Davidb7, I was curious about why you purchased the Sony Blue Ray player. I have been thinking of buying it till I found that it has no SACD. The Denon is at the top of my list but I am waiting to see what else will fall from the tree before making the plunge. Great post by the way on the city of Seol. Look forward to your comments about the sonic merits of the Sony. Feel free to PM me directly. Do not wish to dilute this superb thread. |
The 2.0 Joe sent has the upgraded caps, copper foil wrapped, and he hooked up the XLRs by joining 2 pins together, pseudo balanced, but it doesn't work with my amps. I went back and read more of this thread and with your comments Gammajo, I will definitely get the B as in 2.1nRB. I'd like to get the better tubes but I think I'll save that for another day, something to look forward to. I'm not selling my entire system, just thinning out and simplifying as the trip wouldn't be until next summer. Korea runs on 220-240volt so everything needs a step-down transformer. We make extra money there so I always try a lot of cables and when I come back I buy too much other audio gear to feed the habit. My system took a big change just before I got the 2.0, I think it had to do with too much wieght of a clumsy hand on the drawer of my DVD. So I had to send it back to ModWright to fix and sell to simplify as it has an external power supply. I bought the new Sony Blu-ray not in stores yet, BDP-S2000ES, and it is cheap compared to my old 9000ES. It's their new top-o-the-line ES and it doesn't do SACD! Joeseph asked for some internal pictures and said he might think about modding it; I wish he would. ModWright said they will some time next year. So my new system will be: Sony to AH 2.1 via Jena Labs Symphony to Atma-Sphere M60.3 by AH balanced to Tyler Acoustics Reference 2 bi-wired VeraStarr, all but amps feed from a Hydra 8 fed by a TaiPan Helix. Other PCs: JPS Digital AC(very good), AH Transparency for preamp, VH Audio Airsines to amps, the DVD and preamp plug into a hospital grade transformer that plugs into the Shunyata by a Virtual Dynamics Master (damn that thing is a pain in the ass, so heavy and stiff, but it put some meat on the bones, my wife said like going from monkey to human!?) The speakers are 2-piece so I could take half with me if, and it's starting to look like an if, we go back to Korea. Love the city of Seoul. It has thousands of restaurants and it's cheap enough to eat out almost every night. It has an electronics mart, YongSan, that has everything you have ever read about in the mags. Literally thousands of shops, a lot of small 1-room audio shops would have 100's of thousands of dollars of equipment packed in, I don't understand how they afford it. Anyway, enough rambling, I've got a preamp to order. Thanks for the welcome and I'll let you know when I get the 2.1 and how it changes. |
David, Welcome to the AH club. I'm curious what mods were done on the TP 2.0 version you auditioned. Also, since you had an opportunity to try the 2.0 version first, I would be interested in what your thoughts are after you've had the new 2.1 version in your system for a while. Enjoy the music and don't be a stranger. |
David, welcome to wonderful listening and a nice thread. I tried the balanced versus RCA with my 2.0n and found the difference to be immediate and dramatic and worth the $795 easily. My brother who is not tuned to these things also easily heard the difference within 30 seconds. The RCA's were decent quality silver IC's and the Balanced ICs were AH. My feeling was that the IC's were not accounting for much of the difference. There was a more holographic sound stage, blacker background and more nuanced detail. Joe |
Thank you, I hope Rhanson sees my reply to his question about the tubes functions in the preamp. I also had to reply to some meathead on another thread accusing everybody posting here to be working for AH; that this preamp couldn't possibly be as good as you'll say. Also, wondering if anyone has a balanced version of the preamp and compared the two outputs; is the balanced upgrade worth $795 as I want to order a 2.1nRB. Thanks. |
I'm new to AH, now trying out a modded 2.0 before ordering a 2.1. I've talked to Joe quite a bit and to answer about the tubes, 1 and 3 amplify, 2 and 4 are buffers. I love the preamp and after 2 days have already decided to order a new one and this is after living with an $8500 CJ 16LS II for over 3 years. Thanks to Grannyring for the recommendation. The demo doesn't work with my Atma-Sphere amps in balanced mode but even through the RCAs it's obviously a great preamp. I can't wait to hear the 2.1 in balanced mode as I'm sure it will be an improvement. This is the first thread my lazy ass has ever bothered to reply but this product is worth it. |
Rob, Perhaps Joseph or Victor can answer your question best. All they told me, back when I was tube-rolling, was that locations 1 & 3 were the most critical for the sound. I would imagine that these are in the signal path. As to what locations 2 & 4 do, I can only take a layman's guess that they are for regulation. It's best to ask the "Master"( J. Chow) himself. |
Hi Rob, This was a fairly common problem with all my tube preamps of the past. You could try cleaning all the tube pins with Caig, if it still persists, you may have a slightly finicky/faulty tube that might need replacing. I'm sure the ceramic tube sockets are OK, they're high quality and grip like a vice. |
~ Hi all; I'm rather new to tube equipment and high-end in general. This problem deals with the tubes on our TP 2.0n preamp. The other night when listening, I noticed an unusual noise coming from the left speaker. We had just shaken the room with Micky Hart's Dafos album... serious bass on The Beam. The noise was a cyclical, tinny, almost motor-like sound that would repeat in a 1-2-3 pattern. It was very noticeable from the listening position - enough to interrupt the session. Interestingly, it had the same tone or pitch as the microphonics that I *sometimes* hear on the pre-amp... if I tap the volume knob, I get that ringing sound. I turned off the TP 2.0 for a minute or two, re-started, and the sound was no longer there. Just for gits and shiggles, I later rolled the tubes over one position. 1 went to position 2, 2 to 3, ..., 4 to position 1. I ensured that they were well seated, and then reinstalled Herbie's Tube Dampers a bit higher up - about as high up the tube as I could get them. When I went to play again, at idle the preamp was dead silent. No microphonics - which continues to be the case - no recurrence of the cyclical noise. So, the questions are: What's going on with the tubes? What might I have done to correct the problem - was it reseating, or repositioning? Do I have a tube going bad? If a bad tube were in, say, position 1 and then moved to position 2, am I going to be missing or risking something? The tubes in question are Amperex PQ white label 6922s. Thanks! I have no doubt that someone knows what's going on here. Rob |
hi ralphcast ~ i have the dynaudio c-1 and the tp 2.0nB and later upgraded to 2.1nB. The upgrade brought the c-1 to another level. It made the c-1 sound bigger, i.e. more bass, midbass the presentation is broader and sweeter. i'm really happy with the sound after the upgrade. Just remember with the new upgrade the 2.1 takes a longer time to break in as opposed to the 2.0 you will definately start hearing the improvement after 120 plus hours. if you go with the 2.1nB pls let me know what your thoughs are after the break in period. thx jojo |
Hi all, I'm very close to deciding to go with the upgrade for my TP 2.0nb. Anyone come away with definite positive results with consideration to having 2 ways, I have Dynaudio C-1, at this point everything is musical, and lively with hopes of no loss of midrange as I've read here. Appreciate chimes! |
Yes, Stltrains. I agree with Gammajo in that a wood floor with a large area rug can work just fine. It will, in general, add a bit more liveliness to the room, which might be either a nice addition or not to the sound. Make sure that the first reflection points off your speakers are addressed. If you like the sound fine as is with the new floor arrangement, then enjoy the music. If it adds too much liveliness( i.e. slap echos,etc) then you might need to adjust the other room acoutrements with some diffusion/dampening. Have fun and enjoy. I look forward to hearing how the new AH interconnects sound for you. Just remember to give them some break-in time. |
Well, I just had to get in that 700th post. We're slowly gaining on the Supratek thread. I am, unfortunately, without my main system for a few weeks, but I'm hoping to have it up and running and enjoying my music once again soon. I have e-mailed Victor privately to congratulate them on the new review of the line stage and phono section. I am particularly anxious to read the upcoming review from the Dagogo site. I hope that Victor will keep us abreast of this review as well as Joseph's progress with his new amp. |
Well guys i took the good advice and played with moving my speakers. Yes it made my sound better by a wide margin. Before the move my speakers were approx. 7 feet apart. Towed in some what. Now they are spread out a few more inches and just barley towed in. For those who have not tried this with the addition of 2.1 do your self a favor and do it. On another front the wife has had it with the carpet in our great room and we are going with wood. I am hoping for the best for not losing the find sound i am getting now. We bought a large 8X10 area rug for between the seats and speakers. I guess thats progress. Wishing all the best to you guys and gals... |
Super review in my opinion from a respected and fine web site. I like the short but well put informed reviews. It also seems that AHs interconnects and power cords are in favor at 10 audio. Congratulations Joseph and Victor and all at Audio Horizons for a positive review of your gear. I hope more are to come. Also thanks all for your input on balanced ics. I should have a balanced ic from Joseph this week to hear for my self. |
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Bill, You may want to check into these http://www.ariaaudio.com Hybrid design, stereo upgradeable to mono versions, power to spare, on-site voicing (if desired) a trial basis and lifetime warranty. FWIW: an owner replaced a pair of Darts with the WT350 monos and preferred them to a pair of Karan 1200s. |
I am thinking of trying a tube amp again and am considering a high powered PP or SET. Wonder how long this amp will take to bring to market? Like my Belles SS amp to be sure, but a recent Agon purchase has given me the tube bug again. I purchased a EL84 triode amp, 7 watts, made by Vu of Deja Vu audio. It is made with vintage transformers and high quality parts. It is a replica of a nice vintage tube amp from the 50's. Wow, does this amp sound wonderful. Yes, I need more power when I want to play my music very loud, but this amp drives my Dali's pretty darn well. Considering an ASL AQ1009 and several Vac amps. Perhaps even an ASL Hurricane. Bill |
Thanks for the mention La45 ! My kit contains the (slightly) longer screws to match the butyl washers. I hope Victor sees my last post, otherwise I'll contact him directly about my two questions. I'm really curious of his mention of a two-chassis preamp and point-to-point wiring, no boards to float and hopefully ?? a tube regulated power supply, how killer this would sound ! In the very begining, I called Joseph and asked what he thought of a separate power supply, but so much has been happening since that time, he may have forgotten. Think about it kids, an all-out-assault preamp effort from Joseph ?? As good as the AH 2.0 and 2.1 are, this thing (maybe call it a 2.2) ? could literally smoke any and all competition in its path (probably still very affordable too) Sherod, you and I would have to keep our curious hands off the insides !! I can't wait to hear of an actual prototype, this could be very exciting. |
Stltrains, Thanks to RX8man who introduced the idea to add this to Joseph's preamp. Washers are used as a barrier between the board and the screw plate. In my set up, I have an isolation board which takes out subfrequency noise and under the tube board I floated it on three points and stabilized it with tape on each side. I believe the washers can be supplied by Rx8man as well. ******************* Victor, does the in-line AC filter serve as part of the grounding for the original AH preamp? |
Just to keep things into perspective, I am posting my initial e-mail to Victor to which Victor responded in the post I made above: Victor, When Joseph initially tried these new output caps and found that he liked them, I'm trying to put things into perspective: at this point you both decided that you liked them. Did you decide then that the power supply needed to be improved to accommodate the new caps or you just wanted to make the power supply larger to improve the preamp in general? I'm trying to figure out at what point did you decide to make a change to the new 2.1 version and why. I'm curious what you said on your recent post on the Audiogon thread about when the power supply was increased from 100V to 140V you noticed increased dynamic swings, yet the top end became soft. I'm trying to understand what this "softness" means. I never felt that the top end was ever soft in my 2.0n. Also, I noticed that on the mainboard with the tubes, in the front of the board are four electrolytic caps. Next to these are smaller film caps. As I recall, the value on the 2.0n smaller caps were .22uf, and they are now .47uf. Can you tell me what this cap value change did to the circuit? The reason I'm asking is that now that I've reverted back to the solo Hovlands by themselves in the outputs, I'm getting a little darker or warmer sound than before. I'm trying to figure out what in the upgrade could be causing this. Basically ,in a nutshell, what I'm trying to do is revert back to the 2.0n which I had before Joseph made his upgrades yet keep key things that would benefit the original configuration. Please be rest assured that I don't intend to make changes to the preamp that would cause damage to the traces to void any warrantee. I'm grateful that Joseph repaired some traces for me during his upgrades as an act of goodwill. Thanks for your help. Best, Sherod |
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Here is an e-mail response from Victor to a question I asked him regarding a few things: "We voice changes to Joseph's components whenever we can or feel we need to over three speaker systems--Joseph's Sophias, Cedar's Coincidence, and my ESS Transars. When Joseph and I A-B'ed the new caps vs the Hovlands on the 2.1 through Joseph's Wilson Sophias, we felt the Hovlands had a narrower bandwidth (less top and bottom and a bit more forward in the midrange), were definitely less open (that is, more compressed), and less transparent (more veiled). Because they captured musical texture and harmonics less well and the attacks were less clear, the Hovlands were smoother sounding, but to our ears at a very great cost. Joseph visited Cedar and they conducted an A-B of the new changes to the 2.1 (minus the later power supply changes) vs the equivalent 2.0. Cedar and Joseph both felt the new caps etc. made a dramatic improvement over the old. Had the changes been felt to be subtler, we would have voiced over my speakers to confirm, but the feeling of all of us over the two speaker systems was that the improvement was dramatic and not subtle. Joseph's Sophias and Cedar's Consonance speakers are three ways. We prefer to voice with three ways because of the inherent limitations of two ways. Designing a two way speaker is very difficult because the crossover point is usually at or near the point at which the ear is most sensitive--1000 Hz-2500 Hz. This means phase anomalies play a critical role, and also this is the point at which woofers sometimes become a little more ragged and tweeters are operating at the limits of their low frequency range. To minimize the possiblity of nasal elements occuring when the human voice is played, two way speaker designers often design their crossovers to slightly de-emphasize these frequencies--not greatly but slightly, maybe a couple of dB. The old Advent speakers which were such popular best sellers, had a very pronounced but narrow hole in the midrange at the crossover point of a few dB. But the designers counted on the human ear's ability to fill in gaps to compensate for this. (I enclose an essay I wrote for Joseph on Audio Listening which touches on this phenomenon.) Nevertheless if one compared an Advent with a quality three way speaker, one could distinctly hear the hole in the midrange at about 1500 Hz. You refer to the "breath of life" in your posts. Much goes into the "breath of life" but certainly midrange "presence" is a significant component of it. If you have a two way speaker, and if it, as do so many, has a slight dip in the midrange (not a great dip, just a modest carefully contoured depression along those critical frequencies to prevent any hint of honkiness or a nasal quality to vocals), you might welcome the Hovlands slight midrange emphasis--more than welcome it, need it to give you that "presence" so much a part of the breath of life. Having committed irrevocably to the new caps, we now needed to listen very, very carefully to what we had now created. This led to our feeling that the extended frequency response of the new caps was exposing high output breakup at crescendoes. To counteract this, we made the power supply changes that increased the voltage. The result of these changes was to increase dramatic contrasts, to supply extra reserves of power when crescendoes occurred, and thus to end the high output break up which we had found objectionable. It also had the effect of "softening" or "subduing" the high end and with it the objectionable edginess, and to all our ears it did this without rolling off the high end. What I'm trying to convey is that it is common for even careful listeners to confuse the added brightness caused by various forms of ringing and loss of high frequency control with extended bandwidth. We did not alter the bandwidth, or the frequency response, only the break up and edginess, but subjectively to listeners who are noticing this subliminally, this comes through as a softer or subdued top end. The "warmth" or "darkness" you hear is not in the caps you mention, but inherent in the power supply changes. To get back to the old TP 2.0n, you would need to sacrifice all the gains of the power supply mod, which gains are extensive in our opinion. Changing the value of those caps will not do it. I will ask Joseph if there is a simple way to add a little emphasis to your top end. Meanwhile, please give us a chance to think through these issues before you make any changes to the unit. Despite our asking you not to make changes, it seems you made changes and could not wait until we told you how to make them in a way that did not affect the traces. Sherod, we try to respond as rapidly as we can, and I think we do a pretty good job. I don't think from the time you put your last question re the Hovlands to us until we responded was even five days. That shouldn't be too long to wait. We will try to respond to this new request as soon as we can, but what you want to accomplish is not easy because so many elements went into the changes you hear. Isolating one from the other is not easy. We will try to have an answer for you within a few days. If you want to post any part of this answer on the Discussion Forum, feel free to do so." |
My post somehow got moved under Victor's reply, making mine look moot, otherwise, my *confusion part* would never have been mentioned ! I should have known that tube selection (different gain issues) has a big influence and not everyone is running the same quads. Victor, I KNEW the power supply would be a large part of the upgrade, will the new two-chassis preamp have a tube regulated power supply ? I like this design idea (and the point-to-point wiring) it would seem to isolate any further noise issues, however, an umbilical cord and extra power cord gets thrown into the mix. |
Sherod, I've been an avid reader of this thread. I just don't post. I know you've been a huge advocate for the TP 2.0 preamp. I also know the cap rolling that you've done. I have a lot of respect for the V-Cap and so I also tried a V-Cap bypass on the Hovlands of the 2.0. I found as you did and also more noise from the V-Cap bypass. It stuck me as ironic, however, that Joseph uses a cap bypass on the 2.1. It got me thinking wondering what a V-Cap bypass would sound like on the 2.1 as opposed to the Solen. Sang |
Stltrains,in response to your querie re XLR and RCA connections I'm in the 50 50 camp.I have single ended from my source to the AH and XLR from the AH to the Cary.The balanced mode between pre and amp simply sounds better in my system.Like some others I'm also on the fence regarding the upgrade.Have a good weekend everyone. |
Hi Sang, I tried several value V-caps, both the Teflon and oil-impregnated in different values as bypass and none sounded right. All bypasses on the outputs caused this "shelving" effect where the sound lost its wholeness and took on the characteristics of the cap used as the bypass. Both Joseph and Victor have good systems and I'm sure good ears, but my system preferred the 2.0n version in the end. Your mileage might vary. Please don't think that I'm a troll or naysayer. I was one of the early buyers of the TP 2.0n preamp and if you'll peruse the threads, you'll see that I was always there to champion the work and genius of the "Master" Mr. Chow. I feel my praise of his preamp has played a small, but significant role in helping others to decide to try and now enjoy his preamp. |
