montaldo

Responses from montaldo

Thor TA-1000 - inerverting or non-inverting absolute phase?
I bought the caps myself and had my local tech swap them out. Not too difficult for him. The second set of caps is even easier to change because it does not have other components attached on the opposite side of the board, which was the case with ... 
Thor TA-1000 - inerverting or non-inverting absolute phase?
Thanks very much! I upgraded the two main caps to audionote mylar in copper and it made a huge difference. Treble is less hard than with the hovlands and added resolution and texture from top to bottom. Wondering how much effect if I change the ot... 
Air Tight ATM-3, ATM-1 or Thalmann modded CJ Premier Fives?
Decided try the premier fives... should be interesting and I will try to.report back 
Air Tight ATM-3, ATM-1 or Thalmann modded CJ Premier Fives?
Jafant, my system is a Sota star sapphire, ear 834p, Thor TA-1000 pre, quad esl-63 rebuilt by electrostatic solutions, and vandersteen 2wq subs w passive first order crossovers. digital uses audio note 3.1 sig dac.Premier fives were made from 1981... 
Air Tight ATM-3, ATM-1 or Thalmann modded CJ Premier Fives?
Thanks jafant. is you comment cautionary or are you saying it deserves audition because it will be amazing? i dont have the opportunity to audition before purchase. so i am rolling the dice that teflon will provide more resolution and extension wi... 
Mellow speakers
JohnK makes a great point. I too have found that the relative tonal balance from top to bottom can give the impression of brightness and cause fatigue, when what is really wrong is lower mids suckout and/or lack of lower frequencies to balance the... 
Mellow speakers
Sorry for typo ... ". I am afraid some of the dynamic speakers like vandy and quad may sound mellow to many people"I meant vandy and audio note. 
Mellow speakers
I have the same sensitivity as you. I cannot stand that edginess because it hurts my head and ruins the musical illusion for me. I have spent years fixing it and i finally have a system that sounds amazing and more like real music than ever before... 
Subwoofers
Meant to specify i am talking about quad esl-63 speakers in my above post. 
Subwoofers
As akg described well, the 2wq subs avoid the major historical problems with sub integration. I run a pair of 2wq subs with Quad esl speakers and the sound is so good i stopped reading speaker reviews. The speaker system seems to have unlimited po... 
Thor ta-1000 pre cap replacement -- advice
Correction... the big caps below the board are actually the electrolytics and I think they are Panasonic. So I'm focused on the Hovlands and Multicaps. Does anyone know which ones are the output caps? 
Neutral electronics are a farce...
JMCgrogan2... i agree with everything you wrote. "Neutral" in audiophile circles is a term that has been twisted to mean something different than balanced and uncolored. As a result, it misleads many people to expect it to mean one thing, when it ... 
Best mellow sounding 12ax7 for Thor TA-1000 preamp
Thanks for all the great advice guys! I tried two NOS Mullards and it helped quite a bit. Then I changed by DAC caps from Dueland back to Audio Note coppers and that helped even more. A cable change or two and I should be good. 
Cary 805c and Quad ESL-63 Combination?
Too funny... I misread the date of this thread. What's 15 years between friends? ha ha 
Cary 805c and Quad ESL-63 Combination?
Forgot to mention that the Cary's blew me away with their "big" sound and huge dynamics. 50 watts sound like 200 watts, and I don't mean 200 solid state watts. I mean they sound like 200 tube watts. Comparable dynamics to the 200 watt VTLs I now h...