Nicholas,
Thank you regarding the speakers.
I have now conducted a lot more testing on my equipment. I have found that without question that the Aragon Palladium 1K amps do provide some of the hiss in what I am hearing through the OMA New Yorker prototype speakers. I confirmed this by checking one of the other Palladiums in the system. The Krell amp in my system by comparison is quieter revealing just a hint of hiss or none at all through the OMA New Yorker speakers. The Audio Research LS10 does definitely add additional hiss to the system much more noticeable with the Aragon Palladium IK amp than with the Krell amp. In fact, I would venture to say that the hiss of the ARC LS10 with the Krell amp is probably about the amount of hiss of the Aragon Palladium 1K amps alone. The Onkyo 885 Pre/Pro on the other hand adds very little or no additional hiss to the playback through the OMA New Yorker speakers.
Now, this is quite interesting and I will have to run additional tests. The Soundsmith 410 Strain Gauge Phono Preamp running into either the ARC LS10 or the Onkyo 885 from the fixed outputs of the unit seems to add little or no additional hiss. However, with the special RCA to Balanced cables and using the variable outputs from the unit there is definitely more hiss running through either amp and into the OMA New Yorker speakers. If Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith is correct, it is possible that the cable that was made up is causing part of the problem. I think that I will order the special RCA to Balanced adapters from Soundsmith (though they are not as high quality as the cabling) and then run additional tests with a proper pair of Balanced cables. This will then allow me to determine whether the unit in the variable output mode both for the Phono and auxiliary outputs is noisy, the cabling and adapter is the issue or there is some combination of problems. I will then determine how I wish to use the Soundsmith 410 either directly into the amps or into the Preamp or Pre/Pro.
What I think that I am going to do at this point at least as far as a major change is to remove the front Aragon Palladium 1K amps running to the new OMA New Yorker Prototype speakers. Additionally, I think that I will place an order tomorrow for one of the new First Watt amps that will supply 25 watts of class A power into 8 ohms. That should easily be sufficient for the OMA New Yorker speakers which only require approximately 1/2 to 2 watts (they have an efficiency of 105 dB/1w/1m). Hopefully I will have the new amp next week and will be able to fill everyone in about my findings. If I don't like the amp, then I will return it to the store. I will leave the other 3 Aragon Palladium 1K amps in the system for the Nola LCR Reference Center Channel speaker and for the Nola Viper IIA speakers used for the side surround speakers. The amps for these speakers cause little or no noticeable hiss for these much less efficient speakers.
Rich
