The system components have remained largely unchanged, but for the additions of a large Minus K platform for the turntable, a pair of 15" subwoofers to augment the lowest octaves and the installation of a robust electrical sub-system--powered through a Controlled Power 10kVa isolation transformer. The main change is the room--we relocated from New York to Austin, TX in 2017 and I now have a longer, narrower room that occupies most of the 2nd floor of the house. I have added a few photos reflecting updates since 2017. Bill
Expect it to continue to morph well into the 100 to 150 hour range. But once it's there, your LP collection will sound new. what I mean by that is that I am still hearing subtle cues in complex musical passages that I never noticed before.
Disclaimer: I just had Lloyd Walker work his magic on my turntable with his latest suspension, clamp and damping fluid mods.
Slip, sorry, I wanted to add a question, since you look like you are pretty stacked up with Allnic gear- Greg suggested that there would be an 'aha' moment when the H3000 really kicked into high gear- what was your experience in terms of burn-in? (yes, i'm impatient, but still reveling in what i hear as it goes)
Slip, got one a those too, along with a Tung-Sol, which sounded quite good. I'm probably gonna try a few. I just got the fat base Mullard in, but I'm waiting for the Lamm to come back before I can really make any discerning judgements....
I have the Z-Strip mainly for the circuit breakers. Neither it or the ICE filter do much below 300kHz so I don't consider them to be line conditioners. They don't isolate grounds either, so they can't impact the grounding scheme of the speakers.
Glad to hear the Allnic is working out so well! Enjoy the music.
As the Allnic continues to burn in, i have had moments of giddy disbelief in hearing things from records i never knew were there- not 'hyper-detail' but an immediacy with a very clear but wide focus that is at times astounding. My experience is, as mentioned, compromised until my Lamm line stage returns to the system but I am astounded. I must note that the character of the unit does keep changing as the break-in process continues. I don't know if I have yet reached that 'dramatic' moment that Greg mentioned - I probably have 75-80 hours on the unit so far, maybe a little more, about 1/2 of it playing records, the other 1/2 using one of those KAB reverse RIAA 'conditioners' that allows me to use a CD to input to the phono stage. I have already toyed a little with the rectifier tube, and am looking forward to trying a first series fat base Mullard that I bought for the unit.
Strange. I have dedicated lines, but am not using any kind of AC filter on any of the equipment. The hum is not very noticeable, but maybe i will stick a filter on the woofers and see if that makes a difference. Ordinarily, i find that line conditioners change the sound, and I have been able to eliminate them. Thanks for checking yours, ABall. Enjoy. I'm also pleased to learn that my Lamm L2 is now on the bench over at Lamm, so they will sort out the power supply noise problem, and I'm told, new switches are available for the unit, which 'sound' better. Although I run the unit on the 'direct' setting, I asked Lamm to upgrade the switches anyway, so the unit will be current. More later, I can't wait to get the Lamm L2 back in the system so i can really hear the Allnic phono stage, the substitute Joule, while very romantic, does not have the resolution of the Lamm line stage in the midrange.
I got on my hands and knees with my ear up to the woofer walls and there is no hum, nothing. I have them plugged into and MIT Z-Strip and and ICE filter, and into dedicated outlets.
My issue would be the same as Bill's woofer amps. The hum is not that loud. You can hear it if you put your ear to the amps. I found it helped some when I plugged both woofers into a PS Audio humbuster III.
Aball- good for you. I really haven't listened to the latest version of the Uno. I gather it benefits from whatever driver upgrades were made in the Omega upgrade kit? The Nano has the tweeter integrated into the woofer box, right? I don't really have any 'noise' issues once I sort inter-equipment grounding, but that took a while. Jason (BMWMCab, above), was complaining about the mechanical transformer buzz he hears from his woofers' amps : i hear it if i get close enough to the woofer cabinet, but it doesn't really exist from the listening area in my case. My current issue with noise had to do with a problem in my line stage, but that is finally back at Lamm to get sorted. I will have to look at what amps you are using- I've had very good results with the ML2, which is perfect for the Duo. Map- good to see you, man.
I finally got some Avantgardes - Uno Nanos. Absolutely zero hum. They are dead silent and I love it. Finding amps however that are dead silent isn't all that easy but I've managed with my current set. I love my Nanos to death. I don't think I could ever go back to conventional speakers now that I've heard the live sound of these horns. It's amazing how they make so many regular speakers sounds like "cones in a box" in comparison.
Yes, hum can be a time consuming problem, same system can work in one room and in the next one not, i use grounded power cords for my amps, the front end is running without, external ground wiring, sometimes it is try and error... Great that the Manufacturer is so close to you, maybe you can loan a Phonostage from him (when you have nothing better to do :-)), he offers a LP2 with 70db gain, a very remarkable unit ... When you will meet V. tell him a friendly 'Hello' from an unknown Lamm owner :-) Happy Listening
Jason, my wife and I have long wanted to visit Vancouver, so I will let you know if we take a holiday there. I'd love to hear your system, and yes, i will look up the Tact equipment, i do remember some reviews in one of the mainstream magazines a while ago, but i need to revisit. Thank you. Best, Bill Hart
Syntax- it's not for an upgrade, a few weeks ago, I started up the system to warm it up for some visitors (one is a well known musician who has great ears, but uses the equivalent of a boom box at his house, and although he had heard the system before, he was bringing over another guest to listen). Anyway, once everything in the system came on, after the start-up relays kicked in, I heard a 60hz hum. Oh, nO! I had worked long and hard to eliminate grounding problems in the system among the various components and didn't relish having to go back through everything again to sort it out. Also, there was no reason for this hum, since i hadn't changed anything, except to retube the amps and phono stage. I also checked the usual culprits outside of the system circuit- there is a low voltage lighting system in our kitchen that I can hear, even though the hi-fi is on dedicated lines and if some appliances, like a room humidifier are plugged into the house wiring, i can hear that too. But, none of this was the problem. I eventually isolated it to the Lamm line stage, whose power supply was also making a mechanical buzzing noise, in addition to contributing 60 hz hum over the audio system. I bypassed the Lamm line stage, first by running my Steelhead 'straight in' and the hum disappeared. I also bought a temporary line stage to act as a substitute while I awaited repair of the Lamm- also no hum. When i spoke to Vlad, right before he left for Munich a couple weeks ago, he confirmed that i should hear no buzz from fhe power supply. So, something has gone wrong with the Lamm line stage that needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, since Lamm is essentially a 'one man orchestra' it has to await his return. I will personally drive over to his house/shop with the units, since i live in NY and can avoid shipping. I hope to get the unit fixed next week, and will then sell the temporary line stage I bought as a substitute, and can start to get the full measure of the Allnic phono stage, which continues to break in.
Hi, I did read some postings, may I ask why you sent to L2R back to factory? Upgrade available? Some time ago I listened to the Allnic combo, too and I agree with you opinion about.
Bill, I'm located up in Canada, Vancouver, B.C. A little far away from Tx. Anyways, do give me a shout if you are ever in the area. And do look up the Tact Audio W210 woofers on google. They make a world of a difference.
Jason, thanks on both fronts. We are planning to relocate to Austin, so i will be dealing with HVAC, room, electrical, etc. on a fresh slate. I did think about installing a mini-spllit for the music room, but never got around to it, and was a little concerned that the fan noise of the indoor unit would be intrusive. Good to know, at least as far as a heat pump goes, it is not, but i thought those got less effecient at exchange at some point than a conventional air conditioner. Where (city and state) are you located? Closer to Tx than NYC? Maybe we can make it happen. And 6 speed makes all the difference, i never cottoned to those paddles, even in the F cars, which i gather today, are virtually impossible to buy new with a stick.
I would love for you to come over if you were a little closer to let me know what you think. I've been fiddling for a long time and i think i've finally gotten pretty close to my nirvana. I've tried many speaker placements, different crossovers and a LOT of tweaking with the target curve. There is another member here that is running Avantgarde Trios with 3 pairs of the Tact W210's. As soon as i receive my second pair of W210's, i will update my 'system'. Prior to my avantgardes I had B&W 802N's running with passlabs x350.5 and X0.2 preamp. Although this setup sounded good with vocals, with more upbeat music the speakers seem to struggle to keep up. That's when i did some research and made the switch to horns. From there I changed my pre and amp to all Tact equipment. I own a 2004 M3 cab 6 speed not smg;-)
BMW- first, i have to apologize, you are not merely a BMW Cab, but an "M' series. (I had one of those, circa 2004?, and found it to be fun to drive, great fit and finish but I could NOT stand the paddle shifter. Drove me mad- blip, kechunk, blip, kerchunk, etc. My grandma shifted a manual better even after heavy drinking (just kidding folks, I discourage that). The only reservation I'd have is running the mids through any sort of processing. I was actually poking around for a horn bass speaker, perhaps ready-made. The way the Duo is set up, cable to mids, no crossover whatsover, jumper to tweets, and there's a xover in there. Maybe run off a line output to a separate horn woofer, which has a variable low pass (god, I haven't thought about passive v. active crossovers in years, and have a few of the former sitting in my basement. And then I'd have to figure out the amp thing.) I kinda like the concept, as lo-fi as it sounds,of feeding the woofer amp at speaker level inputs, like I do on the Duo woofer, to get the sonic character of the main amp, but... I'm just thinking aloud here. If you were close, I'd invite myself over. Maybe shoot me a few pics? You could post 'em, or email them to me- use my media company address [email protected]
Gregadd- Yeah, so i gathered. I did buy that KAB RIAA 'conditioner' to move things along, but I don't really like letting anything tubular run without me paying close watch. I've got maybe 30 hours on the H3000 in actual listening and another 15-20 using the KAB burn-in box. I gather you are talking about 750 or more hours, so I'm gonna be up late... BTW, I know your handle from here, i guess, maybe one of the other chat sites. Since we can't do PM anymore here, Would you mind shooting me a message at the above email, just to make the connection a little clearer? I'm near Nyack, about 25 or so miles north of NYC and have been in and out of the hobby, as a hobby, for more than 40 years. I just semi-retired, so I'm back in with both feet (and ears). Thanks, both.
Regarding your A/C issue (not sure if you've resolved it by now) I'm running a Fujitsu heat pump which does heat and A/C. The main unit is situated outside and they mount the fan unit on the wall in the room. It's pretty quiet when you have it on the "quiet" mode. The unit outside is very quiet as well. You can use it in the winter for heat and summer for A/C. Check it out.
Thanks for the reply. When i acquired my Uno's, I couldn't stand the humming coming from the woofers as my room is VERY quiet. I can hear a pin drop in there ;-) so i've looked into replacing them with a different woofer that is inexpensive and fast enough to integrate with the avantgardes. My friend has a full Tact Audio system comprised of a 2.2x preamp, 3 x s2150 amps, a pair of Tact Audio MTM style bookshelf speakers and a pair of Tact Audio custom made W410 woofers. The thing that interested me was his woofers. They can crossover up to about 400hz which is perfect for my Uno's which needs only to be crossed over around 260hz. Few months ago i purchased a pair of Tact W210's to try out and to my amazement they integrated very well with the Uno's. From then on, i've turned off the 225's and my room is dead quiet again :-D They don't go as low as the 225's but i'll sacrifice quality over quantity anytime. I'm also running the horns with a full Tact system: 2.2xp preamp, 1 x s2150 amp, 2 x s2150xdm amps. You will NEED the 2.2xp to correctly integrate the woofers to the horns as it will calculate time delay to the horns.
BMWCab-Yes, there is a slight buzz to the sub transformers if you get close to the speaker but it is a mechanical buzz, it doesn't convey to the signal delivered by the woofers. I've thought over the years about all kinds of ways to 'fix' the woofer issue with the Duo, including mounting the horns on a more rigid stand (as someone else did~ in fact i thought i saw that pair, or one like it for sale here recently) and positioning the woofers to improve their coupling in the room; trying a horn type woofer, or ultimately (and though more expensive, maybe cheaper in the long run), trying a different speaker. I've really come to appreciate what horns are about, but I haven't really explored a lot of the current systems that are available. I'm also not necessarily interested in throwing 100k into a speaker system at this point in my life. I've become fascinated with the whole DIY thing, I don't know if you have looked at what some of those guys are doing, conical horns, old RCA and JBL, Western Electric (the latter two ain't cheap either, given the demand for vintage horns in the East), but it keeps me occupied. I recently retired from the full-time practice of law and plan to relocate to Austin in the near future (as soon as we sell our house in NY), so I'm probably not going to make a dramatic change right now. I'd love to have a separate building for the hi-fi, and do a room, including a work area, from the ground up- AC power, acoustic design, and space for a wall of all the vinyl. What's your take on the woofs- reversing phase and subtle adjustments to the Xover do make a big difference once the speakers are correctly positioned, but I've never been 100% in love with the integration. (Jim Smith, please don't yell at me!). Regards, Bill Hart
