Ron’s New System

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, do you think that one should experiment with wires, tubes, speaker position and orientation, as well as room surface reflectivity when auditioning a new amplifier?

not really. sometimes it takes a serious compare to uncover room issues. my room tuning learning curve was fraught with unexpected 'ah ha' moments from unexpected directions.

but if i was at the extreme far end of the high frequency tolerance bell curve like Ron i would make sure to tame the room first. not saying he has not done that, but it's a big amp compare roadblock if he has not done that....yet. if his Frenchie is a band aid he needs to know that first. he just needs to be open to what might be going on.

know thyself.

What did you do when you had your three way VTL, Lamm, Dart amplifier comparisons?

nothing in terms of any changes to accommodate those other amps. it was not necessary.

that 2018 amp compare was 3 years after my 2015 room tuning process, which happened after i had been in the room learning for 11 years. my darts were completely happy and then i brought in the Lamm's and VAC's (Statement 450); both of which seemed tonally comfortable. Ron liked the VAC's among those three amps when he visited.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Wait till I have to burn in the new Aries Cerat pre-amp (a few weeks away) alongside the burning in Italians.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

one point i will make about room tuning verses new cables, or amps.

it can be literally dirt cheap to try. but it's not sexy. and it takes some tedious work.

once i got my reference sound in my head late 2014, my investment in room tuning during 2015 was around $1000. a good pair of scissors, some cloth, and thumb tacs. and that includes 20 or so Auralex T-fusor diffusers and some velcro tape.

 

[morricab]

Wait till I have to burn in the new Aries Cerat pre-amp (a few weeks away) alongside the burning in Italians.

Not to worry…Incito sounds quite good right out of the box.

 

[PeterA]

not really. sometimes it takes a serious compare to uncover room issues. my room tuning learning curve was fraught with unexpected 'ah ha' moments from unexpected directions.

but if i was at the extreme far end of the high frequency tolerance bell curve like Ron i would make sure to tame the room first. not saying he has not done that, but it's a big amp compare roadblock if he has not done that....yet. if his Frenchie is a band aid he needs to know that first. he just needs to be open to what might be going on.

know thyself.

nothing in terms of any changes to accommodate those other amps. it was not necessary.

that 2018 amp compare was 3 years after my 2015 room tuning process, which happened after i had been in the room learning for 11 years. my darts were completely happy and then i brought in the Lamm's and VAC's (Statement 450); both of which seemed tonally comfortable. Ron liked the VAC's among those three amps when he visited.

Thanks for the clarification. It is an interesting subject knowing whether or not one's room and speakers are optimal, and whether or not that is independent of the electronics. One can not judge the end result without the contribution of the electronics. And various electronics sound different.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Its relatively easy to measure what you get in the room .
If not possible to measure / adjust , the only possibility is indeed a equalizer and adjust by ear

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Thanks for the clarification. It is an interesting subject knowing whether or not one's room and speakers are optimal, and whether or not that is independent of the electronics. One can not judge the end result without the contribution of the electronics. And various electronics sound different.

there is knowing, and then there is KNOWING. like peeling away layers of the onion.

to me the only way to know about what is right on the reflectivity balance is to go too far and then bring it back to balance. what is tedious is that it has to be done in small spots at a time. go from the more obvious places where the geometry is likely then move toward the less likely places. until you fix the obvious places you cannot hear what the less obvious places are doing.

but if you want to make the best choices for gear, and you are very sensitive to excess reflective energy, then you need to do the work. or end up with gear that fixes your issues in other ways. trading musical information for tonal happiness.

one does need some level of neutral electronics to begin with as a tool. we might each choose something different. but there are many choices like that.

 

[Atmasphere]

Tung Sol 6SN7GTB

IMO that is a pretty terrible tube. We've had quite a few in the shop and they have troubles passing the leakage test on the tube tester. That test is a measure of the resistance between the cathode and filament. There should be infinite resistance. In addition IMO there can be quite a difference in their sound from tube to tube.

No, I use Clear Beyond for short interconnects and Clear Reflection for the 47' run.

I hope I am not reading this right, that you are suggesting you have a 47 foot long speaker cable? If yes that will reduce bass impact and resolution by quite a lot! The higher the output impedance of the amp the shorter you need to keep the speaker cables for best results. Tube amps without feedback are particularly susceptible to issues with speaker cables. About the only way to deal with that is to keep the speaker cable short. Even if the tube amp has feedback this is still good practice.

Which 6SN7GTB tube will tend to smooth out and roll off the treble? RCA red base or Sylvania brown base?

Either! Make sure they test good whatever you use.

Wait till I have to burn in the new Aries Cerat pre-amp (a few weeks away) alongside the burning in Italians.

FWIW it sounds like you made two changes at the same time. That is always tricky as you can't tell where whatever change you hear is really coming from.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I hope I am not reading this right, that you are suggesting you have a 47 foot long speaker cable?

The 47 foot run is an interconnect.

 

[treitz3]

I hope it is shielded. Hopefully with multiple shields.

Tom

 

[treitz3]

I might just run the entire system through this to roll off the treble a bit:

View attachment 149671

Do you yourself a favor. Please don't.

Tom

 

[Ron Resnick]

it sounds like you made two changes at the same time. That is always tricky as you can't tell where whatever change you hear is really coming from.

No, the Aries Cerat preamp is not here yet. The only change is the addition of the Italians, with direct A/B comparisons between the Italians and the Frenchies.

 

[Atmasphere]

The 47 foot run is an interconnect.

That's a long way to run an interconnect (and is why balanced lines are so handy)! Do you know the capacitance per foot of the cable and the input impedance of the amplifier?

There is a simple formula that will allow you to know at what frequency this arrangement rolls off.

 

[Ron Resnick]

That's a long way to run an interconnect (and is why balanced lines are so handy)! Do you know the capacitance per foot of the cable and the input impedance of the amplifier?

There is a simple formula that will allow you to know at what frequency this arrangement rolls off.

Thank you, Ralph. Yes, I have that information for all three amplifiers, but I'm not pursuing any inquiry in that direction.

Treble roll-off has never been a problem here.

 

[Atmasphere]

Thank you, Ralph. Yes, I have that information for all three amplifiers, but I'm not pursuing any inquiry in that direction.

Treble roll-off has never been a problem here.

Its not always as simple as that. Depending on what is driving the cable a resonance can be introduced. Its also common in many circuits to see a peak just before the bandwidth takes a nose dive.

FWIW this is basic filter theory. Most people don't think of preamps, interconnects and amplifiers as filters but they are and they obey the rules of filter theory, which can be quite audible.

 

[Ron Resnick]

A cheap and old Purist Audio Design Musaeus Praesto Revision Ferox loudspeaker cable ($350 on US Audiomart) I had lying around helped smooth out the edginess on the upper midrange. I also think the burn in is continuing naturally to smooth this out as well.

You don't always have to spend a lot of money in this hobby to get where you want to go.

 

[Atmasphere]

A cheap and old Purist Audio Design Musaeus Praesto Revision Ferox loudspeaker cable ($350 on US Audiomart) I had lying around helped smooth out the edginess on the upper midrange. I also think the burn in is continuing naturally to smooth this out as well.

You don't always have to spend a lot of money in this hobby to get where you want to go.

If you can hear it, its probably measurable. A customer of ours measured the response of the system in the room using a microphone and then made a change to the power supply of his amps and measured the difference. So it was both audible and measurable. It would be interesting to see if the brightness shows up with the other cable, and if its possible to measure it. If it is there is probably a reason it works that way.

Or you could just enjoy the system Have a good weekend!

 

[Ron Resnick]

If you can hear it, its probably measurable. A customer of ours measured the response of the system in the room using a microphone and then made a change to the power supply of his amps and measured the difference. So it was both audible and measurable. It would be interesting to see if the brightness shows up with the other cable, and if its possible to measure it. If it is there is probably a reason it works that way.

Or you could just enjoy the system Have a good weekend!

Thank you, Ralph!

If I can hear it, I don't need to measure it. If I can't hear it, I don't care if it's measurable.

Have a good weekend!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Just for fun last night I removed the new production Tung Sol 6SN7GTBs and put in NOS RCAs.

(In this MastersounD PF100 one 6SN7 must function as the input and two must function as the driver for each pair of 845s.)

The first time I turned the amplifiers on last night after installing the RCAs there was a soft but audible "pop" from one of the tubes in one of the amplifiers. I have never before noticed an NOS tube giving off a soft "pop" when it first lights up.

When I turned the system on this morning, one of the three tubes in that same amplifier gave off a soft "pop" in the same way as last night upon power up.

Does this suggest the tube is defective and I should pull out the trio of RCAs from that particular amplifier? Obviously I do not want to take any risk at all of damage to the amplifier. The amplifier weighs 120 pounds, and Italy is far away.

 

[microstrip]

(...) The amplifier weighs 120 pounds, and Italy is far away.

The US is far away from me, I never put a new tube in expensive amplifiers before testing them. Power tubes get burn-in in an old amplifier.