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System Plateau - Ideas?

The last time I plateau’d was
Rega RP6 (Ortofon Black) > Musical Surroundings Nova II > Line Magnetic 518ia > DeVore O/93 

2 changes, more recently:
1. Switched amplification to
DeHavilland Ultraverve III (Dueland Special) > FirstWatt Aleph J
2. Also replaced Ortofon Black with a Hana ML.

Overall very nice, but I feel I’m missing a bit of “edge”.
One direction I’ve been leaning is single driver (researching Omega). Another direction would be rethinking amplification. Has anyone plateau’d here? What did you try?

Of course, everything sounds perfectly fine as is :)

Cheers,
John
dotchaos

Showing 1 response by bigkidz

bigkidz
3,416 posts
 
not sure about the DeHavilland preamp you have with the Dueland upgrades  has the volume control been upgraded?  AC filter choke?  Resistors upgraded?  The one I upgraded a few months back sounded excellent once those upgrades were performed.  IMO the First Watt is nothing special at all.  I built a clone of it using point-to-point wiring and better capacitors and resistors and that kicked its butt big time.

Other than that, your system should provide you with much happiness.

Happy Listening.
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