Found Music 2A3 Amplifier

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 15, 2010
2,162
51
1,770
Oh! That's gotta hurt

Having seen Mark’s preamps at RMAF, I wouldn’t describe them as “bling.” They look like 1930s retro gear to me. They scream out, “I’m old, I’m cool.” Or at least that is what they said to me when I saw them.

Like their owner:D

Hehe :eek:
 

cjfrbw

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
3,323
1,313
1,730
Pleasanton, CA

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
6,455
29
405
Hi

I have been sitting in the fences watching several debates and frankly I feel less and less inclined to engage into debating. I am still an audiophile at heart and hope the industry will regain its footing and move toward providing better reproduction in our homes. I was planning to take a trip to the Pacific North West this month because I am very interested in the speakers Mike is presently using, the EVO 3. I think I will build my next system around them. I have no doubt they are the real deal ... A new and unforeseen contract has changed most of my plans for a break from a busy year .. I expect to audition the EVO at another time maybe early next year.. as they say in French " Ce n'est que partie remise" IOW I am taking a rain check on this month audition of these speakers. I am disgressing so let's get to the meat of things...
I have had speakers with great midrange, I have heard systems with great "something". I have seen people chasing some kind of a sound, usually a part of the spectrum and purposely skew their system balance toward the utmost reproduction of the "preferred" frequency band ...
Let's suppose the following. A speaker which can only reproduce, say, the band from 500 Hz (no typo) to 6 Khz.. i-e bass above where the room tends to mess bass up and up to the lower treble... Listening to such a speaker, I am sure most would hear things they have not heard before... Simply because they will not be obscured by anything else.. Indeed one will hear a lot of things that were not clear when the whole music was playing... If you isolate the drum track on a multi-track recording, I am also certain one will hear things from the drums one would not have heard otherwise.. To me that is what most of these limited systems do…
A 3 watts amplifier in most instances and driving medium-sensitivity speakers would tend to do the same IMO. One will hear things because the amplifier will not reproduce other things very well.. Actually the amp potentially can but may not be able to drive the speakers into reproducing everything equally thus you hear some things you didn’t before and of course the brain will fill up for the blanks or the near-blanks… Of course people may like that… It may please. Would it be correct? I have more than doubts.
Concerning the need to move forward for things to play “better”, l would imagine that for a given speaker there is an optimal position, especially multi driver speakers.. Moving somewhat suggest to me that there is a need for more SPL… The point of convergence of the different drivers will NOT vary with the amplifier used, unless this amps has a DSP that would delay or advance band of frequencies.. The notion of DSP is likely (euphemism) to be anathema to an analog lover using a SET amp…
I have had the experience of using speakers with powered woofers and the amps bass quality seems to come through regardless. I have had this experience with Genesis Gen II , Gen V ( a speaker which for some reasons gets no respect despite being a superb transducer) and the bass quality did clearly depend on the amplifier used.. That was consistent and somewhat surprising at first but the quality attributed to low bass is very dependent on that of the upper bass registers … so …
My conclusion seems to be more in line with that of many here.. 3 watts require 100 plus dB sensitivity and easy speaker load, there are a few out there … For my part , the type of music , I listen to and my view of music reproduction, 3 watts will not cut it with these speakers, I would go toward headroom, lot of it and for me it starts north of 300 watts/ch.
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
7,097
412
1,210
Northern NY
Christian,

i bought both my Adona racks used, and they both have the billet tops; although one has those 'beer bottle tops' and the other has nice heavier duty adjustable buttons. the one you see in the picture is actually the bottom of a two shelf rack. i'm using the top portion of that rack for my headphones now. i actually ordered three Box Furntiture amp stands so i'll be returning the amp stand you see to underneath the single shelf. i'll take a picture in the next few days and post it so you can see what i mean.

Mike

p.s.--you'd need to e-mail Paul at Adona and ask that question
.

I just bought another Adona Zero GXT rack to put along side of my other Zero GXT...This one only 4 shelves and shorter so that my new rather tall turntable coming in december won't require me to eye the platter at close to eye level. I inquired about the billet tops and Paul has found some that he has oprdered that will be reasonable in price. He told me that the existing (thicker) billet caps cost him $60.00 per unit. The new ones he will have available are significantly less.
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
5,599
225
1,190
Seattle, WA
www.genesisloudspeakers.com
I have had the experience of using speakers with powered woofers and the amps bass quality seems to come through regardless. I have had this experience with Genesis Gen II , Gen V ( a speaker which for some reasons gets no respect despite being a superb transducer) and the bass quality did clearly depend on the amplifier used.. That was consistent and somewhat surprising at first but the quality attributed to low bass is very dependent on that of the upper bass registers … so …

Frantz, I hope that when you finally make a trip to the Pacific Northwest, you'll also take the opportunity to come visit the Genesis factory and hear what we are up to. The current Gen 5.3 is far, far superior to the Gen V :)
 

Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
7,006
512
1,740
Snohomish, WA
www.pugetsoundstudios.com
And we're on the way to Mike's house, also with MM3 speakers and Pass Labs amps.
 

Ron Party

WBF Founding Member
Apr 30, 2010
2,457
13
0
Oakland, CA
I'm attending a seminar tonight put on by Sony to demo their SS-AR1 speakers to be powered by Pass Lab amps. Should be interesting.
 

fas42

Addicted To Best
Jan 8, 2011
3,973
3
0
NSW Australia
Let's suppose the following. A speaker which can only reproduce, say, the band from 500 Hz (no typo) to 6 Khz.. i-e bass above where the room tends to mess bass up and up to the lower treble... Listening to such a speaker, I am sure most would hear things they have not heard before... Simply because they will not be obscured by anything else.. Indeed one will hear a lot of things that were not clear when the whole music was playing... If you isolate the drum track on a multi-track recording, I am also certain one will hear things from the drums one would not have heard otherwise.. To me that is what most of these limited systems do…
A 3 watts amplifier in most instances and driving medium-sensitivity speakers would tend to do the same IMO. One will hear things because the amplifier will not reproduce other things very well.. Actually the amp potentially can but may not be able to drive the speakers into reproducing everything equally thus you hear some things you didn’t before and of course the brain will fill up for the blanks or the near-blanks… Of course people may like that… It may please. Would it be correct? I have more than doubts.
I'm with you, Frantz; except that IMO it is not that the "lesser" system reproducing a restricted frequency range is in its favour, but that the more ambitious setup ATTEMPTS to do the whole spectrum but fails to some degree, especially in the crucial high frequencies: the inglorious spitty, harsh, metallic tweeter thing. As soon as your ear hears this, your SQ is gone ...

Frank
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
I'm attending a seminar tonight put on by Sony to demo their SS-AR1 speakers to be powered by Pass Lab amps. Should be interesting.

Is it a sorround demo or a straight-up two channel demo? Steve and I heard the Sony demo at RMAF, but it was a surround demo.
 

Ron Party

WBF Founding Member
Apr 30, 2010
2,457
13
0
Oakland, CA
Is it a sorround demo or a straight-up two channel demo? Steve and I heard the Sony demo at RMAF, but it was a surround demo.
I believe 2 channel. I hope for surround as well but I doubt it.
 

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
May 15, 2010
2,162
51
1,770
A Texas friend

Ron and I also heard them at the Cali Audio show and found them very good

and I listened to them briefly at THE Show/California. They were being demmed with opera solo voice...the sound was glorious :D

This experience stimulated a reprise with my own source material -- regrettably, this encounter yielded disappointment for my spouse and I :rolleyes::confused:
 

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