Ron’s New System

[Ron Resnick]

The FFT on AudioTools iPhone app is too annoying to deal with. I sort of forgot but then remembered that I already have a high-quality, flat frequency response microphone and mic stand.

What is the best RTA/FFT application for an iPad? (It does not have to be one of the free ones.)

 

[Ron Resnick]

If ever there was a safe bet it is that Ron will remain a tube amplification man for many, many years to come

The room is looking great Ron and it must have been fun to have your friends from Gryphon come and help calibrate the Pendragon set-up.

Yes, Gary, it will be hard to get me away from tubes. But this is the first system I've ever had in my life with a transistor in it: the VTL line stage preamp is a hybrid.

 

[Ron Resnick]

One more random observation: it feels like this system has more gain floating around that I've ever had before. I guess that's the +6dB from the balanced architecture?

 

[Ron Resnick]

And Jim White did me very proud: the Io is as quiet as I was hoping for!

if anybody would like to see and play with an Io in the wild, please let me know! I've owned an Io for over two decades, and I still can never get over what a crazy machine Jim White dreamed up! This Io is more transparent, more resolving and more neutral than you think an Io is. I promise. This is not the Io of yore.

Pressing my ear to the speaker the phono chain is quieter than the digital chain at the moment, as there is some ground hum on the digital side that I have to run down when I get around to it.

 

[the sound of Tao]

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Saraswati has been fully resuscitated from a deep suspended animation, and is ready to preside over the listening room and to encourage good, natural sounds!

Ron nice but had you thought of enlisting the Egyptian pantheon of gods, perhaps even praying to SET might be a good move… and surely Drina and Magma are both goddesses!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron nice but had you thought of enlisting the Egyptian pantheon of gods, perhaps even praying to SET might be a good move… and surely Drina and Magma are both goddesses!

The effortlessness of sound from 350 watts and 750 watts (the Pendragons are very noticeably more sensitive than the Magnepan 1.6s) is causing me to feel no urgency to look to high power SET. But the Drina remains my "fantasy" amplifier.

 

[morricab]

Ron nice but had you thought of enlisting the Egyptian pantheon of gods, perhaps even praying to SET might be a good move… and surely Drina and Magma are both goddesses!

SET is definitely my favorite god in the Amp pantheon!

 

[Gregadd]

Maybe Ron could offer up an expensive virgin solid state amplifier on the altar of sacrifice to appease the hi-fi gods.

 

[Lagonda]

Maybe Ron could offer up an expensive virgin solid state amplifier on the altar of sacrifice to appease the hi-fi gods.

There are no virgin solid state amplifiers, they get broken in with rock !

 

[bonzo75]

There are no virgin solid state amplifiers, they get broken in with rock !

if as an audiophile, you blow up a tube amp, you get 72 virgin solid state amplifiers when you go to heaven

 

[KeithR]

How did Rune and Joe adjust the speakers, settings?

 

[Gregadd]

if as an audiophile, you blow up a tube amp, you get 72 virgin solid state amplifiers when you go to heaven

Only god could design a good one.

 

[christoph]

Yes, Gary, it will be hard to get me away from tubes. But this is the first system I've ever had in my life with a transistor in it: the VTL line stage preamp is a hybrid.

Heresy

 

[christoph]

How did Rune and Joe adjust the speakers, settings?

Now we're talking. And pictures please.
I bet they moved the panels closer together

 

[Ron Resnick]

How did Rune and Joe adjust the speakers, settings?

1) The woofer tower level went up from -5.5 to -4.5.

2) The crossover width went up from setting 3 to setting 1. (I had been told by a friend that setting 3 was the softest slope.)

3) Rune and Anthony carefully measured the distances from the woofer towers to their respective side walls, and from the panels to the front wall, and equalized those distances. (I can move easily the panels, but when I try to move the woofer towers, all that happens is that they move me.)

This had the effect of moving the right woofer tower a few inches in towards the middle, which moved the panel a few inches in towards the middle, which moved the panels a few inches closer together.

4) Rune changed the toe-in slightly.

5) Rune moved the listening chair forward towards the speakers a little bit.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I have nine 16 inch round ASC Tube Traps. After careful FFT measurements over several days I have taken all of the Tube Traps out of the room.

The Tube Traps do successfully lower the peak of the 60 Hz room boom, but they also lower the SPL of the 100 Hz 250 Hz range (versus the midrange) which I do not want lowered.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Because my primary musical genre interest is vocals, I am pretty sensitive to making sure I hear a reasonably well-defined sonic image of a solo vocalist in the middle of the room. I am surprised that I have kept the panels as far apart as I have. The current span of the panels does not seem to be diffusing the center image of a solo vocalist.

Hopefully, Don will come over sometime this weekend and I will get an initial impression from him.

Separately, it will be interesting to keep a tally of visitors who prefer triode mode or tetrode mode on the amplifiers. This fairly quick transition from the Magnepan 1.6s to the Pendragons makes me question if Magnepans (or 1.6s in particular) in practice are even less sensitive than their specified sensitivity rating.

 

[bonzo75]

I have nine 16 inch round ASC Tube Traps. After careful FFT measurements over several days I have taken all of the Tube Traps out of the room.

The Tube Traps do successfully lower the peak of the 60 Hz room boom, but they also lower the SPL of the 100 Hz 250 Hz range (versus the midrange) which I do not want lowered.

did you take off all nine in one go or reduce it in parts, measure again, reduce it, and so on

 

[Ron Resnick]

did you take off all nine in one go or reduce it in parts, measure again, reduce it, and so on

There were eight Tube Traps in the room. First I removed three, then I removed the remaining five.

I forgot I had an Earthworks microphone and microphone stand. I should've been using that set-up, and an iPad app, from the beginning.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Windows? Rectangular? Hamming? Blackman? Oh my!

Which is the best window to use for our frequency response analysis purposes?