Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share your ideas and experiences.
Return to Planar Speaker Asylum
67.125.106.129
In Reply to: RE: How much power? posted by emsquare on November 28, 2008 at 08:18:49
This is a similar post I have made elsewhere here, but to reiterate some of it, the Quickie choices are good, and add to that the V4, M80, Silver mono, Silver 100, and M135, all Quickies. And add to that the ARC VT100's as mentioned, and their Classic series which is superb. The Rogue also are said to sound great. I prefer using the KT88 tube with the panels vs. the EL34. The EL34 seems to lack the drive and punch. If you want only romance, the EL34 will do. I just find it lacking in muscle. I am going to be trying 4 electronic crossovers this weekend at the philes meeting and I post the results. I have silver wired jumpers now, am happy, but want to try an electronic XO. I ahve the XM26 Marchand, all tube, and two other highly regarded SS pieces, Athena and Spielberg Audio labs, and 4 Quicksilver Silver monos, and a highly modified
Eico HF89 with all silver inside and V-caps....this is the real deal. We shall see....the 3.6's are in for a treat...jallen
Follow Ups:
Jallen,Thanks for your input. I am most interested in the 'Quickies' and the ARC amplifiers. I have read that Magnepan and ARC are related. And that ARC amps were used for speaker development at Magnepan.
I've also been taking note on the Eico's from what I have read on this forum. Are there any other Eico's that could be a possibility? The lowest wattage would have to be good 35 per channel before I would think they could stand up over the long term. I don't always run the 2.6's so loud but every now and then I get a little... happy, shall we say.
In search of musical bliss...
Edits: 11/28/08
Greetings,
The Quickies are great and the Eico even better. The HF89 is only a basis of design. They are actually built on the general circuit, with many modifications to the amp design, with different power supply, AC balance, and other things to get the distortion down to surprisingly low levels. Usually tube amps measure .5-3.5 THD at 1 watt. This tube amp I had built measured 0.005%!!! They are built on a very limited scale and number about 4-5 per year for recording studios. They put out 70wpc which is good for a panel as it allows for headroom on louder, and demanding passages. There are two versions, one with Polystyrene caps, the other one with V-Caps/Teflon. The one with the Styrenes is 7K, the V-cap version is 8K. All parts are matched to two decimal places, point to point wire internal, the transformers are clones of an Eico HF89, and actually measure a little better than the original. They are built by a retired transformer designer who builds them by hand at a very slow rate. The cost on just the transformers is well over 1K. All parts are mil-spec, and the part price is well over 4K for the amp, when purchased in bulk and no mark-up. Several hundred hours are required to build this thing. Some of the studios with Grammy winners have used this amp as playback on their monitors. The attack of the notes are so close to live music it is easy to forget it is recorded. If you are in CA, let me know and you can visit the philes listening session and hear one....jallen
Ah... You told me what I needed to know.
1) I can afford a high end product like that perhaps once, maybe twice over time.
2) I'll probably never see one.
3) I might be able to build a lesser version of one if I commit the time and teach myself how to do it.
The vacuum tube era was before my time and is engineered in a somewhat different technical language. It's taken me years to warm up to the idea that the vacuum tube may have something to offer after all. It used to be so much easier before vinyl got usurped. One could put together a very natural sounding system built entirely of solid state products. Why this seems so much more difficult to do with the CD I have yet to really understand. I know it can be done because I've heard it.
Thanks for your thoughts and that offer is more than kind. I hope to be able to take you up on it some day.
In search of musical bliss...
For a modest price the previously mentioned amps, especially the ones without boards or potential board issues are great in that they can last for literally 10-20 years and all the parts can be easily replaced if some of them over time fail. If a board is torched in a tube failure, you are sunk. If a transistor fails, and I have had as many transistors fail as tubes, they may not be able to be replaced if they used a special type. If you want to change equipment often, then these are not likely issues. happy searching, Jeff
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: