be no limit. My old speakers might have blown up by now. The Vitavox big 15" paper woofers loaded the corners so that the room was filled with the deepest, most chest-pounding bass I've ever heard in this small living room. When the side was finished, I decided to record the first song, Wicked World.
This is still a crappy rock recording and an inferior reissue, but man, was it enjoyable. Time to find Paranoid and crank it up.
EDIT: I think it is a myth that SET/horn systems can’t play rock music.
I have always been a fan of the big three: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath. I do not have any original recordings because I sold the early reissues that I had for years when I moved to NYC after college. What a huge mistake that was. Anyway, years later now, I have managed to find some early pressings. I also took a chance on two Black Sabbath recent reissues because they included second LPs of outtakes and the packaging looked great. Sadly, the sonics did not match my expectations. They both sounded a bit thin and flat with a tipped up tonal balance. My friend Madfloyd, also a big fan agreed, saying that the remastering was a bit "hot".
Fast forward a couple of years to my new audio system with corner horns and more capable amplifiers and turntable. This afternoon I decided to listen to the first Black Sabbath album again on this new system. It is Friday afternoon after a lovely spirited sail through grey, rough seas. Now inside with a hot cup of tea in hand, I lowered the needle. The music sounded completely different from what I remembered. I put my tea down and started to pay attention. Perhaps the highs are still a bit hot on this remastering, but suddenly I hear the bass. It was completely absent before now transformed.
After the first side revelations, I flipped the record over to listen to side two. OMG, the drums and those bass and guitar riffs blew my mind. I cranked it up even more waiting to hear distortion but there seemed to be no limit. My old speakers might have blown up by now. The Vitavox big 15" paper woofers loaded the corners so that the room was filled with the deepest, most chest-pounding bass I've ever heard in this small living room. When the side was finished, I decided to record the first song, Wicked World.
This is still a crappy rock recording and an inferior reissue, but man, was it enjoyable. Time to find Paranoid and crank it up.
EDIT: I think it is a myth that SET/horn systems can’t play rock music.
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Love this LP, Peter. A couple years ago, I found a sealed original US pressing. It sounds surprisingly good.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
I did something bold and dangerous today. Jeffrey_T visited in June and heard my system. He subsequently told me that he suspected I could play music very loud without distortion given the high efficiency design and Lamm electronics. He even thought a listener’s ears would give out before the system did. So I decided to crank up the Sheffield drum track record.
I damaged my former Magico minis playing this record too loudly and had to replace one of the drivers. My Magico Q3‘s could handle it better but, I never pushed it to earsplitting levels for fear of damaging the speakers. The sound also distorted A bit as the volume increased.
This afternoon I blasted the LP reaching 105+ dBA on my SPL meter. Granted this was only peaks but the sound was effortless and open and extremely dynamic. Oddly, it was also relaxed and natural sounding with little audible distortion, at least compared to my former systems. I never felt such chest pounding impact in my listening room before. I could feel those drum thwacks in my bones. And the system seemed to breeze right through it without strain. This LP, which I’ve played for years, never sounded so convincing in my room. It was quite an audio experience.
I turned it down a little bit and then played Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 followed by Deep Purple’s Fireball. I took advantage of my wife being out of our small house for a few hours.
I share this episode because I continue to marvel at the capabilities of this new high-efficiency system. It is simply more capable than my former systems. Jeff is correct. I think my ears would give out before the system begins to audibly distort.
It was a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon now that sailing season is over.
I damaged my former Magico minis playing this record too loudly and had to replace one of the drivers. My Magico Q3‘s could handle it better but, I never pushed it to earsplitting levels for fear of damaging the speakers. The sound also distorted A bit as the volume increased.
This afternoon I blasted the LP reaching 105+ dBA on my SPL meter. Granted this was only peaks but the sound was effortless and open and extremely dynamic. Oddly, it was also relaxed and natural sounding with little audible distortion, at least compared to my former systems. I never felt such chest pounding impact in my listening room before. I could feel those drum thwacks in my bones. And the system seemed to breeze right through it without strain. This LP, which I’ve played for years, never sounded so convincing in my room. It was quite an audio experience.
I turned it down a little bit and then played Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 followed by Deep Purple’s Fireball. I took advantage of my wife being out of our small house for a few hours.
I share this episode because I continue to marvel at the capabilities of this new high-efficiency system. It is simply more capable than my former systems. Jeff is correct. I think my ears would give out before the system begins to audibly distort.
It was a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon now that sailing season is over.
If you are interested in high efficiency speaker, you may try to look for Altec A7 in Ebay.
You may get one around 2k $.
It could be nice value.
If you are interested in high efficiency speaker, you may try to look for Altec A7 in Ebay.
You may get one around 2k $.
It could be nice value.
I don’t need another speaker, Thomask. I already have one that’s 105 dB efficient and that’s without the gain from the corner horn configuration. Perhaps you should try some Lamm ML2 SET amplifiers with your A7s.
I appreciate your recommendation.
It must be good1
But I have more than 100 NOS pairs of tube for Line Magnetic 508.
Thus unless I run out of them, I may not use other tube amp,
Line Magnetic 508 or 805 sounds focused with nice bass control if fitted with right tubes.
The funny thing is that I had spent 15k$ on Nos tubes much more than the price of it.
When Silbatone get repaired, I will try it on A7.
I also consider push pull 300 b amps which may have better control of bass.
I listened this Sheffield Drum record in my system with Montagna speaker around 98 db and i saw in M1 display the peak power reach 1203 watt without any distortion,really impressive
Spectacular.love the looks of them.you need more....1.6 kilowatt at 4ohm
View attachment 83054
Backside, on the right side safty key limited the power to 1.0 kilowatt, don`t kill your speakers..hihi
natural sounding gear, with good preamp gorgeus
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Beautiful.what year are these amplifiers made?Backside, on the right side safty key limited the power to 1.0 kilowatt, don`t kill your speakers..hihi
nautral sounding gear, with good preamp gorgeus
View attachment 83060
1992 a good time for amps, another good amp SAC The amplifier (nickname Gravesstones) 370 Watt Class A at 0.5 ohm.
I’m only guessing but at 105 dB efficiency, I might have been using 5 watts at most. With my old system, at less volume, the Pass needle moved so I was leaving 320 class A watts.
The CH M1 sounds good in Madfloyd’s system. We should crank that LP at his place next time.
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