I'm using Empirical Audio Holophonic. |
Sometimes at night I have dreams in which my FS preamp has a remote. Then I wake up, sadly. |
Just read Jadem6's extraordinary review of the Aesthetix pre. Have any of you First Sound enthusiasts heard the Aesthetix? |
Returning to this topic to revist the confusion around my use of the term "granular" to mean finer increments. I was running some focus groups a few weeks ago with IT managers who talked about the need to impose more "granular" restrictions on access to information, by which they meant, basically, finer increments. Maybe I picked up the term from the IT world. I knew I wasn't crazy. :-) |
Yeah, that LS2B is choking your system! |
Too many options. He should simplify, or at least re-organize the product line.
I'd like to know what mphnkns's preamp of choice is (I assume it's not the First Sound).
And damn, this disucssion has made me very curious to try the Aesthetic Calypso and the new Herron. |
Guidocorona is a gentleman and a scholar. |
The only reason I'd look for an alternative, really, is to have a remote and to have more granularity in the volume adjustment. Oh, a mono switch would be nice I suppose. Better sound is difficult for me to imagine, but that would be a factor, too.
Mphnkns, those are fine posts you made. Thank you for your thoughtful comments and your response to my question.
Any of you FS owners in the SF Bay Area? |
Yikes! Rackon is correct, I do mean finer increments. I always thought this was an appropriate use of granular, but I just went to the dictionary and see that I'm all wet (or liquid, if you prefer). More steps in the stepped attentuator, how's that? (Not to be confused with having a preamp that goes to 11, which is also a good thing.) |
My understanding is that the OA2 tubes are either good or they are not, but they don't go bad over time. Also, as I recently discovered, the preamp works just fine even after they do go bad (or at least after one goes bad). The triode tube doesn't get properly biased is all that happens, so you may start to notice some sonic changes.
By the way, I bought 4 of them from New Sensor and it's a good thing because one of them failed pretty much right away. Apparently the failure rate is high, but if it happens, it's within a couple of days. |
Interesting, Art. You have the disease pretty bad I see. :-)
What caused you to reach the conclusion that the FS was a "problem" in your system?
Is it possible to get more transparency and a quieter background? I have had only brief exposure to the Audio Aero, but I wonder if you didn't give up a little of those qualities when you changed sources. Does it have a vairable out? Can you go direct to the Berning?
Anyway, for more than a year, I had both the FS and a Placette Active in my rack. Before you spend $10K on another tube linestage, you might want to see if you can try out the Placette, which sells new for about $4500. It may give you the qualities you seek, but you may miss some things as well. |
Excellent description, Rayhall. It is rare to read such a thoughtful discussion of a component's sound, and yours is both detailed and refreshingly free of cliches and empty descriptors. |
Art's system changes make my head spin! Way to go, guy. Can't wait to hear how you like the CAT. (Of course, you also have new speakers to get used to.) |
