In Reply to: Re: Working at it posted by 3fd on November 14, 2005 at 02:19:01:
I haven't heard the DK Design amps, but just reading the description on their site suggests some possibilities that you may be able to experiment with.Many solid-state amps have a tipped-up treble, and the dipole nature of the Magnepan tweeters can make this worse in lively rooms. Part of the amp's tonal balance is inherent in the output stage design, and part may be in response to RF noise and ringing on the power cord, the speaker cables, and the interconnect cables. Treatments such as Power Wraps or ERS cloth can reduce RF resonances and help tame brightness and a dry midrange caused by RF noise that gets into the amp.
You may also want to try alternative-make tubes in the gain stage of the amp. The frame-grid triode (6DJ8 and similar) is notorious for a bright treble. If you don't have alternative tubes on hand, try wrapping the tubes with Teflon thread seal tape with several wraps in a single band (don't cover the whole tube). This may dampen mechanical resonances within the tubes and relieve some brightness. It is easy to take the tape off if you don't hear an improvement, and you should do this to reduce temperature rise in the tubes.
Finally, experiment with mechanical support of the amp. Try different balances of isolation and damping to see if vibration from the rack or shelf is contributing to the problem.
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Follow Ups
- Could be your amp. - Al Sekela 15:38:45 11/14/05 (3)
- Re: Could be your amp. - 3fd 02:28:37 11/15/05 (2)
- One more thing to check. - Al Sekela 13:28:44 11/15/05 (1)
- Re: One more thing to check. - 3fd 13:57:00 11/15/05 (0)