KeithR's "Dream Speaker" Search

[jeff1225]

While Keith was moving, he gave me the opportunity to demo his Music First passive Pre in my system. I had a nice two week demo and got to really enjoy the unit. In summary, it is an excellent piece of gear and I could easily live with it in my system.

Strengths
Clarity (a purity I'm not used to hearing)
Black background
Absolute silence (zero buzz through my compression driver, unlike my Lamm)
Remote control
Build quality and fit and finish

The only areas where my Lamm beat the Music First were in instrument texture and sound stage. People often say passives lack bass, but that simply wasn't the case in my system. When you think that you dont need tubes, you have a remote and just one knob.....it is a lot easier to own then my Lamm LL2.1 Deluxe.

 

[Folsom]

Interesting Jeff. Although I have criticized Lamm's pots for awhile (and all pots). I'm not a hardened transformer buff, but I'm well aware of which ones sound good (at least a number of them). Eliminating buzz by having a transformer in the path is nice.

It does make one wonder if you could make a Music First work as well in all ways. I would suggest trying a buffer before it (I can answer questions about that if you want, not to derail the convo here).

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . .

Ron is biased by his Mod Squad Line Drive experience from the 90s which isn't representative as it was a typical, $500 resistor-based passive, not one with incredible transformers to match impedance.

. . .

This is true. I do not deny it.

 

[bazelio]

While Keith was moving, he gave me the opportunity to demo his Music First passive Pre in my system. I had a nice two week demo and got to really enjoy the unit. In summary, it is an excellent piece of gear and I could easily live with it in my system.

Strengths
Clarity (a purity I'm not used to hearing)
Black background
Absolute silence (zero buzz through my compression driver, unlike my Lamm)
Remote control
Build quality and fit and finish

The only areas where my Lamm beat the Music First was in instrument texture and sound stage. People often say passives lack bass, but that simply wasn't the case in my system. When you think that you dont need tubes, you have a remote and just one knob.....it is a lot easier to own then my Lamm LL2.1 Deluxe.

And all the texture and sound stage is there upon going from copper to silver TVC/AVC. You called out the two most significant differences I've heard side by side.

 

[Ron Resnick]

While Keith was moving, he gave me the opportunity to demo his Music First passive Pre in my system. I had a nice two week demo and got to really enjoy the unit. In summary, it is an excellent piece of gear and I could easily live with it in my system.

Strengths
Clarity (a purity I'm not used to hearing)
Black background
Absolute silence (zero buzz through my compression driver, unlike my Lamm)
Remote control
Build quality and fit and finish

The only areas where my Lamm beat the Music First was in instrument texture and sound stage. People often say passives lack bass, but that simply wasn't the case in my system. When you think that you dont need tubes, you have a remote and just one knob.....it is a lot easier to own then my Lamm LL2.1 Deluxe.

Did you perceive any difference in dynamics or in “jump factor”?

 

[Ron Resnick]

And all the texture and sound stage is there upon going from copper to silver TVC/AVC. You called out the two most significant differences I've heard side by side.

Why do you suppose that the silver results in the texture that the copper lacks?

 

[bazelio]

I don't know why. I expected small, hard-to-discern differences when I brought in the silver next to my copper unit though. (Not MFA but Emia in my case). Best I can do would be to describe that everything got taller, wider, and deeper. Empty blackness between members of, say, a simple jazz trio suddenly became apparent. Drummer height vs sax height etc., the front to back placement, and total width all changed. I guess an analogy would be noise reduction in the space *between* instruments, and with that seemed to come more texture and fine detail *for* each instrument on top of the dimensionality of everything.

Bass is going to be a strong suit of inductive volume controls. Similarly is a lack of dynamic compression. The impedance mismatch issues that typically arise in systems using passive resistor ladder devices, as an example, are responsible for contrary experiences.

 

[asiufy]

Just to be clear, my comment was not meant as a negative on Keith's preamp. All I said is that I believe another *particular* preamp would *add* things that *his* particular system might need *at this point in time*.
It does seem to be a great piece, and great value for money as well.

 

[KeithR]

I don't know why. I expected small, hard-to-discern differences when I brought in the silver next to my copper unit though. (Not MFA but Emia in my case). Best I can do would be to describe that everything got taller, wider, and deeper. Empty blackness between members of, say, a simple jazz trio suddenly became apparent. Drummer height vs sax height etc., the front to back placement, and total width all changed. I guess an analogy would be noise reduction in the space *between* instruments, and with that seemed to come more texture and fine detail *for* each instrument on top of the dimensionality of everything.

Bass is going to be a strong suit of inductive volume controls. Similarly is a lack of dynamic compression. The impedance mismatch issues that typically arise in systems using passive resistor ladder devices, as an example, are responsible for contrary experiences.

I'd love to try a silver tranny version.

Also, TVCs typically are warmer than AVCs so there is a difference with the two similar, but different methodologies.

 

[Ron Resnick]

A passive box is not an option for me personally (I need active tondrive 55’ interconnects), but I have always loved the concept: maximum transparency, and minimum electronic adulteration of the signal.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Well Ron, then you REALLY want that Mayers/Pnoes system. I mean, who wouldn't? Lol.

 

[microstrip]

A passive box is not an option for me personally (I need active tondrive 55’ interconnects), but I have always loved the concept: maximum transparency, and minimum electronic adulteration of the signal.

I have measured a few very good interstage audio transformers - Jensen, Lundhal and even the FlexConnect - and I can assure you that they significantly adulterate the signal. The subjective difference in sound type between them was not less than the diffence between typical active preamplfiers.

Considering the output characteristics of many modern source equipment we could easily drive an adequate 55' interconnect using a passive box such as a tapped transformer.

 

[Al M.]

I have measured a few very good interstage audio transformers - Jensen, Lundhal and even the FlexConnect - and I can assure you that they significantly adulterate the signal. The subjective difference in sound type between them was not less than the diffence between typical active preamplfiers.

Good information. Yes, it's all theory, like "digital is perfect" or, "vinyl grooves have infinite resolution". The practical reality is always more messy than the theory.

 

[PeterA]

A passive box is not an option for me personally (I need active tondrive 55’ interconnects), but I have always loved the concept: maximum transparency, and minimum electronic adulteration of the signal.

Ron, you made a conscious choice to place your rack in an adjacent room requiring you to have those long ICs. So, you limited your options. We know there are many ways to great sound. Just look how different the General's, Mike's, and dd's systems are. You have heard them all. And soon you will have your own.

 

[KeithR]

A passive box is not an option for me personally (I need active tondrive 55’ interconnects), but I have always loved the concept: maximum transparency, and minimum electronic adulteration of the signal.

probably not an issue with transformers - i know 10m will work with a TVC. the bigger synergy issue is input sensitivity of your amps (since the box only attenuates gain).

but hey, aren't you lucky that someone who has one can bring it over sometime

 

[KeithR]

Good information. Yes, it's all theory, like "digital is perfect" or, "vinyl grooves have infinite resolution". The practical reality is always more messy than the theory.

sure, but until you've tried one hard to come to any conclusion. also, i'd note that Micro testing off the shelf transformers is of limited value. kind of like testing speaker drivers from parts express and saying a speaker that uses them is great or sucks.

if you want to try a Music First, Emia, Bespoke etc. against active preamps, be my guest. I know 5 audiophile friends that have done so and converted vs expensive active preamps. one didn't work because the lack of gain didn't gel with his amplifier and Jeff (above) had a small preference for what his Lamm adds over what the MF subtracts, but could live with either.

again, i'm not making any universal statement but feel every audiophile should try one out. unfortunately, people say "passive" and all those old $500 boxes come to mine (I had the FT Audio LW1 for like 2 weeks before selling it)

 

[spiritofmusic]

Any thoughts Keith why I couldn't get on w the Townshend Allegri AVC? It had everything: resolution, imaging, low level detail. Just no blood.

Fed Audion Black Shadow 845 SETs.

 

[KeithR]

Any thoughts Keith why I couldn't get on w the Townshend Allegri AVC? It had everything: resolution, imaging, low level detail. Just no blood.

Fed Audion Black Shadow 845 SETs.

I think you'd much prefer TVC to AVC

 

[bonzo75]

Any thoughts Keith why I couldn't get on w the Townshend Allegri AVC? It had everything: resolution, imaging, low level detail. Just no blood.

Fed Audion Black Shadow 845 SETs.

I thought Townsend was quite poor. Also music first. Ypsilon, and SS pres which seem to sound like passive, Dartzeel and solution, are much more preferable

 

[Folsom]

You can use a transformer based volume with a buffer or two. You're avoiding the shitty internal volume on many preamps, not the active circuitry necessarily.