CH Precision L10 & M10 : My votes for the Best SS amps (for the past 5 yrs till 6-2021)

[micro13]

As far as grounding is concerned, we implemented the same design concept on the L10 as the L1. Rather than the jumper that was present on the L1 we now have a switch that ties signal ground to earth ground on the L10. In an all CH Precision system I recommend engaging the switch on the L10 (to connect signal ground to earth ground) or placing the L1 jumper in the black/yellow position. All other CH Precision components should be black/black or jumper removed (1-series) or switch open on M10s. In my system this provided the quietest background that let even more details in the recording come through.

Hi Ralph,

thanks for the info regarding the grounding jumper. May I ask what are the recommended connections with an external ground box like the Active Ground Block from Synergistic?
Should I connect only the L1/L10 where the switch is engaged / jumper in black/yellow?
Or should be every CH device like C1, X1 be connected to the ground box?
And should the ground connection be with the black or yellow position?

 

[rsorren1]

Micro13, thanks for the question. I use Nordost QKore grounding boxes and have advised several of our owners who use the CAD grounding boxes. I don't have any experience with the Synergistic grounding solution but I think the answer would be the same. Follow my advice on the position of the grounding jumpers (1-Series) or grounding switch (10-Series) for all CH Precision components. When using an additional grounding system (Nordost QKore, CAD, Synergistic) have a grounding wire run to each component. I run my grounding wires to one of the unused input jacks on the L1/L10, A1.5/M1.1/M10, C1 DIG_IN, D1 DIG_OUT, P1 or into the unused black grounding connector of any of these units with a banana plug. On my T1 I had a grounding wire made with BNC connector. The X1 does not have any place to connect a ground wire but the power unit of the L10 does. Hope that helps.

 

[MadFloyd]

Did this additional grounding make a significant difference in your system, Ralph?

 

[rsorren1]

Hi Ian. Yes. The improvement was easy to hear. We used Mendelssohn Piano Concerto #1, Stephan Hough (CD), and Dexter Gordon "I was Doin' Alright" (APO 45-RPM LP) for the comparison. These are excellent recordings with solo instruments prominent in the recordings. I heard an improvement in the definition of solo instruments in their own "space", the high frequencies were improved in that it seemed as if some "hash" was removed that I had not realized was there. I spoke with CH Precision engineering about this and they felt that the grounding boxes were allowing the RF noise that is always present in our environment to "bleed off" more easily as there was a very low resistance path to ground introduced with the grounding boxes for this noise. Like anything else I would "try before buy" to see if you get a similar result in your system.

 

[MadFloyd]

Thanks, Ralph. I appreciate the quick reply and the explanation of how the grounding may benefit a system. I also understand that one person's results may not indicate replication in another system.

 

[micro13]

Micro13, thanks for the question. I use Nordost QKore grounding boxes and have advised several of our owners who use the CAD grounding boxes. I don't have any experience with the Synergistic grounding solution but I think the answer would be the same. Follow my advice on the position of the grounding jumpers (1-Series) or grounding switch (10-Series) for all CH Precision components. When using an additional grounding system (Nordost QKore, CAD, Synergistic) have a grounding wire run to each component. I run my grounding wires to one of the unused input jacks on the L1/L10, A1.5/M1.1/M10, C1 DIG_IN, D1 DIG_OUT, P1 or into the unused black grounding connector of any of these units with a banana plug. On my T1 I had a grounding wire made with BNC connector. The X1 does not have any place to connect a ground wire but the power unit of the L10 does. Hope that helps.

Hi Ralph,
many thanks for your explanation. I'll try it with the black grounding connector, at the moment I don't have a grounding cable with RCA or BNC connectors.

 

[CKKeung]

Thanks Ralph for explaining and giving examples on how to further improve the sonic performance of CH Precision components with grounding/audiophile groundboxes.

The L10 being one of the very few best preamps in the market, it's deserved to use the best groundboxes for it.
IMHO it must be the Tripoint Troy NG Series of groundboxes!

Tripoint Troy Elite - Installed

Thanks, think is is quite helpful to fully understand your experiences with the Tripoint Elite NG. In my opinion - based on my observations of what the tripoint is doing - it’s important to have a solid foundation and if one does the addition of tripoint can help take everything up a few...

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

[infinitely baffled]

Thanks Ralph for explaining and giving examples on how to further improve the sonic performance of CH Precision components with grounding/audiophile groundboxes.

The L10 being one of the very few best preamps in the market, it's deserved to use the best groundboxes for it.
IMHO it must be the Tripoint Troy NG Series of groundboxes!

Tripoint Troy Elite - Installed

Thanks, think is is quite helpful to fully understand your experiences with the Tripoint Elite NG. In my opinion - based on my observations of what the tripoint is doing - it’s important to have a solid foundation and if one does the addition of tripoint can help take everything up a few...

www.whatsbestforum.com

They're a little thin on the ground though...i can't even get a price for one.
May i ask what is the going rate for an Troy NG?

(I'm currently mid purchase on an Elite with Empress wiring.
Eventually i may trade up to NG, as they become available pre-owned )

 

[mtemur]

I haven’t listened to CH precision L10/M10 series yet but I listened all other models. I’m not a big fan of CH components but if all the cables are also from CH (which were exclusively made by Argento Audio) then the presentation becomes very satisfying which I can not fault. I witnessed different cables being used with CH components and none of them came close the synergy associated with CH cables. I think CH cables is a must for CH owner. Extra power supplies also make a positive effect too.

 

[infinitely baffled]

Would love to hear from someone familiar with both CH and the current crop of Boulder amps. The description on this thread of the CH sound is precisely how i would describe the Boulder sound; richly textured and intensley musical

 

[LL21]

Would love to hear from someone familiar with both CH and the current crop of Boulder amps. The description on this thread of the CH sound is precisely how i would describe the Boulder sound; richly textured and intensley musical

I have spoken with one owner of the M10 (formerly owned the M1.1) who said that the primary issue he had with the M1.1 was how the bass compared with the big Gryphons and Boulders (for him, the M1.1 did not have the same depth and sheer power). The M10 changed that and in his own words while it "might" still not have quite the all-out bass of the mighty Boulder, it was so close, he was 'done' and meanwhile continued to have all of the other wonderful elements of CH sound in the M10 he enjoyed in his original M1.1s.

 

[CKKeung]

I have spoken with one owner of the M10 (formerly owned the M1.1) who said that the primary issue he had with the M1.1 was how the bass compared with the big Gryphons and Boulders (for him, the M1.1 did not have the same depth and sheer power). The M10 changed that and in his own words while it "might" still not have quite the all-out bass of the mighty Boulder, it was so close, he was 'done' and meanwhile continued to have all of the other wonderful elements of CH sound in the M10 he enjoyed in his original M1.1s.

My thoughts too.
"All-out" bass is never the specialty of Swiss amps.
The M10 excels spectacularly in all other areas.
That's why I said on #2 that for very big rooms & bass fanatics, M10 Monos is the option.

 

[infinitely baffled]

Thank you gents?
Very useful to get your perspective

 

[LL21]

My thoughts too.
"All-out" bass is never the specialty of Swiss amps.
The M10 excels spectacularly in all other areas.
That's why I said on #2 that for very big rooms & bass fanatics, M10 Monos is the option.

Interesting...by the way where do you think the bass of the K160 lies relative to the CH, Swiss amps and the Boulder?

 

[marty]

My thoughts too.
"All-out" bass is never the specialty of Swiss amps.
The M10 excels spectacularly in all other areas.

CK, respectfully disagree. Have you heard the bass on the Soulution 701? It's a benchmark for many including me, having owned them for 6 months. (Reliability is unfortunately another issue but the bass is reference caliber).

 

[infinitely baffled]

Did you audition Boulder or Gryphon on your way to a decision?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

My thoughts too.
"All-out" bass is never the specialty of Swiss amps.
The M10 excels spectacularly in all other areas.
That's why I said on #2 that for very big rooms & bass fanatics, M10 Monos is the option.

well......hummmm?......having had a couple 'nice' 'uber' sets of tube amps recently in my system for bass reference, i'd say my 'Swiss' amps, the current model darTZeel 468's, truely do very musical "tube like" bass texturally and tonally, with all the solid state ease and scale you might want, at least in the context of my particular system where they power 97db, 7 ohm speakers and do get help under 40hz from the powered bass towers. probably helps to have active resonance attenuation underneath the 468's for feedback free performance (not insignificant for bass textures), Tripoint Troy and Elite grounding, as well as Entreq grounding on the bass towers......and lots of mid bass driver surface.

the bass of the 468's are a solid step up from the 458's in musicality. nothing musically tests the bass headroom of my system. maybe that is also so, for many systems?

might big Boulders give more macro bass? i suppose maybe. would i like the bass as much in my system? a fair question.

i am a 'bass fanatic'......a 'fully satisfied' bass fanatic.

bass performance is not as simple as the right amp. lots of system optimization is involved to get all the bass

 

[infinitely baffled]

nothing musically tests the bass headroom of my system. maybe that is also so, for many systems?

It's certainly true here.
I have a drum and bass track from the 90's with some deep bass, cut as a 45.
I can play it at 33 and my companion will near shit themselves in astonishment.
There's an intro, then as it builds out of nowhere comes a disembodied bass note that energises the whole room and makes your eyeballs shake. It causes you to question the laws of physics.
As the tune builds, that bass note becomes the bassline. But nothing beats the shock of that first hit. The depth, power and solidity are mind boggling.

 

[arnies]

I now have the CH L10 true dual mono preamp (4 box version) that has replaced my CH L1 true dual mono preamp (4 boxes) paired with my CH M1.1 mono block amps running in active biamplification mode powering my biamplified Rockport Arrakis speakers. Just a few comments on what I have read on this thread.

I do have the grounding switch on the L10's set to linked which ties signal ground and earth ground together (as I did on the L1's using the supplied jumper). I also use the L10 in no global feedback mode (local feedback only). I do prefer the no global feedback setting on the L10 as it provides a more involving and organic musical presentation (this is with the M1.1's set to zero global feedback as well). After about three weeks of break in on the L10's, my CH dealer visited me and we did some further listening evaluations. First we wanted to see the effect of adding some global feedback using the M1.1 feedback setting which allows adding global feedback in 10% increments. And since I run the M1.1 amps in active bi-amplification mode we only added the feedback to the bass drivers of the Arrakis speakers and left the global feedback at 0% for the tweeters, mid range and mid bass drivers. Over the course of three days, we compared 0%, 10% and 20% feedback on the bass drivers and each time we tried this, we both preferred the 10% global feedback setting on the M1.1 mono's for the bass drivers. Images were more right sized, bass was even more textured and the overall sound was just more natural to us. I look forward to hopefully hearing the M10 mono's later this year where the global feedback adjustment can be done in 1% increments.

As for grounding, one of the changes that CH has also made is adding a dedicated earth ground input (via banana connection) on the L10 power supply which did not exist on the X1 power supply used with the L1. I use a CAD Ground Control Reference (GCR) grounding box for my front end components and with the L1's, I connected the signal grounds of the 2 L1 boxes to the CAD GCR. I also started this way with the 2 L10's. With my dealer here, we compared grounding with the signal grounds of the L10's to the earth ground of the L10 power supply. We both felt that using the earth grounds of the 2 L10 power supplies was even more effective than using the signal grounds of the L10's. It improved the sound in similiar ways, just more so.

Thanks

 

[LL21]

Hey Arnie. Congrats! I strongly sensed it was only a matter of time! I have heard great things about the L10...and you have the 4-box version no less! 4 times the congrats! As you know well, I have always admired the Arrakis and particularly your absolute unwavering commitment to make the most of a legendary speaker which in my experience has seen no equal.