davemitchell

Responses from davemitchell

Best amp for Vandersteen Quattro?
If you're not afraid of tubes...the Quatro is unique in that it has a near perfect 8 ohm impedance across the entire frequency range. This makes it very well suited to vacuum tube amplifiers. Given your budget I'd recommend choosing a good tube am... 
Cables Are Crazy, what do you think?
I think the cable industry in general has started to accept that the dielectric (insulation) can have as much of an effect on the quality of a cable as the metal conductor can. EE's should have a basic understanding of dielectrics and the reason w... 
Tubes to digital
Don,My point was that you could spend about the same amount of money as you would have on the CD7 alone and get both a CD3mkII and a good ARC tube line stage. For example: CD7 = 9000CD3mkII = 5500LS17 Pre = 4000That's within $500 of your target. A... 
different speakers
I used to sell Alon speakers and owned Alon IV's. I have also been a Vandersteen dealer for nearly 15 years. The Alon speakers are fun and exiting with their dipole midrange. They throw an artificially big and deep soundstage and have big bass. On... 
The Best Amp for the Price of Dirt
Mr. Aczel's hearing problems have nothing to do with getting old:-) 
Silver Plated Copper Balanced Cables
Silver over copper will tend to sound brighter than either pure silver or pure copper. Really good silver conductors don't sound bright or siblant. The problem is that there have been bad silver cables, many of which used silver plated copper, tha... 
The Best Amp for the Price of Dirt
Don't take my word go to the "Audio Critic" web site for a full reviewGreat, Peter Aczel loves this cheap amplifier! Too bad Mr. Aczel is deaf. 
Freak Me Out
George Crumb "Music for a Summer Evening"Here's a link to a great recording of it:http://www.georgecrumb.net/rec/elek9149.html 
Studio/Performance Amps for High-End Systems?
Pro amps like the ones the OP mentioned are designed for power and reliability at the expense of sound quality. They are not "accurate" so much as they are crude, due to the use of lots of negative feedback or digital supplies and output stages. T... 
Audio Research CD7's 6H30 tube rolling
I've played around quite a bit with the NOS 6H30's and they do indeed sound noticeably different from the current production Sovtek 6H30. How much affect they have on the sound will depend upon the particular component they are used in. I would ge... 
Vandersteen 5A vs Duevel Jupiter
I enjoy listening to good omni's and the Duevel's are lots of fun. They aren't the most neutral or accurate speaker and they are little round in the bass with somewhat limited extension, but they do omni 3-D thing nicely.MBL's like the 101E's do i... 
Which amps have 2 sets binding posts per channel
the Atma-Sphere MA-3...I'm waiting for something bigger...like maybe an MA-4 or 5:-) 
Which amps have 2 sets binding posts per channel
ValleyplasticI really don't like the idea of piggy backing the spades on one post. I am sure it's just me but I prefer not to do this if I have some choices.While it is a little easier to connect two sets of spades to two separate sets of posts, r... 
Balanced vs. unbalanced
It's my understanding that while fundamental RF is not much of an issue because it is too high in frequency, spurious lower harmonics can be picked up down to the lower limit of RF of around 3K. With balanced systems and cables you also eliminate ... 
Do new NOS tubes need break-in/running-in?
Bill is right. Tubes require less break-in than just about any other electronic device because they have *literally* a vacuum as their primary dielectric. The concept of "break-in" is really a convenient name for the process of forming the dielect...