The End Of A 35 Year Journey ---Zellaton -The Reference Ultra Final Frontier

[Rob181]

Plenty of people have scorned watching videos of speakers & judging same based on the reproduced sound.
Not me - the best two I have ever heard - & I've heard plenty - are the Zellaton PE's & Alsyvox Caravaggio.
The reproduction of piano & voice through those two is first class.
I have also heard some sensational horn speakers BUT those have been hand built "one off's".
Lastly there have also been a couple of field coil speakers that standout & I would love the hear the Destination Audio speakers with their field coil options.
For the money - its hard to go past the Zellatons though.

 

[Paul1960]

Kerry

I have been listening to these PE all day today and I’ve been playing all of my demo tracks. I’m sure the set up by Gideon is a huge factor as I’m simply astonished at every track I play because everything sounds truly remarkable. They sound like electrostatic speakers with a bottom end that comes out of no where. The air around strings is dramatic but what really grabs me is the speed and attack in the deep bass. I don’t think I’ve ever heard drums as good as this and piano that sounds like piano. Everything is so top to bottom linear. I’m not detecting any coloration And for those who say a solid state amp is better, i say perhaps, but here’s the caveat……. There is so much headroom now that i find I am actually turning my preamp down by two clicks on the gain control. Nothing is lacking and the sound with these is everything that Gideon promised. I love my electronics and the sound now at lower volumes proves a wild experience. These speakers have been settling in and today seems to be the best sonically since these loaners arrived. More to come……

I think you have made at least a couple of references to the Ultra's sounding like electrostatic speakers as a positive thing. I'm curious in what way they outperform high end electrostatics or how you think electrostatics are lacking?

 

[Steve williams]

Read FJ’ Big Dog posts from a few days ago. He summed it up perfectly. re electrostats

 

[Steve williams]

I think you have made at least a couple of references to the Ultra's sounding like electrostatic speakers as a positive thing. I'm curious in what way they outperform high end electrostatics or how you think electrostatics are lacking?

This is a key important question and I would suggest the following: Ribbons and electrostatics have transparency qualities but always fall short on the power range. Simply no weight behind images. The amazing thing about Zellaton is its ability to have see through qualities but with so much weight and dynamic energy. I commented many time here in this thread that the first two things I noticed about the speaker coming from 35 years of using big Wilsons was the amazing bottom end to these speakers and also the sound stage

I posted yesterday that several members suggested I consider a change in amplification but I found there was absolutely no need as so many times when listening yesterday I had to turn down the gain control two clicks on my preamp. There are 24 gain positions in my preamp . Normally I listen in the 5-6 position when streaming and yesterday I was at the 3 So also when I played tape and vinyl I was reducing the gain as my ears were overloaded

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Read FJ’ Big Dog posts from a few days ago. He summed it up perfectly. re electrostats

Woof!

Also just to add 50cts worth; I'm well aware of the fine SS gear money can buy and are truly top performers, no doubt! Aries Cerat, Solution, CH Precision, Dartzeel, Goldmun, Dan D's designs, Bricasti, Pass Labs, Burmester and Vitus so on... have heard these very makes in various types of system configs driving an array of speakers from ribbon & stat panels, dynamic drivers to multiple tower arrays.They all sound amazing, properly installed and carefully put together, each one offers outstanding performance with their own signatures & attributes.

The other absolute beautiful thing is, being very passionate about tooobs, 99.99% of my listening sessions are way past midnight. In fact, as I'm typing this message listening to the celubrius climes of Ray Brown's Trio, it's now past 1:50am. Tubes have an extraordinary ability to take advantage of their Class A circuits and deliver a full wholesome experience, regardless of volume levels. You can go soft to moderate or loud as you please and still maintain realism. That realism will be found on the recording, if it's there, it will be reproduced. If it's not there, then there's something lacking or it's a mediocre recording. At this level, the limitations are such.

I've personally found those late midnight sessions are superb! Everything is dead quiet, not a whimper, and as the tubes warm up, there's an enveloping affect that's extraordinary. Hence, there's really no need to blast the roof off. Increasing volume doesn't make the presentation any better, it just gets louder and heavier, that's all.

In order to really "enjoy those fine tunes " you don't need to crank things up, and this is the sole reason why I haven't purchased those big beautiful Pass Labs XA series amplifiers yet! I've home trialled the full series (XA30.8, 60.80, 100.8 and 160.8) except the massive XA200.8's. Anyway, in all their glory they were very impressive and I was in awe! However, I noticed they don't do much on low volumes. You need to crank it up and then the performance shifts into several gears like a F1 to a fighter jet, now that's awesome! Look-out Charlie!!!

So, my point is: with tooobs you can listen for endless hours and things don't require high volumes at all. In fact, softer the better! It's all there and the tooons are fine!
The Lamm's Class A bias of 32w may not seem much but if you actually listen to this series, you'll understand why Stevo likes these amplifiers. I have had the pleasure of auditioning Lamm's ML series amplifiers and they're superb! Similarly, my CJ monoblocks are actually 60w Class A- apart from the 150w AB capability if one chooses that route. Most of the time, I'm only getting 5 to 10w of pure love! And these amps are driving CLX's. It's not an easy task and many so called high powered SS amplifiers simply ran out of puff! But not the Pass Labs.

So until such time, enjoy those finest tunes with those finest tubes. SS can wait!
Woof! RJ

 

[LL21]

Woof!

...Tubes have an extraordinary ability to take advantage of their Class A circuits and deliver a full wholesome experience, regardless of volume levels. You can go soft to moderate or loud as you please and still maintain realism. ...

In order to really "enjoy those fine tunes " you don't need to crank things up, and this is the sole reason why I haven't purchased those big beautiful Pass Labs XA series amplifiers yet! I've home trialled the full series (XA30.8, 60.80, 100.8 and 160.8) except the massive XA200.8's. Anyway, in all their glory they were very impressive and I was in awe! However, I noticed they don't do much on low volumes. You need to crank it up and then the performance shifts into several gears like a F1 to a fighter jet, now that's awesome! Look-out Charlie!!!

So, my point is: with tooobs you can listen for endless hours and things don't require high volumes at all. In fact, softer the better! It's all there and the tooons are fine!...
Woof! RJ

I am no techie, so I find your observations interesting. I went from CJ tubes to Gryphon pure Class A (but SS not tubes)...and one thing I did notice was that I was playing the CJ preamp at volume 1 when listening thru the Gryphon with the system. I was quite shocked, but at 3am I could listen and get full breadth of bass power, a soft 'chest punch'...quite remarkable. During the day it could go up several notches (maybe 15?)

Now that the system is all Robert Koda, the gain on the preamp is only 8db, but I still turn the knob no higher than 10:30am in the middle of the day and probably not much more than 8am on the knob late at night. And it technically is designed for playing typically at 12pm on the knob.

Avg listening late at night is 40-45db. Even now on Sat afternoon its 65db listening to club music.

 

[Steve williams]

I tell guests who visit me for a listen that I always listen at realistic levels . I have found that for digital, my gain is typically either at 5 or 6 for the best and most realistic dynamics. Once the Plural Evo speakers were set up Gideon and I found that we were at the 3 spot.. The 1 spot is zero sound so essentially the dynamics and deep bass from the Zellaton PE was so superb that we had to lower the gain accordingly. Bottom line is , of course SS amps can sound wonderful as RJ points out but my ML3 at 32 wpc delivers and never runs out of gas. As RJ has pointed out the sound of Zellaton is like electrostatic with incredible deep bass. This attribute almost certainly comes from all speaker drivers manufactured in house by Zellaton so that the sound produced is uniform, top to bottom