Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
Clearly trolling. What I claim is easily heard and easily measured. Easy peasy.And now tell Ralph wat we think about his cartridge loading nonsense !
Aristophanes and Heinlein were right.
At hundreds of pages long the thread gets a bit hard to follow.
However @PeterA captured a lot of it:
The other part, and being hundreds of pages long…
Shows that equipment in flying through the doors in both directions to solve some problem that cannot even be intimated as to what it is.
It is like throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks.
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Until today I have had a firm policy that I will not put any WBF member on "ignore." This is because I wanted to be fully aware of all posting going on by everybody. I have now changed my mind on this policy.
One of my mid-year resolutions is that I am done interacting with any person, especially any audiophile, whom I find to be snarky or obnoxious or not a nice person for any reason. If I don't respond to you going forward you may suspect that it probably is because I put you on "ignore."
I have made a wide-ranging decision to focus my time on my friends. Life is too short to deal with as&@oles.
One of my mid-year resolutions is that I am done interacting with any person, especially any audiophile, whom I find to be snarky or obnoxious or not a nice person for any reason. If I don't respond to you going forward you may suspect that it probably is because I put you on "ignore."
I have made a wide-ranging decision to focus my time on my friends. Life is too short to deal with as&@oles.
^That is fine.^
(And I appreciate the explanation.)
For others following the thread though, there does not need to be a polorization between measurements and ears.
People such as @Atmasphere etc are designing gear using science and measurements.
The systems can be a bit more nuanced than just plugging in the various RCAs, and on the cutting edge some equipment can exhibit mechanisms that manifest themselves in less than optimal sound.
Know what is happening and why, is really interesting to me.
Others fine it less interesting or irksome.
That is fine, the world is big enough for everyone.
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Just saw this on FB
That’s where I got it from as relevant to the discussion. Came up at the same time
RR...what made you choose that exact model? it´s neither the cheapest, nor the top of the line....
Nice summary. I love genuine Italian food though, so let's call this Olive Garden spaghetti as I don't mind throwing that at the wall.
Yeah - they don’t do the best example of spaghetti.
But that was a nice throw back to the Italians and the French discussion from earlier in the thread.
When eldest daughter was just out of pull-ups, we went to get some spaghetti at the store. We got the stuff wrapped in the blue paper, and labelled “Tipo Italiano Spaghettini.”
I told her how to say it about 10 times with the fingers bunched together, and the accent.
When we got home we were questioned as to why we did not get the regular spaghetti in the plastic pack.
And eldest daughter broke into the “Tipo Italiano Spghettini” with the fingers bunched together…
And I let out a “Mama Mia.”
However… being more of a TT and LP fellow… (versus tape or wire)… I am going to look for some pizzas tonight though.
1) Unlike many in this hobby who believe that if it's more expensive it must sound better this is something I do not believe. This is something I admonish others for thinking fallaciously is true.
2) Relatedly, just because there is a higher model doesn't mean that, absent a direct comparison between the higher model and the lower model, I necessarily will prefer the sound of the higher model.
3) I auditioned the Incito S in my own system for several months thanks to Robert Neill of Worldwide Wholesales the distributor. I was able to compare the Incito S to other preamps in situ.
4) For me the Incito S is the best sounding preamp I've ever heard in my system.
5) By many accounts the Imperia preserves everything people like about the Incito S but improves resolution and transparency. Maybe or maybe not it gives up a very small amount of the Incito S' tonal density. That was my totally unsubstantiated suspicion but who knows.
6) The Incito S has the highest gain structure of any of the AC preamps I believe. The unit I demoed was the low gain version with maximum gain of only 8 or 9dB. This is not enough for my system so Stavros agreed with me that the higher gain structure of the Incito S switchable between I think 14 and 19 dB (or 14 and 21dB?) would only sound better in my system than the demo unit. So my demo unit was totally inadequate gain but it was still the best sounding preamp I've heard in my system. This one should only sound materially better.
7) Everyone who has heard both units prefers the Impera. But just assuming I will prefer the higher unit is not me and it is not my philosophy. Knowing how much I like the Incito S, I'm just not somebody who's going to assume I would prefer the more expensive or higher model just because it's the more expensive or higher model.
8) I would've loved to have done a direct comparison in my own system between Incito S and Imperia, but I could not arrange that without bothering Robert Do, which I felt would be unfair and unreasonable considering I was working directly Robert and Stavros.
9) The Incito S I believe has the lowest output impedance of any of the AC preamps. A very low output impedance is helpful for me because I am driving such long interconnects and because I am sometimes loading the preamp with three different amplifiers in a tri-amp configuration. So the super low impedance of 50 ohms should help with this.
10) Unlike many people I am the guy who wants the last Ferrari off the production line, not the first one to have early adoption bragging rights and to show off in the neighborhood. It gives me comfort that Stavros has been making the Incito S continuously for something like six or seven years. Because of this production volume it should be very reliable.
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Incito S is great…enough said!
If you get a chance, try to demo some Qunitessence monos to go with your Incito…Strangely enough they were gonna happen in the same time frame, but only one did.
You could say the essential upgrade won out.
Interesting thoughts, Ron. However your free language can make it confusing for any one wanting to fully understand your reasons. What is meant by "gain structure" of a preamplifier? ("The Incito S has the highest gain structure of any ... ") How can you say that a preamplifier with inadequate gain is the best sounding?
We have many cases where just changing the gain completely changed the sound of the preamplfier - e.g. the VTL 7.5 mk1 , mk2 or mk3.
BTW, IMO very few in this forum still believe that "that if it's more expensive it must sound better". What experience has thought us is that , most of the time, in an adequate system and used with proper knowledge, more expensive can result in better sound. This debate has been going since the 90's, fueled by discussions around the Audio Research SP8/SP10 and the conrad johnson PV10/PV9 preamplfiers. Curiously it was centered most of the time in preamplfiers, as now.
FWIW Dept.: the output impedance is often measured at 1KHz. Its useful though to know its output impedance at 20Hz too, especially if the preamp is driving more than one amplifier. If the preamp uses output coupling caps or an output transformer the 20Hz output impedance is likely higher at 20Hz. With coupling caps its often a multiple of the 1KHz value.
That formula I gave you for calculating the capacitor value a little while back is very useful for this situation too if you have output coupling caps (which most tube preamps do; ours is a bit of an exception as it has a direct coupled output). Let's assume that the amps all have a 100KOhm input impedance; the three of them in parallel is 33.3KOhms. You might want to plug in whatever value your amps actually have into that formula and see what the cutoff frequency is. If it is above 2Hz there will be phase shift in the audio band- up to 10x the cutoff frequency.
The 50Ohm output impedance means the preamp will not distort when driving a 5KOhm load (using the 10x rule that the source impedance be 1/10th that of the load its driving to prevent distortion). But the cutoff frequency is a variable too since that describes bass impact. Since you are using multiple amps its worth doing this math!
When do we get to see a photo of it in place? Maybe a video too...??
By structure I meant the two gain settings.
Very easily. Shall I write it again?
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