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atmasphere

Responses from atmasphere

Tube preamp for techno and other bass-heavy music?
I listen to a lot of stuff with information below 42Hz! I played string bass in junior high and past college. So I find that bass response is important to me to be convincing, and since I like a lot of electronia, I have speakers that go to 20Hz a... 
Too Many Tubes?
Tubes, triodes in particular, are still the most linear form of amplification known. So using tubes generally allows one to have less stages of gain and that leads to simpler circuitry. IMO its a lot easier to have too many transistors :) 
The Hub: 2010 CES + THE coverage online
Arnie, you may have noticed that we had a recording setup going on in the Lake Mead 1 room; we were recording live musicians and then playing back what was just recorded. In the future it might be interesting to compare what you recorded as oppose... 
which is better ? MC phono stage or MM+step-up ?
Dertonarm, IME LOMCs have a lot of current. So much that if you short them out completely, the sound from the phono section will only be a few db down (and rolled off on top). Most audiophiles don't seem to realize that in exchange for low output ... 
What Makes a Good RIAA or Line Stage?
That is why stiff regulation and effective Constant Current Sources are a must. IMO, an effective CCS is one that will create immunity to the supply- independent of the fact that the amplification is fully differential. 
Tube-amp for Magnepan?
Macdadtexas, the thread here is about tube amps, and that's **White** Bear Lake. I mentioned that they are close simply because they have a lot of customers locally and there has been plenty of opportunity to hear them with our gear- we may well h... 
which is better ? MC phono stage or MM+step-up ?
We've specifically avoided using SS input in our tube phono section. Instead, we created the first fully-differential phono stage (1989) as a means to keep noise down. I've tried a variety of SUTs (and never had a hum problem, FWIW). SUTs do offer... 
Tube-amp for Magnepan?
Magnaplanar is 30 minutes from our front door. Over the last 30 years we've had a lot of experience with them. In fact, our first prototypes were used immediately on Maggies as that was one of the speakers we were using for reference (Tympani 1Us ... 
Tube-amp for Magnepan?
Maggies are not that hard to drive. The types with the magnets on one side only do have a knee in their power response curve due to the fact that the magnetic field falls off at the square of the distance. Below that knee 50 watts should make them... 
CES 2010 and THE SHOW
This year had the best foot traffic I have seen at T.H.E. Show in years. It was fun seeing Harry Pearson's presentation, and the food was great! I heard several reports that CES only had two floors this year so it appears that it was about 2-2 1/2... 
Using XLR for Phono out
John_tracy, just for the record, to do things balanced does not double the parts (its about 50% more) and the noise is actually **lower** for a given stage of gain, not higher! The noise is theoretically 6 db less per given stage of gain; this can... 
Amplifier for Klipsch Cornwalls
Winoguy17, no worries! Not all tube amps are equal :) 
The closest approach: what amplification?
Ggavetti, I completely agree with you. To be clear here though, its not the audiophiles that need to understand this stuff, its the **designers**!IOW when you see designers building equipment that follows the human perceptual rules rather than ben... 
Amplifier for Klipsch Cornwalls
Those 15 inch woofers can sound slow and mushy with tubes.The size of the woofers has nothing to do with the speed of the amp; this is a common amplifier myth. It turns out that if the woofers are over-damped, that that can slow them down, IOW if ... 
The closest approach: what amplification?
If you are going to make progress with audio, the first thing you have to do it look at the way the human ear perceives sound- IOW understand the rules of human hearing.Unfortunately while the bench specs we are so used to were being developed, re...