Proper Set Up Required for GREAT Sound. Agreed by All! But is it Improper Setup or Wrong Taste?

[morricab]

+1 on the KR attributes. Those amps will be my favorite type of SETs to try on such cones. Recently I heard the VA 200 monos. Loved them. I plan to now try them on tannoys, and hopefully MLs. They are clean, great bass and Midbass, deep stage, lovely body, decay, tone and drive. Loads of energy.

You didn't hear them at their best but the AC amps have even more energy and greater transparency...I know them both intimately and like them both, so consider that as close to an objective assessment as is possible by listening.

 

[JackD201]

My paradigm revolves around getting as close to live, unamplified sound in real space as possible with reproduction (recording permitting of course). I know this is now somewhat unfashionable as pure relativism has largely taken over hifi but that is my goal and paradigm. SET electronics, for all their flaws, are IMO the best way to get closest based on experimenting heavily with all electronic topologies (even in the relatively recent past). As for loudspeakers, well I am am currently using and loving horns but I am somewhat more agnostic on speakers, having enjoyed and loved large planars in the not too distant past. There are, IMO, more versions of truth in speakers than in electronics. BTW, with good SET, I do not consider this editorializing the sound, I consider it getting a cleaner sound...like using really good power cables. Less hash, noise and more natural everything. Obviously, really poor recordings should not sound beautiful afterwards but I would say that one can easily hear the flaws but not be driven from the room screaming.

Well, again it seems you get hung up in my thought experiment about the size of the speaker, the room, the volume level, blah blah blah. I am asking you to think how each will SOUND when driven by a certain type and class of electronics and how those electronics shape the sound. Since it is a though experiment both can be setup optimally and independently. Let's just take the setup, distance, room etc. out of hte equation...surely you can imagine this? A lot of the things you mention are of course important for overall setup but irrelevant to my thought experiment. I am not making this thought experiment as purely theoretical. I have heard Living Voice OBX-RW with Kondo and Einstein (OTLs not hybrids) as well as other mid-price speakers like AudioPlan Konzert IIs with Kondo GakuOH and GakuON and New Audio Frontiers (as a more price reasonable alternative) and these will beat for overall musicality, naturalness and just sounding more real than ANY Wilson speaker with ANY SS amplifier or Class D amplifier and a good number of PP tube amps as well (like Audio Research Ref 150s and Ref 5se preamp, which I heard a few times now with Wilson Alexia, for example). I have repeated the exercise with the big Focal Grande Utopia BE EM (electromagentic bass damping), where a small KR VA350i brutalized a big pair of Electrocompaniet monos + pre. The dealers eyes were wide with disbelief. That was in a big room no less. In general, the room size is not as relevant as you think because you would never sit 7 or 8 meters from your speakers, would you??? I normally site between 3 and 4 meters from all my systems (I have three currently). I made a couple of Wilson owners scratch their heads with KR, putting one on a Grand SLAMM Mk I that destroyed his Class A Jeff Rowland amps, this in about a 30 sq.meter room. and a Grand SLAMM mk3 in a 100 sq. meter room against big Krell monos. The KR just sounded more realistic in ways that matter more than bigger bass, airier highs and whatever other audiophile verbiage you want to use. I also shocked a guy with a Acapella Violon with KR when it out did his Electrocompaniet/Ayre combo. His response, buy a big Pass X600...however, 1 year later I saw his speakers up for sale...clearly MORE power didn't do the trick. A Living Voice or AudioPlan speaker with VERY good electronics will provide a more satisfying sound musically because of the reduction in synthetic artifacts. That is the point of my thought experiment but you didn't really engage in this just wanted to get lost in the details of speaker design and setup...it doesn't MATTER. You can have a big, reference speaker (most of these are crap, btw.) setup up in perfectly in a perfect room and ruin the sound completely with poor electronics and power choices...conversely you can get great sound with moderate speakers, great electronics and power and setup nothing special in a room that is nothing special. Speaker, setup and room are icing on the cake, IMO and rarely make or break the sound. I would argue that most of the poor sound at shows has nothing to do with the rooms or the speakers but how it is all driven.

A final anecdote. When I was a KR dealer back in 2006-2010, I was hanging out in the KR room one year in Munich where they were teamed up with Cessaro speakers. That year was the Alphas, big but not overwhelming. During most of the show I was horribly disappointed with the sound, it was thin, harsh without much bass punch no soundstage depth...just really hifi and uninteresting. I thought to myself, "Jesus, these Cessaros are poor speakers because I know how good KR can sound with other speakers...it is strange because these speakers should be ideal for them". Then I was sitting on a Saturday evening just as the show stops for the day and was chatting with a guy. All of a sudden my attention was jerked away from the guy to the sound coming from the system and I thought simply, "Hey now that sounds really good all of a sudden"! I listened for a few minutes and then I realized something important had changed...the power. All the rooms around ours had shut down for the evening and this seemed to have a dramatic effect on the sound quality that was now coming through our still running system. Anyone who had heard it during the day might go "Meh, that is not as good as expected" but anyone who had heard it once the power quality improved would have been "Hey, now that is what I am talking about!". I have no doubt a lot of poor sound at shows can be attibuted to this effect.

I think it is also a big reason that Living Voice/Kondo (almost) every year gets great sound. They are completely decoupled from the power grid at the M.O.C in Munich...they run on a battery regeneration system that allows their system to perform optimally...and no one would argue that the rooms are ideal in Munich and especially not for such a system but it sounds more realistic than just about anything else out there. Of course they do their best in the speaker positioning but they don't go overboard with treatments like some rooms. The power and the gear drives that system to such heights. There was the LV Palladian + Engstrom amps as well this year and it was a big step down...

I was not implying that you personally change equipment like socks...I was not implying you didn't earn or didn't select carefully what you have.

Alright. Thank you. Peace then Brother.

Let's just leave the thought experiment for now because my brain is wired to always take acoustic parameters into consideration. It's something very difficult for me to put aside because my set up days started in my teens doing sound reinforcement in varying venues and tuning clubs in my 20s. That said even then power was always a concern. If the show producers would spring for it special generators would even be rented if not, large iso-transformers, which were brutal to transport. Many hotel electricians had me on their hit lists I bet LOL Besides, while it is true that evenn during my own listening now my meters show output between tenths of a watt to the low teens, I could live with low power if all I listened to was classical music. Even Stravinsky and Poulanc top out in the low hundreds at 100dB peaks. I listen to a lot of music that jumps up nominally to the 200s. Classical music is the most demanding but not in terms of power output. Electric Bass eats up stupid amounts of power especially when mated with a kick drum. Power wise, music recorded from the 80s onwards are the true power hogs. This can be a problem if one is not invested in a full horn system or one where midbass is augmented. This, the program material is the main reason why I don't have ML3s right now. That could change when I grow up LOL By the way, this thread is about set up. I was just being on topic.

I see your point about the power issues. That's why I picked up Stromtank last year after evaluating their products at the Tokyo show. To test them here, I use two S 5000 HPs, one for sources and the other for the amplifiers. The greater improvement that I hear is in the sources. Not surprising, I guess, as the signal levels are lower in voltage and more easily corrupted. I would subjectively put it as 70/30 improvement in favor of the sources. SS gear and tube gear with SS rectification enjoy a significant improvement in low level purity of tone, shape and projection. We are not getting any younger and I am sure we all want to keep our hearing. IMO there's nothing like being able to listen at low levels while still being satisfied without really having to give up the opportunity to be reckless every once in a while. I would say that good power gives as that opportunity and yes, it is normally not given the importance it is due, Maybe it is simply because power isn't as sexy an investment as other things.

Wolfgang will be here in two weeks and I have a lot of things to ask him. I'll do an interview and post it here on WBF.

 

[JackD201]

+1 on the KR attributes. Those amps will be my favorite type of SETs to try on such cones. Recently I heard the VA 200 monos. Loved them. I plan to now try them on tannoys, and hopefully MLs. They are clean, great bass and Midbass, deep stage, lovely body, decay, tone and drive. Loads of energy.

I thought they might be up your alley Ked. I use these with a P135. They are a bit of a unique animal. If you peak under the hood at the OPT, you'll find that this amp is more an OTL with an autoformer rather than a SET. Circuit wise it is actually balanced and fully differential. Surprise!

 

[morricab]

I thought they might be up your alley Ked. I use these with a P135. They are a bit of a unique animal. If you peak under the hood at the OPT, you'll find that this amp is more an OTL with an autoformer rather than a SET. Circuit wise it is actually balanced and fully differential. Surprise!

I can only imagine the heat it makes. I had the P135 for review last year. It was my last review for PF before moving back into the business. Nice sound.

 

[morricab]

Alright. Thank you. Peace then Brother.

Let's just leave the thought experiment for now because my brain is wired to always take acoustic parameters into consideration. It's something very difficult for me to put aside because my set up days started in my teens doing sound reinforcement in varying venues and tuning clubs in my 20s. That said even then power was always a concern. If the show producers would spring for it special generators would even be rented if not, large iso-transformers, which were brutal to transport. Many hotel electricians had me on their hit lists I bet LOL Besides, while it is true that evenn during my own listening now my meters show output between tenths of a watt to the low teens, I could live with low power if all I listened to was classical music. Even Stravinsky and Poulanc top out in the low hundreds at 100dB peaks. I listen to a lot of music that jumps up nominally to the 200s. Classical music is the most demanding but not in terms of power output. Electric Bass eats up stupid amounts of power especially when mated with a kick drum. Power wise, music recorded from the 80s onwards are the true power hogs. This can be a problem if one is not invested in a full horn system or one where midbass is augmented. This, the program material is the main reason why I don't have ML3s right now. That could change when I grow up LOL By the way, this thread is about set up. I was just being on topic.

I see your point about the power issues. That's why I picked up Stromtank last year after evaluating their products at the Tokyo show. To test them here, I use two S 5000 HPs, one for sources and the other for the amplifiers. The greater improvement that I hear is in the sources. Not surprising, I guess, as the signal levels are lower in voltage and more easily corrupted. I would subjectively put it as 70/30 improvement in favor of the sources. SS gear and tube gear with SS rectification enjoy a significant improvement in low level purity of tone, shape and projection. We are not getting any younger and I am sure we all want to keep our hearing. IMO there's nothing like being able to listen at low levels while still being satisfied without really having to give up the opportunity to be reckless every once in a while. I would say that good power gives as that opportunity and yes, it is normally not given the importance it is due, Maybe it is simply because power isn't as sexy an investment as other things.

Wolfgang will be here in two weeks and I have a lot of things to ask him. I'll do an interview and post it here on WBF.

For a long time I was more or less a power denier. I thought like many engineers, you have KM of wire running to your house and through your walls how the hell can 2 m of wire on the end make difference?? I had played with filters and regenerators (still use my Monarchy regenerator) and they made differences but at least this I could understand with a simple explanation. It wasn't until I tried some cables that really did something in a big way that I had to reassess and think carefully about WHY they helped. It is never enough for me to simply hear it and accept it. I like to understand the root cause.

What are your main speakers now? There are quite significantly more powerful SETs out there than the ML3 (not that it is a low powered SET mind you) that also sound really good. Aries Cerat has two models with at least double the power, NAT has a two three models that put out substantially more, WAVAC, KR Audio, other brands with around 50 watts etc. However, it sounds like you listen pretty loud and with not super sensitivity speakers.

Interestingly, we have been finding the biggest effect for power on DACs , phonostages and preamps...amps matter too but those others even more...sensitive circuits and low level signals?? Could be...

 

[JackD201]

I'm using Von Schweikert Ultra 11s, 95dB but bass is sealed so requires power. Yes I do listen fairly loud about a quarter of the time.

I thought like you too. Heard the difference of PCs and filters, did some digging on my own. Found in EC papers online measurements of lines with load pollution and was shocked to find the corruption of the sine waves through multiple harmonic bands. I did not know that the damage was fundamental. I used to think the noise was just riding along the cables. Anyway, I'm not sure how this directly affects rectification but my guess is that corrupted AC can be a contributor to DC ripple.