Adrian

Klipsch La Scala Mk1 – £5000

by

I have sold a few used pairs of these over the years and this pair were the best example I ever saw or heard and are now available.

The bass drivers have the Alnico magnets, they have metal horn flares and paper in oil capacitors.

(Not the inferior mark 2s with plastic horns and MDF cabs.)

They have always been stored meticulously by the owner.

This particular pair are in a higher grade of birch-ply than all the others I have dealt with which are usually mid to dark brown.

The main effect is that the sound is noticeably more focussed than usual.

Wonderful!

Objectivists again…

by

It is amazing how many objectivists are confident in their ability to pin the tail on the donkey precisely on Neutral!

Quad 405-2 mono-block AM8/16 amps for Rogers LS5/8s.

by

These were in deep storage at ITN and were then fully serviced and upgraded by Red Hill Audio.

I have not found the list of all the work Red Hill Audio did but will look harder.

I only remember the fitting of big BHC Aerovox psu caps and Elna Cerafines.

Then the active parts were serviced and uprated by a BBC technician:

4x Part Ex DADA Electronics modified Quad 405 MKII boards (£50 ea.) – £200.
2x Power Leads and accompanying custom fittings (XLR Delete) (£15 ea.) – £30
2x Axial Electrolytic capacitors 63v 220uf (£3.80p ea.) – £7.60
2x Blue LED Mods (£5 ea.) – £10
2x Mains isolation capacitors (£8 ea.) – £16
8x Tantalum Capacitors 25v 15uf, 35v 1uf (£1.75 ea.) – £14
10x metalised plastic foil capacitors 100v 6800pf, 250v 47nf, 100v 0.1uf (£1.50 ea.) – £15
4x metal foil wind, high accuracy capacitors 250v 820pf, 250v 220pf (£4.60p ea.) – £18.40p
2x BCY71 Transistors (£2.50p ea.) – £5
4x BC414B Transistors (£4.20p ea.) – £16.80p
2x 2N2484 Transistors (£2.50p ea.) – £5
8x New rubber feet (£1.20p ea.) – £9.60p
2x variable resistor knobs (£0.60p ea.) – £1.20p
4x 5-Pin Neutric XLR’s (£6.80p ea.) – £27.20p
2x 1.7M 4×1.5mm core speaker cable (£3.75p per meter) – £12.75p

Chassis are not a matched pair.

Cables included.

I will not recoup what I spent on these but offers accepted.

Counterproductive modifications.

by

I am working on what was a nice pre-amp which has been upgraded by a customer with:

  1. CNC sockets which seem to need a blow torch to solder to effectively.

2. A typical silver solder of a type which does not flow properly. (Some with many additives do better e.g. Cardas.)

3. Oil impregnated hook-up cable which needs to be cleaned scrupulously to get a good joint and were not.

Put the 3 things together and you can get terrible solder joints and a sound which is a significant downgrade… 😂

Nelson Pass amps.

by

This is going to sound bitchy but… I have heard a few of his amps at length and in shows and I really like them in all areas bar one.

(I have had a longer exposure to the Pass Aleph 3 and the Threshold S200 in particular.)

But, I find the timing in both quite ploddy and I place great importance on timing.

Sounds ridiculous?

I certainly believe some amps are more ‘on the beat’ than others.

And some companies cheat by rolling off early in the bass, mentioning no Names…

Usually, amps which are full bodied/overly full bodied will sound less on the beat particularly in the bass.

But these were rather ploddy sounding without being overly full bodied in my opinion.

A down side of Class A perhaps?

Any comments welcome?

Fake Blue Alps

by

Had a bit of a shock lately.

The strong suspicion that a fake Blue Alps outperforms the genuine article.

More musical and lively partly because it has a more Linear, incorrect, arc of movement.

Please report back anyone who has done the comparison…

Denafrips Ares 2

by

Was really surprised to hear some terrible lag from this popular dac into its USB port from a laptop.

Poor implementation of its USB port when used with a laptop with an effect like wow and flutter.

A rather disjointed flow of the music at times.

I recommended the customer buy a cheap USB to SP/DIF converter (RCA end going into dac) and problem was solved.

The Speaker Presentation Trap.

by

I have always argued that the voice is the sound we recognise the best because we are most attuned to it from our mother’s voice as a baby and onwards through life to wanting to hear the exact characteristics of a favourite singer’s voice.

Consequently, I have always been beyond fussy about voice and the midrange. E.g. Croft amps, classic BBC speakers and, of course the Quad ESL 57s.

Whether a bass guitar should sound tighter (very venue dependent) or a synthesiser more focussed in the original recording is neither here nor there if voices do not sound simply superb IMO.
For this reason, my speakers over the years have had to excel in this area. The V or U shaped frequency response curve seems absurd to me especially if you listen to vocal music…
Also, the prominent bass it requires will sound slower with more overhang than was intended. I prefer a fast, leading edge to the bass notes without the bloom.
And yet, I have been a little surprised lately by how some recent speaker designs in shows have seemingly clearer, better defined midrange instruments than my all-time favourite speakers while at the same time having inferior, more synthetic-sounding vocals!
Then it dawned on me, when I was studying some speaker crossovers, that often the tweeter is tipped-up to give ‘better definition’. One demonstrator pair had 3 ohms less resistance on the tweeter than the original crossover diagram to impress the gullible. This ‘improves’ midrange definition and attack but tends to make voices sound less real and more robotic! (Never mind the fact that many ears prefer a dip around 2 KHz over the flat response…)
A manufacturer’s trick which relies on impressiveness over naturalness in vocal tone.

Incatech Claymore integrated amplifier – £550 now sold

by

Re-built by Colin Wonfor to latest spec, all PSU and signal path capacitors upgraded, diodes uprated, Blue Alps pot etc.

Fitted with gold-plated selector switch.

Claymore Retro retails for £1300.

Excellent amp.

Last photo shows components removed by Colin Wonfor before upgrade from a functioning amp. FREE TO ANYONE WHO WANTS THEM.

Incatech-Claymore-amp-3
Incatech-Claymore-amp-2
Incatech-Claymore-amp-4
Incatech-Claymore-Changed-Components

[Show slideshow]

Hi-Fi Shows

by

I went to the Milan Hi Fidelity show last weekend and the same 3 things struck me as happens in just about all the Hi-Fi shows I attend.

1) Some absolutely dreadful Muzak is played just because they are excellent recordings. This means that when I request a decently-recorded CD track I know well to be played, I am nearly always disappointed compared to my own system.

2) Some systems have impressive bass; more than I am used to. From experience, having owned some bass behemoths in the past, I know that – for me at least – it is just a novelty that soon wears thin. I much prefer a fast, transparent bass to room-shaking depth and the compromise in midrange clarity that comes with that. The unrealistic desire many have to recreate orchestral scale in their rooms detracts from the delicacy needed for World Music, Jazz or Folk.

3) And now for my most controversial point. I am used to what some would dismissively call ‘pipe and slipper’ speaker designs such as old Spendor BC1s, Harbeth HL Monitors and Rogers LS5/8s. As often happens, I heard a track I knew well at the show, a viola da gamba track played by Jordi Saval. The speakers were Brave New World designs built from what looked like solid aluminium billet. The natural resonances and reverberations I expected were, for the most part, bleached away! Many recordings seem to lose much of the natural resonance and 3 dimensionality of the music. The approach of most modern Hi-Fi systems is to be clean, focussed, tighter-than-reality and rather uninvolving. Valves add a global 3 dimensionality often lost.
There is an intuitive understanding that for music to sound real something more Yin and Yang than simple resonance control is required. It is not that subjectivists condone adding colouration, as many objectivists claim, but that they instinctively seek that extra connection and engagement you get with the original performance which the recording often lacks. Furthermore, valve amps generally sound more natural than transistor probably because the signal travels through a vacuum rather than silicone.

Funk Firm F-X arm – £850.

by

Excellent condition with box.

Same as FX-R except for fixed arm lead.

(The removable arm lead on FX-R has fragile pins.)

Retailed for £1300.