Out of Production

by vman71 on Opinions Please

Description

A lot of time has been spent reading, learning and acquiring all the pieces for a decent 2 channel system. I m ready to start enjoying and listening to some music. I’ve been lucky enough to have broadened my tastes to now include tubes and SET. I’m so happy that I took that leap into tubes and SET and I would recommend tubes and SET to anybody. So now, my 2 channel system includes 3 different set-up variations.

Each set-up variation uses the same front-end, speaker monitors and mix of cables. The CDP is an EAD that I have modified myself with better caps, soft-recovery power supply diodes and silver teflon-coated internal wiring. A mixture of cables to complement the components and hopefully not degrade the sound too much.

Set-up #1 – EAD CDP to Tube Technology preamp to Stan Warren custom amp to Buggtussel Circa

Set-up #2 – EAD CDP to John Hogan 6sn7/27/300B SET to Buggtussel Circa

Set-up #3 – EAD CDP to H.H. Scot 222C (full NOS Valves mods) to Buggtussel Circa

I’m happy that I have these three options available with the simple change of a few connections.

Components needed to poses the following qualities and strengths: warmth, smoothness, and musicality.

Cables needed to poses the following qualities and strengths: fast, detailed, and neutral.

My goal was to blend and synergize the qualities and strengths of the components and cables to produce a musical sound that has details, soundstage, 3-dimensionality, and the ever important midrange.
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Components Toggle details

    • Enlightened Audio Design CD-1000 mkIII
    Extensively modded
    • Audio Mirror DAC 1 Signature (TRL modified)
    This DAC has been modified by TRL and has had a custom Zebrawood case built for it.
    • Tube Technology Seer Line Stage
    The Seer is a very nice sounding British engineered and built tube preamp. It has has a very substantial remote and is built like a tank with four inputs and two outputs. The preamp has 2 12AX7 tubes.
    • John Hogan S.E.T. 6sn7/76/300B
    10watts/ch and Webster transformers
    • Stan Warren Custom Built Chip Amp #1
    A very rare one of a kind, Stan Warren Design and built 60 watt/channel amp (8 ohms) and 100 watts/channel (4 ohms). He custom built this using a Superphon Maxx 80b chassis and installed his own custom circuit. People asked Stan for a lower cost version of the 47 labs amp with more power. He used the Maxx chassis, added Jensen caps, a bigger transformer to the mix, and built it the 47 way. It has a 225VA transformer and Jensen 4-pole non-inductive capacitors.
    • Stan Warren Custom Built Chip Amp #2
    The first one apparently does not have the current dumping stage added. With that thought in mind, the ones with current dumpers have a more solid and tight sound. They create a slightly deeper soundstage and are a little less warm on first listen. The cause of the sound difference is the output impedance of the amp with the dumpers being lower and doing a better job of controlling woofers. It just has a higher damping factor. The dumper equipped amp will also play a little louder with less increase in distortion and grain. That effect is the result of the reduction of stress on the chip output transistors. The external transistors provide most of the current to the load at higher power levels and the chip benefits from that. If you have small speakers and favor a warmish sound with few occasions of loud play, then the first amp will be very well suited. If you have bigger speakers and like to play louder, the second one will outperform the first. The second amp is also better for difficult loads like electrostats or low impedance speakers. This one has upgraded Cardas RCA jacks, Edison Price Copper binding posts, and a Greg Straley Reality power cord.
    • Audio Magic Model 250
    ICE based mono-block amps.
    • Frazier Monte Carlo
    94DB sensitivity
    • Michael Wolff Carbon Ribbon Gain PC
    4ft with Furutech Gold connectors.
    • Michael Wolff Carbon Ribbon Source PC
    3ft with Oyaide P-004 & C-004 connectors.
    • Wegryzn Silver Nuance IC
    Custom Wegryzn IC made with very pure 4N silver, air dielectric, silver solder, and terminated with WBT NextGen silver RCA's. The sound is typical silver (open, airy, extended, detailed) without the edginess or brightness commonly associated with silver cables. IC's are non-directional.
    • Michael Wolff Silver Gold Carbon
    1.5m terminated with Next-Gen WBT Ag RCA connectors
    • Pear Comice Speaker Cable
    10ft pair terminated with Furutech bananas
    • Grover Huffman Silver-Carbon SC
    His latest using the silver-carbon shielding.
    • Promitheus Transformer Buffer
    EI core transformers. This is placed between my tube preamp and amp.
    • JWN 6AQ5 Push-Pull
    All vintage Hammond iron and chassis.

Comments 18

Showing all comments by glenfihi.

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Something like having your cake and eating it too. Having set things up for a couple different systems you can indeed enjoy the various flavors of sound from each.

I came across a Scot amp once in ill repair, had I had a good place to do the work that I could not do...well would have been nice. Glad that you can enjoy your 50 year old unit. Having had put back into service some of my very old gear,it is surprizing how some of them can sound better than some of the newer stuff. Sometimes old can beat the young.

Enjoy the music and the gear....Glen

glenfihi

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