We can of course choose to use short height rectifiers, like 5Y3 and be done with the hole. Or use open top.
Lampizator Genya
- Thread starter rau
- Start date
Hi Lukasz..
How much filament current can your power transformer provide for the rectifier?
Awesome! With the tube now exposed, can we still put this in a rack and not worry about heat? And to clarify, we will now have 3 options, this, the normal and the plus? Exciting, thanks!
We want to extend an invitation to anyone at the Toronto show this week who is interested in hearing the Genya DAC to join us in room 345.
On display is a fabulous setup alongside Don Sach's latest preamplifier (I own one myself ) and 300B design amplifiers. Speakers are an incredible horn design by Joseph Crowe.
This will be a setup you will not want to miss!
On display is a fabulous setup alongside Don Sach's latest preamplifier (I own one myself ) and 300B design amplifiers. Speakers are an incredible horn design by Joseph Crowe.
This will be a setup you will not want to miss!
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Just as clarification, the amps and preamp are the latest versions that feature all directly heated tubes only. They are the results of a 3 or 4 year collaboration between Lynn Olson and I (Don Sachs). Just want to make sure that Lynn gets full credit for his awesome contributions! Lynn and I both love horn speakers, so we always wanted to collaborate with Troy now we are. It has been great fun!
Well..... we had a lot of nice folks visit us at the Toronto Audiofest. Many people told me they thought is was their favourite room and a lot of people came back several times because we were playing the big horns and the slightly smaller ones and switching once a day. So people that heard one often came back to hear the other. A lot of people had the weekend pass and were in our room 2 or 3 days. I just love making folks happy. Most of them are not going to buy that huge pair of speakers and I honestly don't care. But they walk out just shaking their heads... and then they come back and listen again. So I find that very rewarding as the tube amp designer.... Those people just get what we are doing and why we are doing it. To see what sort of sound is actually possible.
The Genya DAC is superb! I listened to it for three days straight. I cannot tell you how it compares to my Pacific 2 with the adapters and 4P1L output tubes, and the c3G postal tubes as the anode loads, plus a really nice 4V rectifier. Thanks to Laszlo for the adapters to make those tubes work. So the Pacific has been tweaked to sound as I like. The Genya was the stock base model and the only upgrade was that I had a Bendix 5852 in my old tube stash, which is sort of the premium 6X5 rectifier type. So basically the base model with slightly upgraded rectifier. I think Rob, the distributor put 10-20 hours on it before shipping. Troy probably put 20-30 hours on it after it arrived, then I arrived, swapped the rectifier, and we headed to Toronto for the show. So the DAC had maybe 50-60 hours and it sounded really good. But sometime about mid-day on Saturday, after playing all day Friday, it just bloomed. I could almost hear it happening. Then it became just superb the rest of the show. It wasn't the amps and speakers, as they were very well run in. It was the DAC. Plus the big Sinope USB cable with it had the same number of hours. The combo just bloomed on Saturday afternoon. I mean despite the room, we are talking a very fine system. You can all google Troy Joseph Crowe. Look at the finished speakers page and you will see them. We had the big 2087 horns and the smaller 2800 horns. I own the 1695 open baffles and am very familiar with them and they are a wonderful speaker. The show system was:
Volumio streamer > Genya> Don Sachs/Lynn Olson prototype balanced preamp (all DHT tubes) > Don Sachs/Lynn Olson prototype fully balanced push pull 300b monos, all DHT tubes, everything transformer coupled, no coupling caps. This all ahead of both of Troy's horns. So it was a really good system to hear the Genya in!
So how does it compare to the Pacific 2? I honestly cannot tell you because although the preamp and amps were identical to the ones on my living room, the big horn speakers are up the food chain from my Troy Crowe open baffles in my living room. The big 2087 horns are otherworldly with 18 inch woofers, and honestly are the best pair of speakers I have ever heard, even in a small hotel room at a show. Crazy good. The dynamics are just insane, yet they have no brightness at all. They have everything in spades at low levels, and are of course quite capable of filling a theater with sound. Let's just say you can turn them up and they don't care. No strain ever. I cannot even begin to describe how good they are. So my speakers, while wonderful, cannot play in that league. On the other hand, my room is wonderful, with high ceilings and 4 or 5 ft on either side of the speakers to the side wall. So I get the huge sound cloud that will actually wrap around your head. The hotel room could never do that because the sound hits the room boundaries. So the systems had different sounds. I would love to try the Genya in my system with all other variables held constant and tell you all my opinion. What I can say is the Genya is just insanely good and at no time during that show was I thinking "if we just had my Pacific 2 it would sound better", which is what I usually think at shows. Not once! The Genya is that good. It is so good you don't even think about it. You are mesmerized by the music, which is what my Pacific 2 does in my system. So, my take is if you are considering getting into a BIG Lampi DAC, and you are worried about pricing, etc..,and you can't go into Horizon territory, just by the damn Genya with stock tubes, put it in your system and "fuggedaboudit". Honestly, it is that good! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it in a top notch tubes and horns system all weekend. If you are on the fence, just buy one. I talked Troy into getting one and he loves the darn thing. He is convinced. He liked it when we got to the show, and then he too heard it bloom too and we were just shaking our heads at how good that system sounded, even in that hotel room... My 2 cents.....
The Genya DAC is superb! I listened to it for three days straight. I cannot tell you how it compares to my Pacific 2 with the adapters and 4P1L output tubes, and the c3G postal tubes as the anode loads, plus a really nice 4V rectifier. Thanks to Laszlo for the adapters to make those tubes work. So the Pacific has been tweaked to sound as I like. The Genya was the stock base model and the only upgrade was that I had a Bendix 5852 in my old tube stash, which is sort of the premium 6X5 rectifier type. So basically the base model with slightly upgraded rectifier. I think Rob, the distributor put 10-20 hours on it before shipping. Troy probably put 20-30 hours on it after it arrived, then I arrived, swapped the rectifier, and we headed to Toronto for the show. So the DAC had maybe 50-60 hours and it sounded really good. But sometime about mid-day on Saturday, after playing all day Friday, it just bloomed. I could almost hear it happening. Then it became just superb the rest of the show. It wasn't the amps and speakers, as they were very well run in. It was the DAC. Plus the big Sinope USB cable with it had the same number of hours. The combo just bloomed on Saturday afternoon. I mean despite the room, we are talking a very fine system. You can all google Troy Joseph Crowe. Look at the finished speakers page and you will see them. We had the big 2087 horns and the smaller 2800 horns. I own the 1695 open baffles and am very familiar with them and they are a wonderful speaker. The show system was:
Volumio streamer > Genya> Don Sachs/Lynn Olson prototype balanced preamp (all DHT tubes) > Don Sachs/Lynn Olson prototype fully balanced push pull 300b monos, all DHT tubes, everything transformer coupled, no coupling caps. This all ahead of both of Troy's horns. So it was a really good system to hear the Genya in!
So how does it compare to the Pacific 2? I honestly cannot tell you because although the preamp and amps were identical to the ones on my living room, the big horn speakers are up the food chain from my Troy Crowe open baffles in my living room. The big 2087 horns are otherworldly with 18 inch woofers, and honestly are the best pair of speakers I have ever heard, even in a small hotel room at a show. Crazy good. The dynamics are just insane, yet they have no brightness at all. They have everything in spades at low levels, and are of course quite capable of filling a theater with sound. Let's just say you can turn them up and they don't care. No strain ever. I cannot even begin to describe how good they are. So my speakers, while wonderful, cannot play in that league. On the other hand, my room is wonderful, with high ceilings and 4 or 5 ft on either side of the speakers to the side wall. So I get the huge sound cloud that will actually wrap around your head. The hotel room could never do that because the sound hits the room boundaries. So the systems had different sounds. I would love to try the Genya in my system with all other variables held constant and tell you all my opinion. What I can say is the Genya is just insanely good and at no time during that show was I thinking "if we just had my Pacific 2 it would sound better", which is what I usually think at shows. Not once! The Genya is that good. It is so good you don't even think about it. You are mesmerized by the music, which is what my Pacific 2 does in my system. So, my take is if you are considering getting into a BIG Lampi DAC, and you are worried about pricing, etc..,and you can't go into Horizon territory, just by the damn Genya with stock tubes, put it in your system and "fuggedaboudit". Honestly, it is that good! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it in a top notch tubes and horns system all weekend. If you are on the fence, just buy one. I talked Troy into getting one and he loves the darn thing. He is convinced. He liked it when we got to the show, and then he too heard it bloom too and we were just shaking our heads at how good that system sounded, even in that hotel room... My 2 cents.....
There are some posts floating around on youtube already, so if you google Troy Crowe toronto audiofest 2025 I am sure you will find them. All I can say is the smaller horn is darn good, but the big 2087 is simply an experience that any audiophile should have. Obviously, monetary constraints aside, there are not that many of us that can fit that speaker in our rooms. But even in the shoe box hotel room.... simply amazing. We all have our tastes of course, and I do love a good horn, but really, anyone would have enjoyed it. Whether or not it is your cup of tea, you would enjoy the experience. It has no horn coloration at all, really. It doesn't shout at you at all. Troy has custom designed the horns with a 120 degree sound field and then it just rolls off instantly after that. So it doesn't splatter the sound against the walls. You get about 75% of the sound directly. The rear chambers of the horn drivers have openings so they are dipoles and create a spacious and airy sound. It is mesmerizing. There were other folks running other show rooms who came in 2 or 3 times on their breaks to hear this system. It was scary good.... Just a treat to listen to all weekend for me.
Hi Don, we chatted on Saturday about our Crowe open baffles. Yes, you guys were getting very good sound from your setup. Great synergy with your amps, Troy's speakers and the Genya. It was a top 3 room for me. Congratulations to all involved. BTW, not be a thread derailer but I thought Troy's smaller horns, the 2880s, sounded exceptionally good in that small room.
Thanks! Oh I thought the 2880 was great too. The big ones had a sense of scale that I found amazing. Anyway, glad agree the Genya was superb, which was the subject of this thread!
Actually I just looked it up, and the smaller horn speaker is the model 2800, not 2880. Probably just a typo on your part above anyway.
Well, I made it all the way back to rural SE British Columbia in a day.... planes and a 4 hour drive over the pass. Woodstove cranked and my stereo going. So mine sounds lovely as it always does, but very different than the full on horn system we had at the show. As I said above, my room is much better for a stereo, that system at the show, despite the room, had dynamics that mine cannot match. It had dynamics that most systems cannot match. Hard to compare the DACs because the horns at the show were covering things from 400 Hz up and in my system, the compression driver and horn on the open baffle starts at 1.2 KHz and the lower range is filled by the 10 inch Scanspeak driver (15 inch for very low bass as well). So they are completely different presentations of the midrange. Would love the flip that Genya in this system and tell you how it compares to the tricked out Pacific 2... oh well. Hope you are all enjoying your stereos this evening somewhere. Shows are fun, but exhausting. Great to meet a few folks there though. Nice to be home
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Horns are appealing in many ways — I have a pair of La Scalas that I listen to once in a while. But my biggest fear of horns is volume. One is tempted to crank it up. And that’s inherently dangerous to your hearing. The human ear is a miracle of biology. You can’t order a spare set of ears from Amazon. So, caveat emptor. If you listen at loud volume, your hearing won’t last. I’ve been an audiophile for 40+ years with excellent hearing still — the biggest reason my ears still work is that I never listen at loud volumes. Only when I go to symphony concerts do I hear volumes at 100 dB and in a huge concert hall. At home, I never exceed 75-80 dB. So, take care not to destroy your hearing in your eagerness in enjoying horns.
I did and got impressed with the sound of the room.
As I am busy during weekdays, I will cover whole Toronto Audiofest 2025 on coming Friday or Saturday.
I agree completely. When I have my system cranked at home, my little phone app says 80-81 dB. That is plenty loud. Horns can be dangerous in that they have so little distortion and they just don't break up like most cone speakers.
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