Driving ALON V with CJ Premier 11: Can I improve?

I have one grill for Alon V MKII speakers that I no longer need and want to sell if anyone is interested. Contact me.

Hello All.
I have the ALON IV's and bought them new. I am using an Audio Research SP9 Preamp, and was using an Adcom GFA-555 200 watt per channel amp. Things were great with CD, Tuner, Cassette and my Reel to Reels, but on Phono, I used to have to crank up the volume. SO, I bought another Adcom GFA-555 off of Ebay, and ended up blowing the Voice Coils in my woofers. The guy who sold me the Adcom, changed out a Power Transistor with the wrong replacement, and never told me.

I ended up upgrading all my drivers through NOLA,via Carl Marchiotto. I was using the Adcom 555's as Mono-Blocks, one per speaker, in Triwired Mode. After the accident, I has everything repaired, and new Drivers installed by my Tandberg Tech. We tested everything out with his Hafler Amps, and the soun d is beautiful once again. My problem is, I have no Amps now, I sold off the Adcoms, due to u neasy feelings about them. They seemed to have DC Oscillation on the outputs. So, Now I Brand New Alon Mk.IV Speakers again, all Original Factory replacement parts, every driver was replaced, but no Amp to listen to them with. Due to getting injured, and being on Disability, with 3 kids, an Amp worthy of Driving these big speakers looks unlikely any time soon in my future. Its a shame, because these are Speakers I rank up there with some of the best I ever heard, in all my ventures into High End Audio Shops, from Philadelphia, to NJ and NYC Manhattan. I am now using Powered Monitors with a Mirage Powered Subwoofer and Crossover, these are musical Monitors, but nowhere in the league of Detail and Sounstaging of My ALON Mk.IV's, plus the Natural Oak Wood of the Alons make them beautiful to look at. But they are Heavy Well built Speakers, and received plenty of Rave Reviews from Stereophile and Absolute Sound, among others. They costed $3500.00 when I bought them. But in my Opinion, they really need a Krell or VTL Mono Blocks to let them do their thing. I miss listening to them. I think Im gonna have to sell them, due to me being unable to afford a good quality Amp, or Amps. Ray

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short - I can't believe that I didn't look at the OP date.

I own the cj Premier 17LS but the consensus is with Downunder concerning the superiority of the 16LS. That said, the 16LS is considerably more expensive and harder to find. I auditioned the PV14 before choosing the 17LS which I thought was, far and away, the better preamp. I'm sure that it would be a nice improvement for you.

Regarding the cj Premier 11, I had similar thoughts about mine and went with the cj Premier V mono-blocks for more drive.

I had the Alon Vs for years. I do think you need to upgrade the amps to make your Alons sing, as I'm familiar with what you're using and you're not getting the bass (or the bang for the buck) you could be. If you like the CJ sound the Premier 12 Monos would be a step in the right direction.

I drove my Vs with Herron M150 monos, solid state amps which Keith Herron partially voiced using his Alons Circes (not too different from my Alon V Mk IIIs). I also used the Herron tubed preamp, and tri-wired with Coincident. TG Audio SLVR cords and Quattro Fil ICs. It was heaven. I got it all used :-)

If you're on a budget I'd stick with high current SS amps that will give you at least 200 watts into 4 ohms. The Herrons, either the M150s or the new ones are great with Alons/Nolas if you can find them used.

If you like your Alons (and I sure liked mine for what I spent on them)and your CJ pre, I say first match amps to those speakers. Then upgrade your front end. Then work on your cabling.

I strongly recommend tri-wiring Vs BTW, and I'd probably dump the Monster power conditioner. You can do better than the Black Orpheus, but whatever you do be sure you have separate wires for the mids and treble. You can shotgun the mids and bass if you get in a pinch.

I used the Maestros long ago and would also upgrade them. You can go lots of directions and improve upon them.

Your Vs are good enough that you will hear all the upgrades too.

I recently changed my amplification of alon v mk ii's from solid state monoblocs(simaudio) to cary v12's upgraded to r. I have horizontally bi-amped them ( one stereo amp driving the woofers and the other the midrange /tweeters.)I thought there was a vast improvement which my disinterested spouse confirmed when she wandered into my listening room a few days later and after lsitening for a few minutes commented that " for some reason the music sounded much better "

By the way the Alon V are triwired and I've heard several people commenting that they do benefit from separate wires for the mids and highs. I also played with a pair of Kimber 8TC but in the end couldn't hear much difference with the Black Orpheus.

It's a good idea to consider buying a more powerful amp including a pair of CJ monos... and of course the Premier 12 would be nice. Have you heard how the Evolution 2000 compares to something like the Premier 12 or Premier 8? This would be easier on my budget in this recession!

I also heard the Aragon 4004 or (was it 8008?) and I was quite impressed by what I heard.

Cheers

If you like your prem 11, upgrade to the premier 12 monoblocks. they would be very tasty indeed and would drive the Alon's no problem.

If you can afford and find a premier 16, grab that. the prem 17 is nice, however the prem 16 is in another league and competitive with any pre amp out there for twice the price.

cheers have fun

I had a pair of Alon IV's for many years and I was driving them with an Aragon 4004 Dual Mono Amp and a VTL Super Deluxe preamp with great success. The Alon V's go down to 4 ohms and like lots of power to get the best out of them. I would suggest a powerful solid-state amp that doubles it's power down to 4 ohms, to be used in conjunction with your CJ premp. Perhaps a used Krell, Pass Labs, Simaudio, Edge, or Bel Canto Ref1000. These all have lots of power and will control the Alon's bass very well. It's difficult to recommend a particular brand, since I don't know your budget?

Rich

I'm not sure but do the Alon V's have seperate inputs for Low, Mid and Highs? If so, you would need to use the set of jumpers that came with the V's and I would suggest using those to jump from the High input over to the Mid input or to avoid the signal degrading jumpers and the cost of tri-wired cables, you could pull the woofer out and move the Midrange internal input wires over to the High input binding posts. I did this on the tri-wired external passive x-overs on my Lotus SE mk ll's with no problems and there was no signal degradation in doing so.

Cheers

May I suggest trying a pair of MIT Bi-wire speaker cables before changing out the components. I have Alon 1's, Alon Lotus MK ll's and Nola Viper 1A's and they all benefited from MIT Bi-wire cables over the Acarian Black Orpheus cables. The sound was consistently more coherent and the soundstage expanded in all directions with MIT2 Bi-wire cables. I have also had consistently excellent results using AudioQuest IC's in the system while using the MIT cables. The MIT cables solidified the bass as well.

Not sure but do the Alon V's have seperate inputs for Low Mid and highs? If so, you would need to use a set of jumpers that came with the V's and I would suggest using those to jump from the High input over to the mid input or to avoid the signal degrading jumpers you could pull the woofer out and move the mid internal input wires over to the combine them on the high input binding posts.

Cheers