many, many electrons boiling off cathodes tonight

mhardy6647

Sittin' here with mrbiron's Reduction fired up tonight :- )

b&o TX-2 with MMC-4 cartridge feeding the Reduction. Pair of "Made in Holland" RCA-branded 6DJ8s stuck in there providing the gain. Reduction hooked to the trusty DIY Pete Millet active low voltage space-charge tube hybrid "linestage" and thence to the trusty ol' DIY (by AK's "Redboy") Angela Labs/JE Labs "Simple 2A3".

Speakers? heh. An almost-matched pair of generic 12" corner cabinets (Aristocrat wannabes, methinks) each loaded with an EV LT-12 12" AlNiCo coax.

Listenin' to Side 1 of the recent mono re-release of the Beatles' Revolver. The Beatles, for you youngsters, were a moderately popular British vocal group for a few years in the 1960s. They weren't bad.

They're sounding sweet 'n ' creamy as I type this... best of all, not a trace of sibilance. I hates me some sibilance.

Someone tell mrbiron to stop by & check out this thread, 'K?

Bonus: Google sez:

Sibilance is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants...

Yeah, I knew that.

frickin' frickative affricates...

EDIT: Rough approximation of the view from my chair -- the Reduction isn't on in this photo, but it doesn't really look like much 'cause them there high-gain, small-signal tubes, you know, they be shielded.

DSC_0132 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Moose68Bash

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Sibilance is a manner of articulation of fricative and affricate consonants...

Yeah, I knew that.

frickin' frickative affricates...

[/quote]

Better be careful -- you may be banned for that kind of language!

Moose68Bash

I tried to put a witty remark in here, but I couldn't get the "quote" functionality to work correctly -- or rather, as I wanted it to work.

So, no witty comment from me!

Let me just advise that using words like "frickin', "frickative," and "affricates" might just get you banned around here!

Mikey081057

I'm tubed too. They never sounded better.

Nightfall

That's purdy.

Mikey081057

mrbiron

HEY!!!!!!!!!!
Is it getting cold in here? Might hell be freezing over? Nope, just Nov in NE.

Initial impressions versus your dated memory of the bugle2? As you might remember, my turntable is in hibernation so per the usual, burn baby burn.

mhardy6647

I don't think it is quite as there as the Bugle2 but it sounds good -- better, I believe, than the Seduction (its predecessor).

Now.

1) I do have some high-res digital output from the B2; just need to play the same music via the Reduction and capture the result in the digital domain to have some ability to A/B.

2) I do have a Bugle (orginal, unsuffixed version, that is) around here someplace I could compare -- but, of course, I never A/B'd the Bugle and the Bugle 2 when the latter came to visit (again, courtesy of mrbiron).

3) I need to pull out* the Seduction and A/B it with the Reduction. I don't think the former will fare very well against the latter.. but it's worth head to head comparison.

The worst thing I can say about the Seduction/Reduction is that they're short on gain. I think that does tend to bias me against the (inexpensive) Bottlehead phono preamps a bit (in the interest of disclosure). I haven't heard the good Doc B's premium phono preamp products, so I don't know what they're like.


Oh, and speaking of full and complete disclosure. While I thought that the LT-12's woofer magnet was AlNiCo, it's very clear from old catalogs that it is, in fact, "Indox" ceramic. The tweeter magnet, however, is probably still AlNiCo. EV didn't start making "mud magnet" tweeters 'til much later (when cobalt prices skyrocketed). Mea culpa.

* remember George Carlins' quip?

"Pull out?! Doesn't sound manly to me, Jim!"

;- )

mhardy6647

1. The LT-12. "New for '62" :- )



2. Many electrons but not that many tubes. Less really is (or at least can be) more.
Two in the Reduction phonostage. Two in the hybrid space charge line-level preamp (which also has, in the interest of disclosure, soiled state buffers). Total of five in the power amp (rectifier, two voltage amplifiers and two direct-heated power triodes). Adequate as the blokes from Rolls-Royce used to say of their cars' horsepower.

3. I spent two hours last night listening to very good quality FM stereo on VT public radio via a decidedly thermionic McIntosh MC-67 FM stereo tuner that I acquired a few months back. Not sure how many tubes it has... just enough, it would seem.

4. The weekly Friday night jazz program on VPR last night featured a live-in-studio performance by a nonet (or is that nonette?). Live broadcasts on relatively uncompressed/unprocessed FM on a good tuner can (does) sound pretty danged good.

Here's info on the program from last night, with a wee taste of the performance.
http://digital.vpr.net/post/friday-night-jazz-better-angels-our-nature#stream/0

mhardy6647

This is the line-level preamp I am using... the original audioXpress design Pete published (he's since done a major redesign -- both flavors are described on his great DIY site).



Pete is also the keeper of the fabulous "tube books online" resource at:

http://www.tubebooks.org/

voltz

I'm took a break from my after work music session, to unhook my Hybrid gear and switch to my MC100B tube amp and going to let it warm up a bit before I finish the night listening to some more music!

[Deleted User]

"Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!"

mhardy6647

I listened to some more rekkids last night via the EV LT-12s.
They have a Polk Monitor 10-esque midbass hump in these cabinets that is undeniable and unfortunate (a little bit too much resonance in male vocals) ... but boy howdy other than that "fullness" I do like these modest little coaxes.

There's just something magical about coaxial/point source radiators, at least from my aged perspective :-P

mhardy6647

Listening to a folk radio programme on VPR tonight called "All the Traditions" on the MR-67, same hardware as above but back to the Duplexes.

The Duplexes do sound better.
Boy howdy.