That feeling when you completely shake up your 2ch rig...

mulveling

Anticipation!!!

I don't know why I got the urge to do it, honestly. The Legacy Sig III/Parasound JC-1 combo was sounding as great as ever when I demo'd them to a local Polkie lurker (who quite wisely snapped up those Legacy speaks). I'd done this a few times with hifi headphone systems before I arrived at the stability of my current "reference" headphone rig...I guess I need to do the same with speakers before I feel comforatable settling down.

Before, the name of the game, and the driving philosophy behind my system was "copy Tom's old system". Tom is a local long-time audiophile with a great ear and a more robust budget than mine He moved onto Thiel/Ayre/Krell and sold me the Legacy/Parasound. He's got a knack for starting from scratch and hammering out a sweet synergistic system a few weeks/months later.

NOW, this time, it's time to build my own sweet system based on my own audio philosophies. Hope it turns out well The driving philosophy for this system is going with OLD technology, time-proven and/or refined via NEW technology. Here's a breakdown of the major system components:

Source:
SOTA Star
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=238754
Of course vinyl fits well into this philosophy and so for source I have a late-80's vintage SOTA Star Turntable with new Benz Glider L2 cart (low-output MC) and Benz Lukashek PP-1 phonostage. I would have preferred a tube phono, but that's not in the budget for now and the Benz sounds excellent as-is. I recently replaced a Dynavector P75 - sounded super, but the Benz is just a tad cleaner. Looked inside, I think the answer is in the opamps the P75 has inside. The Benz looks to be all discrete. Until I find a point-to-point wired tube phono stage within budget, I'll make do with the Benz (it's also a nice match for my cart). This source has been proven to my ears in the reference headphone rig. Preferred it over all the digital sources I've heard (some quite high-end like Meridian G08 for redbook and SCD-1/modded-to-the-gills SCD-777es for SACD)The source will *not* be a weakness in whatever systems I may build in the future.

Amp:
VAC Musicblocs
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue26/vac_auricle.htm
80 Watts/ch, KT88 outputs. I've always preferred the sound of tubes to SS with headphone amps & preamps, so it's about time to take the plunge on power amps. Tannoy dual-concentric speakers are also supposed to be a great match with tubes. The guys at the local audio shop (Audio Atlanta) have an extremely high opinion of VAC, the few online reviews I found of the Musicblocs were overwhelmingly positive, and the company philosophy on sound seems in sync with mine - so I decided to give them a shot.

Speakers:
Tannoy Dimension TD10
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/tannoy_td10.htm
The Tannoy Dual-Concentric driver technology that's the core of this speaker has been around, in various incarnations, for over 50 years. I loved the D-C sound when I had the Tannoy Eyris DC3 (a line below their Dimension line), and I've even been VERY impressed with their inexpensive Sensys DC line (positioned below the Eyris line). At 91db these should be efficient enough to thrive on tubes. Ive read that Tannoy lovers tend to love them best with tubes. These babies are due to land tomorrow at the latest

Preamp:
Uhhh - no budget for this yet I may resort to using my reference headphone amp, a Singlepower SDS, for preamp duties to avoid creating a bottleneck here. It uses a 6sn7 tube for the input stage and two 5687 tubes for the output.

So, until this stuff arrives and gets sorted out I'll be writhing - no, paralyzed with anticipation. Aurrggh!!! :cool:

madmax

mulveling wrote: »

Anticipation!!!

The driving philosophy for this system is going with OLD technology, time-proven and/or refined via NEW technology.

I've created different systems with various philosophies in the past. I commend your effort of defining the system/philosophy before it is started.

My favorite system is coming from my last idea which I called "Analog to analog, tube to tube". This was a system completely void of any semiconductors. (well, I'm almost there except for those pesky diodes in the tube amp power supplies:D ).

madmax

mulveling

madmax wrote: »

My favorite system is coming from my last idea which I called "Analog to analog, tube to tube". This was a system completely void of any semiconductors. (well, I'm almost there except for those pesky diodes in the tube amp power supplies:D ).

madmax

That's kind of what I've been leaning more towards lately...the reference headphone system, in particular, has only that little bit of circuit board and a few transistors in the phono preamp. The TT has no boards nor semiconductors, and the headphone amp is a tube circuit that's point-to-point wired (of course it does use silicon rectification; would be cool to hear a tube rectified version).

The switch to a turntable in particular eliminated all those ICs, opamps/transistors, and miles of PCB traces that can be found in the typical digital source For a while I've been wondering how much of the jump in sound quality may have come from that, and how much was from the analog medium itself.

For similar "purist" justifications I've been intrigued by the Tannoy dual concentrics. Seems to straddle the line well between the coherence and efficiency of a single driver system with the dynamics, full range, and transient response of a multi driver system.

Oh and one more guideline I've used for putting together this system - all components have been chosen with an emphasis on musicality over absolute hifi accuracy/neutrality.

Edit: Alright, VAC Musicblocs have my name on them and are being sent to factory for the latest upgrades as we speak!

starmax01

Preamp:
Uhhh - no budget for this yet I may resort to using my reference headphone amp, a Singlepower SDS, for preamp duties to avoid creating a bottleneck here. It uses a 6sn7 tube for the input stage and two 5687 tubes for the output.

I've got a Musical Fidelity X-CANv3 Headphone Amp. Didn't know I could use it for a phono preamp.

mulveling

starmax01 wrote: »

Preamp:
Uhhh - no budget for this yet I may resort to using my reference headphone amp, a Singlepower SDS, for preamp duties to avoid creating a bottleneck here. It uses a 6sn7 tube for the input stage and two 5687 tubes for the output.

I've got a Musical Fidelity X-CANv3 Headphone Amp. Didn't know I could use it for a phono preamp.

Yes, I've previously used a 1/4" to RCA Y-cable to pipe the headphone output of my headpone amp into the inputs of a power amp. Used in this capacity it was, at the least, comparable to the Melos SHA-Gold Reference and BAT VK-5i. Had to give up the nice input switching and remote, though

I think the high input impedance of a power amp shouldn't be a problem for most headphone amps (actually it should be much easier than driving 32 ohm headphones). A headphone amp is really pretty similar to a preamp and vice versa.

starmax01

Wow...thanks for the info! I'm going to try it when I get home. I'd be feeding it into my Denon 5805 receiver. Been using a cheapie turntable (Audio Technica, or something like that w/mm cartridge...hope to upgrade someday). I'll see if my X-CAN sounds better than the receiver's preamp.

mulveling

starmax01 wrote: »

Wow...thanks for the info! I'm going to try it when I get home. I'd be feeding it into my Denon 5805 receiver. Been using a cheapie turntable (Audio Technica, or something like that w/mm cartridge...hope to upgrade someday). I'll see if my X-CAN sounds better than the receiver's preamp.

Going from experience, I'd think it should have no trouble besting the Denon's preamp section but only one way to find out! One caveat is that headphone amps typically have a higher gain than traditional preamps/receivers. So be careful with the volume knob - a little will go a long way! The gain of preamps is set low to make it hard to overdrive the typical modern power amp (and perhaps to hit the sweet spot of the volume pot's range).

Also, to avoid/minimize the startup pop - Connect all cables, set the headamp volume to 0, then turn on the source & preamp first, then turn on the power amps.

starmax01

do you know if headphone amps (or the X-CAN in particular) can also accommodate mc cartridges? My receiver's preamp can't.

madmax

starmax01 wrote: »

I've got a Musical Fidelity X-CANv3 Headphone Amp. Didn't know I could use it for a phono preamp.

Use as a preamp should be reasonable but not as a "phono preamp" unless I'm mistaken about some functionality here. You will need some form of RIAA equalization somewhere.
madmax

starmax01

You will need some form of RIAA equalization somewhere.

okay...now you've gone and lost me.

mulveling

madmax wrote: »

Use as a preamp should be reasonable but not as a "phono preamp" unless I'm mistaken about some functionality here. You will need some form of RIAA equalization somewhere.
madmax

Uh-oh, yeah that's correct. I misread your post starmax01. Thought you were inteding to use the X-CAN only as a preamp, which would be fine. A phono stage is something else entirely. To clarify, I still need to use the Benz PP-1 phono stage before whatever I'm using as a preamp/line driver.

starmax01

ok, thanks for clarifying!

Face

Nice choice of speakers!

tonyb

So who walked with the Sig's ?
Lucky **** that he is....
Show yourself or forever be damned!!:D

mulveling

tonyb wrote: »

So who walked with the Sig's ?
Lucky **** that he is....
Show yourself or forever be damned!!:D

A fellow named Jeff, longtime lurker who will hopefully start posting

The Dimensions have ARRIVED here at my place of work. They are in 3 substantial boxes taking up all of the space in an unused cubicle. Props to whichever of you polkies can run down here and steal them without me noticing before 4:30