porchlight1
Responses from porchlight1
| Do vacuum tube test values reflect sound quality? How a tube sounds in any given amplifier, especially a preamp level tube, highly depends on how much local feedback is used on the tube in that specific circuit. Generally, high gain stages, like the first stage of a phono preamp, use little if an... | |
| Stereo mode in phone stage going out Considering what you indicated in your last post, I suspect it is a dirty, intermittent contact in the source selector rotary switch. The only thing that has been moved is the selector when you changed from your previous input to phono. Those ro... | |
| Speakers sound too bright. Ignore the app. Make sure the amp’s positive (red) terminal is connected to the speaker’s positive terminal and the amp’s negative (black) terminal to the speaker’s negative terminal. On both speakers. If one speaker was connected backwards, the b... | |
| Iphone -> Audioquest Dragonfly Red -> Hifiman Ananda Maybe try an iFi HipDac 3. Fully balanced, and it has its own battery so your phone won’t be hollering !uncle! Decodes everything (PCM 24/384, native DSD, MQA) right from your phone with the included cord. Burr Brown chipset. USB-C. Plays nice w... | |
| Unipivot tone arms dynacohum: One of those Keith Monks mercury-dampened arms came with a vintage Thorens TD124 I bought. Scared the heck out of me, though I appreciated the inventiveness of the design. I called the city and a guy came out in a hazmat suit with a s... | |
| A little puzzled by my newly acquired Yamaha A-S801 Your Yamaha A-S801 has both tone controls and a variable loudness function. If the sound you hear is too “light”, experimenting with those controls - using a “light” touch - will most certainly remedy your problem. A 1-2 dB increase in bass is al... | |
| Would like to get more bass out of my B&W 801 series 2 speakers Lots of experience with that generation of B&W 801. My friend still runs a set driven by a pair of bridged GFA555s. When I hear them I remember why that was a speaker that always sounded right to me, even today. I did have to rebuild both hi... | |
| Replace tubes yearly? I second the recommendation for the early Sylvania 6SN7 tubes. Specifically the ones with the triangular plates. Hilarious, normb. When I worked in a high-end audio emporium back in the late eighties/early nineties I used Aerial Boundaries as my... | |
| Trends in value of vintage / used audio equipment? Meters? Ok… But if it has an oscilloscope in it, ay yi yi! 🤑 | |
| BEST SPEAKER THAT COMES TO LIFE AT LOW LISTENING LEVELS I’m not sure you can do better for low volume listening, as electrostatic speakers are known for their resolution at low levels (mainly due to the lack of mechanical hysteresis - getting that heavy cone up and running - in dynamic drivers) and you... | |
| Change EL84 tubes on Eico HF 81 Vintage tube amplifiers like your Eico (and Heathkits, Scott’s, Fisher’s, GE’s, Bogen, etc. too) were designed to operate on a line voltage lower (typically 115-117 VAC) than you likely have in your home. The EL84s were originally run at their abs... | |
| SVS SUB BETTER WITH LOW PASS FILTER OFF Curious: Does the 80Hz subwoofer setting on your amp also have a high pass on the mains; ie cutting off the bass to your LaScala’s below 80Hz? | |
| Retirement integrated amp for a “fiscal conservative” There’s a Luxman L-590AxII available on Audiogon right now in your price range. Last of the big Class A Luxman integrated amps. Class A up to 30 WPC into 8 ohms and 60 WPC into 4 ohms. It moves into Class AB doing 95 WPC into 8 and 165 WPC into 4... | |
| Doozy of an amp question Nobody mentioned Accuphase?? | |
| My All Time Christmas Song Christmas music “expert” here! Retired choir director and audiophile have to disparate recommendations: Christmas Cocktails Vol.1 and Vol.2. A scream! Two disc compilations of Capital Records best. Gotta hear Les Brown and his Band of Renown’s ... |