rlawry
Responses from rlawry
| Ventura & Santa Barbara, CA I live in Ojai and would also be interested. I am not aware of any audio organizations in this area. The closest I know of is the LA and Orange County Audiophile Society. Roger | |
| cartridge output level I have a CAT tubed preamp and the owner also discourages the use of NOS tubes, and it certainly is not sonics as NOS tubes are way superior in that piece. My take is that the builder cannot guarantee a supply of NOS tubes, only current production ... | |
| cartridge output level Did you speak with Hovland about possibly increasing the gain in either the phono or line stages? I was able to have this done on an earlier phono stage I had. Sometimes this cannot be done due to limited phono overload. Another thing is the volum... | |
| cartridge output level Thekong: I have never set my Rhea phono stage at 75 dB gain but I guess I should try it and report how it does. Again, since the Rhea uses tubes for all the gain, the choice of tubes is extremely important. The stock tubes worked fine but didn't s... | |
| cartridge output level I agree with your statement that your CD output of 2 volts will lead to about 10 volts output from your preamp using the linestage. But 3 volts output from your preamp should still be enough. The only thing I can think of is that the taper on your... | |
| cartridge output level Yes, I now understand that you have 77 dB of gain prior to your power amp. That should be enough gain (77 db gain of 0.45 mV is a gain factor of almost 8,000, so your preamp output should be close to 3.2 V) which should be way enough gain for your... | |
| cartridge output level The overall gain of your system is what is really most important. With a 0.45 mV cartridge output, I don't think your 46 dB phono and 14 dB linestage gain are enough. You also need to know the voltage gain of your power amp and the voltage sensiti... | |
| What are your thoughts on hybrid amplifiers? A hybrid amp with a tube front end and solid state output stage is a good idea if you want to get some tube sound somewhere in your system but don't want to mess with the hassle of a tubed output stage. Theoretically, using tubes for voltage gain ... | |
| cartridge output level Yes, there is a difference in output level based on record speed. Most manufacturers use either 3.5 or 5 cm/s. The higher the speed, the higher the rated output. I have an Audioquest AQ7000Fe5 cartridge with an output of 0.5 mV at 5 cm/s and I hav... | |
| Power: Good or Bad I agree that if everything else is held constant, like your speaker example, that a low-powered amp would likely sound better. Especially in the case of speakers with high voltage sensitivity and/or a benign impedance curve. But even this is not a... | |
| Power: Good or Bad Hey, Paul, who appointed you the arbiter of meaningful information here on Audiogon? You completely missed the point and are mistaken about Wilson speakers, of which I have owned many. Wilson speakers are not that hard to drive, particularly the S... | |
| Power: Good or Bad You know, just about the time that I thought I had categorized the sound of various amp designs, I would hear another that broke all the rules. There are so many variables that I don't think you can do better than offer rules-of-thumbs about how a... | |
| Recommended first turntable? I agree with Piedpiper above. My first high-end turntable was a Rega Planar 3 and it was way better than an automatic Yamaha I previously had. IMO it is a lot more important to set up the table properly than to worry about which inexpensive table ... | |
| Cost no Object but Small Room I am in a very small room so that I have to sit nearfield between the speakers. The best I have heard are Wilson Sophias and now Watt Puppy 7's. Great soundstage and coherent imaging, similar to some minimonitors I had but with far better bass and... | |
| B&W Nautilus 802D, Wilson Sophia 2, or others? I have never heard the 802D's but owned a pair of Sophias and tried a lot of amps with them, including solid-state, tube, OTL, and SET. IMO the things that any Wilson speaker does best (I now have WP7's) is bass, dynamics, and detail, along with a... |