New review of the H2O stereo amp and the H2O Fire preamp

[muralman1]

Please read this review of the H2O amp and preamp at 6 mooons. My set up is more advanced, but the reviewer's system is darn good enough to bring out a lot of the strengths of H2O. Below is a teaser of what to expect.


"The result was a presentation where detail and dynamics didn’t stand out on their own but integrated holistically. The Fire also played an unusual trump card more often associated with low-wattage tube amplification. It made low-level information more apparent, trevealing complex leading and trailing edges on instruments as well as enhancing dimensional solidity and soundstage boundaries."

"Where the Densen emphasized the content of the performance, the Fire’s strong suit was illuminating the context. It recreated not only the musicians but the totality of the event in a musically coherent manner."

"The Fire made good use of its enhancement of low-level data to create very convincing soundstaging especially when mated with the S250. It had the uncanny ability to eliminate the real room boundaries and replace them with the recorded acoustic. Image size was in keeping with the H2O amplifier, big and meaty. Soundstage had good depth and substantial forward projection, creating very solid images in a wide highly immersive soundstage. It successfully eliminated both the AS 3/5As and the Apogee Duetta Signatures as apparent sound sources by presenting material ahead of, behind and beyond the speakers in a manner most often associated with tubes. The Fire didn’t approach the listening experience as a spectator sport. It demanded participation."

 

[muralman1]

i forgot to add the URL:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/h2o2/1.html

 

[muralman1]

The reviewer stated,

"The upper mids and highs were sweet but a little drier than the lower end of the spectrum, transforming to a very refined transistor rather than tube signature. This was easily within the adjustment range of cable combinations and could be swung between mildly dry to mildly sweet as well as addressed by front end choices."

Those were wise words. Having both the amps and preamp he reviewed, I can honestly admit years of frustration. There wasn't a Class D for dummies book. My own system did not reach the realm of exquisite highs until I inserted the miracle maker 47 Lab Flatfish. It was obvious to me, the PSA Lambda was clouding the highest highs. I didn't miss a thing until the Flatfish showed there is finally one thing more to perfection.

 

[fas42]

Good to see you up and about again, Vince! Looks like your health is in better shape, which is always a good thing!

Have you done any more fiddling with your setup in any area to improve things, or have you decided to leave well enough alone?!

Cheers,
Frank

 

[muralman1]

Hi Frank, it is a bubble circling round and round till sucked down the drainpipe..... Such is ALS. Now, to get to things at hand. Can you see why the pros shoppe guys are nonplussed?

Vince

 

[fas42]

Hi Frank, it is a bubble circling round and round till sucked down the drainpipe..... Such is ALS. Now, to get to things at hand. Can you see why the pros shoppe guys are nonplussed?

Vince

So we're talking about MND? If so, not very nice, not one little bit!!

Did you mean the "experts" aren't sure why the H2O performs so well in your last bit?

All the best,
Frank

 

[muralman1]

It's all in the money. There are millions of pixels loaded into the pro quorums signifying nothing to the building my system. I made my SCs, proved the superiority of non-oversampling DACs, demonstrated circuits and wires must follow simplicity. Cheap Anti-Cable seems perfectly capable to faithfully carry all information. I modified power cables to insure a ground drain for their insulations. The Apogee folks don't like me because my system proved their Aussie rebuilds with new ribbons to be way to bright in the treble. Using class A/B the heated ribbons will sound just a small spike. What I have learned is music trapped in confined quarters will flow best with the fewest obstacles thrown in. This is just quantum mechanics thinking.

 

[fas42]

Vince, the truest thing you said there is that "music trapped in confined quarters will flow best with the fewest obstacles thrown in", which is your way of saying that a system can only perform at its best when every last impediment to good sound is sorted out. The trouble is, as people here have also "kindly" suggested, is that it can be excrutiatingly irksome trying to track down what's causing sound quality problems.

The thing is, you managed to pull a rabbit out the hat and get your system working at a top notch level, which you have mentioned a couple of times as being a bit of a fluke; your intuition served you well pointing you in the right directions to work in. The changes you made did it for you, but people with very different styles of systems can also do it, but not necessarily using your methods. It's horses for courses here: as an example, a DAC done completely differently can also do it but you would have to worry about other things to make it happen. So all the tips and help in various forums, etc, could in fact be very useful in helping to sort out other audio system configurations.

A key thing is that you worried about all the small details, and became very fussy in the area of cabling: these are key to getting the best results.

Frank

 

[muralman1]

Frank, What I really meant, are the components are at fault as well as wires. Yes, and it is a delightful term, "Out of a hat." That would apply to my speaker cables. It is hard to get folks to try them. Then it might be just the perfect combo for the class D amp. Component's downfall are the adding of too many gimmicks into the path of the signal.

Saying 47 Lab makes the perfect transport, because a whole lot of music had been hidden by my last transport. Oddly, and a reviewer brought this up, their equally Spartan DAC is no match against what Audio Note is capable of.

Vince

 

[fas42]

Yes, when a system is not "right", that is, not performing at its best then what's at fault could be the components, could be the wires, it's a whole myriad of things that could be the undoing of good sound. Sometimes one can get lucky, and a particular combination of component bits will push you a major distance forward, achieving that notorious "synergy" many speak of. In reality, what's happened is that the subtle flaws of the various bits have compensated and balanced each other so that the music that one enjoys most has its most attractive qualities enhanced. and the less well reproduced elements are made not as conspicuous. It's an unstable equilibrium, because put on the wrong recording or change one element of the playback chain and the whole thing falls apart soundwise -- all of a sudden it sounds bloody awful!

Why people may not want to try your cables is that they have spent a lot of time, money and energy getting a synergy happening for them, and they don't want to disturb it! And that's fair enough too, because it may indeed throw their system badly off balance trying your solution, it doesn't solve anything for them.

Simplicity, as you say, can be a very good plan of attack, but doesn't guarantee making things better, as you point about the 47 Lab's gear. Audio is indeed the devil's playground: you can't just adopt a certain philosophy in dealing with things and expect that to always work. Straightforward and minimal in one area, extremely complex and fussy elsewhere may be what's necessary to get a system really humming. The industry still doesn't properly understand what's going on in getting good sound, so it's up to the user to do lots and lots of trial and error with raw components, or apply concentrated inner fiddling to get somewhere good!

Frank

 

[muralman1]

Frank, it does take a lot of work, but also scientific insight. I have spent 8 years with the same speakers, and amps. It was a long journey, but has ended at the peak of life-like music.

 

[fas42]

Vince, that was a long time between drinks!! I thought you must have got lost somewhere ...

It's a good thing to persist with a set of gear, as you work out the strengths and weaknesses. It's the latter of course you really have to concentrate on, because all the positives in the world as regards your system won't compensate for a nasty something or other dragging the sound quality down. The great big headache is tracking down where the problems are, it can wear you out badly at times trying to knock one of the problem areas on the head.

As I mentioned a few times now, I been fooling around with a nominally very mediocre home theatre for a while now; the trouble is that it is now extremely sensitive to the slightest wayward element, the biggest challenge of late has been to make it immune to mains power funnies, radio wave interference and being driven hard. At the moment it's in good shape (touch wood!), comes up quickly from cold, gets better the more it's hammered -- the MATT test described in another thread showed that the cheap speakers have a resonance problem at a certain frequency when cold, which can be cleared up by driving them really hard for some time; I've left the MATT test running on repeat at high levels and was intrigued at how the resonance issue slowly completely disappeared. I don't do this now, the neighbours would come after me with big sticks for sure if I did it too many times!!

I have noted in some recent threads that some of the manufacturers are getting more clues about what to do: the latest Spectral gear sounds like it has got a few more of the issues sorted out -- so there is still hope for the audio industry!

Frank

 

[joeinid]

Looks like his website is still down. I hope it's just for updates.

Joe