The End Of A 35 Year Journey ---Zellaton The Ultra Frontier
- Thread starter Steve Williams
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To clarify, this is not about sub integration from an acoustical pov, but rather an electrical one, the old Rel high level input option is the only one I found to not impact the pre or power amplifiers electrical performance.
which has some things in common with how the EA MM7 active bass towers integrate with the passive towers. in that case they also take a high level signal from the speaker terminal. but additionally the passive towers are rolled off acoustically and the bass towers are inverse matched in their slope to avoid doubling.
the key point being that the bass towers get their character from the same amplifier that the passive towers do so the bass tower output is 'of a piece' with the passive towers. coherence and balance results.
when i used the ML3's in my system the bass was fully integrated and seamless. the very neutral class D amps in the bass towers mimicked the ML3 character.
Now you got me curious Emile. When you say electrical impact pre/power, how so? With my Mephisto and Rel's I use only a single wire configuration. Mephisto doesn't like any other config. (positive) Because of this no need to connect to Amp terminals, single Positive to the Speaker. This achieves the same result...
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A well designed preamp should not be affected by a subwoofer load. I drive my JL Audio subs via RCA from an Octave HP 700 preamp and there is no sonic difference, other than in the bass, with the subs driven or not (I drive floorstanders with sub bass blended in at 40 Hz and going below via sharp filter slope at 24 dB per octave).
Or maybe the REL low level input is somehow funky.
Dear Emile, would it be possible for you to share some thoughts on how your Zellaton Ref 2 sound with Elysium in terms of bass definition and overall microdynamics? Do you listen to any jazz or rock? Also, how does this combination perform at low to moderate volumes of say 50-60dB? May I also ask which cables and preamp are you using? Finally, my understanding is that the new Ultra divers offer greater bass weight and impact. Many thanks.View attachment 144077
Cutout photo as the room is currently a messWill take/post a full room photo when I get a chance to clean up a bit!
load has nothing to do with it. it's about the main amplifier tonal and micro-dynamic character from the speaker terminal being used as the source for the bass signal for the sub instead of the preamp source signal. otherwise the sub signal will be 'different'. it's possible that the preamp and amp signal to be close enough that the difference is not significant, but highly unlikely.
especially when you are talking about an SET like the ML3 the significance is quite important.
I spent a significant amount of time experimenting with high input versus low input signals for subwoofers. I also believed from others' comments that there's some magical synergy from an amplifier(s)' output to a sub versus a low output from a preamp. My JLA Fathoms only accomodate low input signals so I purchased from Jensen their best high to low output transformer - based converters, 1 per channel. The result is - there is no difference both from a scientific (measured via REW) or human sonic perspective. I even A B'd with the wife (she's getting good at it)
I'd be curious if anyone else has tried and compared, my gut says no, but the myth continues. ;-)
If so, and their efforts resulted in a sonic benefit, I'd love to know.
Steve - feel free to delete. ;-)
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I have to disagree on your assessment of a "well designed preamplifier". Many preamplifiers are designed to optimally drive loads over 100 or 50 kohm and will not drive properly the input of many active subwoofers.
If we look at the distortion versus frequency measurements of very good preamplifiers taken with 100k, 50k and 10kohm load we sometimes see significant differences.
Actually, the load has a lot to do with it, and a preamps' output current capability. In fact, I'd wager that's the main reason why folks go high output, to avoid double the load (stereo output to amp(s) + stereo out to sub(s).
Possibly, assuming you're insinuating there's additive flavoring of the bass from the SETs. One definitive way to find out (Hint: it's not from us taking about it). ;-)
That's very interesting, can you please share the information you've discussed? Are you talking solid state? Tube? Both?
Great idea, it’s indeed way off topic but an interesting discussion, perhaps a moderator can move the relevant posts to a new thread so it can continue there?
Only a thread can be moved. Cannot move posts. I suggest start a new thread here in the Zellaton subforum and then copy and paste relevant posts into the new thread
The Elysiums do not have iron fist control over the bass, they do however sound “natural”, or “believable”, surprisingly close to real instruments if the recording allows.
They’re not the best match for electronic music, they’re however incredible for real instruments, they do drums really well for example, which sound very believable because it provides one of the most complete renders of all the individual parts of the drum and the room, rendering all resonances with constant and natural decay you can hear bouncing off the virtual walls which define your soundstage.
The Zellatons really excel in that area, they completely disappear and the soundstage extends far beyond the room boundaries. I really do not want to bring subwoofers back into the discussion but this trait is one of the things I valued most from adding subwoofers before, you most definitely don’t need them for this particular aspect.
But for slam / power, I would pick something like for example the CJ ART108s for tubes, or very high quality solid state. But that will leave you craving if you have heard what the Elysiums can do partnered with the Zellatons, beware before you try.
I listen to just about everything except metal and techno.
Preamp is Zanden Chukoh, cabling Audioquest, Zenwave, Siltech, Acrolink.
That was my understanding as well and was one of the main reasons I went Reference Ultra rather than Reference MK ll
Dear Emile, many thanks for taking the time to provide such detailed and helpful feedback. Very interesting indeed. I have only heard the Ref IIs in Munich and was extremely impressed by them, especially their coherence, naturalness, micro detail and soundstaging, even in the rather challenging room at the show.
Older Stereophile reviews showed it.
See https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-research-reference-3-line-preamplifier-measurements- I think it was Nouvelle Revue du Son that also had 50 kohm load.
Unfortunately currently they only show the 100k and 600 ohm load ones.
I have verified this behaviour in my preamplifiers, but did not keep records of it.
There is a lot more about technical matching than childish thumb rules ...
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