blueswan
Responses from blueswan
| Tubes Do It -- Transistors Don't. I feel that a considerable cost upgrade was required to get a SS amp that I could live with. I eventually went with Accuphase. It has the so-called 'Accuphase Golden-Glow' sound, a smoothness and fullness similar to tubes, but with the power to ra... | |
| Speaker Placement Hey Jimbo, I had Maggie IIIAs for 14 years and by trial and error I came up with the following:-tweeters on the inside-44in from the back wall-tweeters 56in apart-toe in panels toward center listening spotStart with these measurements and then twe... | |
| Will ARC VT-100 Mk. II drive ProAc 3.8's. I love my ProAc 3.8s. They are natural, nuetral yet very revealing. They are not 'in your face' at all. I was using a Rogue 66 (60wpc) and the sound was great. However, it ran out of steam a louder volume levels. I traded it in and got an Accuphas... | |
| Hiss, hum bad for speakers? In my experience, a hum is almost universally associated with a ground loop. Do you have a cable TV or satellite system hooked up to your system? Have you tried to drive your REL from the preamp instead of using the high level connections at the amp? | |
| Good powercord for transports Try the Tara Prism AC Reference, or the upgraded Decade. The Decade is discontinued, but excellent, and a good buy if you can find one. The Air power cord is very expensive and may be overkill for a transport. Tara cables are nuetral and have very... | |
| Pwr enhancer or straight from the wall? Glad to hear it! Enjoy your music, and get back to us. | |
| Pwr enhancer or straight from the wall? Often a power conditioner will limit dynamic range with amplifiers and the soundstage will become very two dimensional and lean. There is a used Tara AD/6C here, and this model does not limit dynamic range. If you are satisifed with the results, t... | |
| Are Tara Labs cables a good match for me? Tara cables are very neutral and have excellent HF control, once broken in. If possible, you should still try before you buy. | |
| what interconnect and speaker cable is best for my system ? Look for Tara RSC Ref Gen in the classifieds. They are quite neutral and like most components are available used at about 1/2 list price. Cardas is also a good choice. Search the forum on cables for these brands for more info. I do not wish to sli... | |
| Sonical differences Yes, but not to the same degree as an active one. I have found that even a passive preamp, which I tried a couple of years ago, still benefits from good isolation. | |
| Power Conditioners My Tara AD/10B Power Filter is outstanding and I would not consider parting with it. Like many other brands, it uses balanced AC power (+60v to -60v) which virtually eliminates common mode noise from the ground. It also has a GFI for additional pr... | |
| More Power??? NO and NO. Series: the output from the first amp would likely overload the inputs of the second and the power is not additive. Parallel: any slight output impedance difference between the amps may cause one amp to see the other instead of the spea... | |
| Listener fatigue Being bright is only one aspect of listener fatigue. If the treble control cannot tame it, there is probably an annoying upper midrange resonance present. This would be a peak in the frequency spectrum caused by poor isolation of the internal comp... | |
| Using very bright and very dull CD's to test the extremes. Good point. "Rumours" was an analog master and can sound quite natural on good CD playback. For overly bright CDs, I use Rock/Pop recordings from the mid 80s in the early era of digital mastering. | |
| DACs with volume controls If you get a DAC with a volume control make sure you understand if it is a digital or analog control. Digital volume controls may tend to sound compressed at lower than maximum output because they are simply scaling down the numbers. I use my DAC'... |