barrysandy
Responses from barrysandy
| Has this happened to you? How can it be stopped? I love a lot of the old vintage stuff too, but here are 3 things that would stop me from buying them. 1) Much of the old gear doesn't sound good by today's standards; 2) Much of the stuff you can buy wasn't well taken care of and is only suitabl... | |
| DSP vs. active analog crossover vs. passive analog crossover. What is your take? Yes, active crossovers are theoretically better than passive ones as russbutton points out. You can read Nelson Pass's take on them in the Pass Labs XVR-1 manual on the PL site which includes many of the same observations and more. There are dow... | |
| Footers- Break In? Such A Change. I first tried CMS footers a couple of years ago on a lark and ended up with 11 sets of them I liked them so much. As to their explanation of why they work, I don't think they're doing themselves any favors. Totally unintelligible. I can live wit... | |
| Break in time for Tung-Sol 6550 Tubes I own the ARC Ref 40 and Ref 10 phono and have alot of experience with tube replacement and tube rolling. First, 100 hours should be plenty of time for burn in just about any tube. The 6550s are in the power supply which is part of the signal pa... | |
| Tuner choice The Sansui 717 you have is a terrific tuner (I also own one). Two things will improve the sound significantly: 1) an alignment done by a competent technician who has the right equipment; 2) a decent antenna. Have fun with it! | |
| Acoustic Zen Matrix Reference II vs. Absolute Copper IC's I have used the AZ Matrix IIs, Silver Reference, and the Absolute Coppers and Silvers. I ended up with Absolute Copper. I note that the Absolute Silver is no longer available - not sure why. Don’t generally care for silver ICs or speaker wiring an... | |
| Projects, rebuilds and or modifications…. Replacing anywhere from 16-24 stock resistors in the signal paths of each of my ARC REF 40 preamp and REF 10 Phono with Vishay Z-foil/TX2575s. Mucho improvement, but trying to figure out the right number and positions for best results. Still fiddl... | |
| Anyone else treated poorly by AVA? Frank’s been in business since the Pleistocene Age and has a great reputation for both products and service, or he wouldn’t have lasted this long. Practically every audio company you can name is "boutique" in size and they’re all experiencing thei... | |
| Room Acoustic Treatment So many manufacturers... Try ASC (Acoustical Sciences Corp), RPG Acoustic Systems, Real Traps, and GIK Acoustics in addition to above for a start. Also, Google "diy acoustic room treatment " if you're handy.The hard part isn't finding where to bu... | |
| Tubes I own about 200 tubes and a modern tube tester. I've bought on eBay, but I'd be very careful buying there having had both good and bad luck with sellers. This is especially true with NOS, but you can also buy substandard current production tubes. ... | |
| Best linear PSU under $1000? Farad Super 3 looks like the real deal. Has some ultra-low noise specs and some new technology, EDLC capacitors. Check out the site's tech talk page and the shoot-out with other LPSs. No, I don't own one, but I might take the plunge. | |
| Looking for a good tech in the Philadelphia, PA area. rivendell1 You're right. Was surprised that he only works on preamps now and looked it up to confirm. In the past, before he started designing and selling preamps & phono stages, he worked on everything "tubes". I know he is very busy.I rea... | |
| Alternatives to Stillpoints I generally won’t pay for snake-oil tweaks and exotic cables. However, I really like Center Stage Footers by Critical Mass Systems. Pricing by any standards borders on ridiculous - until you hear what they do. The explanation for how they work is ... | |
| Where to find Shuguang tubes? Well I don't think Ian Grant's talking to anyone now. He passed away in 2014(RIP), his wife Rachel runs the business now. Rachel is Chinese and has been working in the Chinese audio market since 2006. She's great to deal with for tubes and I trust... | |
| Duelund CAST-PIO-Ag A few years back, I built a passive Duelund speaker XO for my Magnepan 3.6 tweeter/midrange (see system). I later tried the ,01uF 630V Ag Duelund bypass caps. At the time, I couldn't really hear the difference. A few years later, I decided to dis... |