Similar trial my friend did like Mike.
Ha has Wilson Alexandria X2 with pre e phono CH and with Viva New Aurora,a very good SET,zero negative feedback pure class A with around 38 watt
Power is enough and sound is very good of this system,and he has a good but not big room.
Before had also Viva top preamp,but after tried CH L1,sold Viva and bought CH,and CH L1 was a perfect match with Viva.
He tried CH A1 in stereo and bought CH A1 mono,for all of us better than Viva with his speaker,voice seems more natural,bass more controlled and deep,high more open and liquid,seems Viva little roll off VS CH and now he listen that in many recording Viva power was not enough and has now power without limitation
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Did you get their permission to show this photo? Their transformers must be short-circuit proof!
Decades ago, when testing one of my DIY class A amplifiers having very large capacitance I managed to fuse the tip of a screwdriver!
Brad, I sit 12’ from my Zus. It really doesn’t matter whether I sit 9’, 12’ or 15’, my conclusion stands.
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I have seen peaks on the 458 up top 1007w! Often over 900w and plenty-plenty over 700w. this was on female vocals, like Chie Ayado's Tennessee Waltz. This was at midnight in the basement at Chez Herve!
Yes, it was loud...but that is the beauty of a basement when bedrooms are two floors above. LoL
Mike, what you described above is pretty much how I hear the differences between a great tube amp and a great ss amp. They do indeed have different flavors. When you talk about running out of gas with the tube amp, I think you must be talking about VERY high spl’s indeed! One thing that I think most of us would agree with is that a tube amp isn’t going to have the same kind of slam in the bass as a great ss amp. However, since you are utilizing the active bass panel amps for that purpose, I wouldn’t think that should be in effect as to this limitation. This is what puzzles me...the Lamms should have no trouble driving your mid/tweet panels to full capacity.
I can do math. He says the speakers are 97 db and pushes power well in excess of 200 watts. Also, he sits quite close, right? The math shows something on the order of 120+db peaks... I don't know, do you consider this loud?
So I think those who have not heard Mike's system, or been near a listening room so well developed, should all extrapolate from their experiences and conclude that Mike listens loudly at ear splitting levels. Now that all of you agree we can move on.