A few comments and clarifications to answer some comments on my previous posting here:
Muralman1: As a long time owner of Magnepan 3.3 and then 3.5 speakers, as much as I loved them, they were far more the challenging speaker to play their magic than the Sound-Lab. When a speaker has such incredible 3-dimensional cpabilities as the Magnepan, but also has very clear dynamic limitations, it is tough to get such a speaker do it all. And throwing 1000w amps at them is not going to do it even remotely to the level of a far less "powerful" amp with the Sound-Lab.
I have not heard a big Apogee speaker for nearly 20 years. And this was never in my home. So I have no idea how a speaker like the Scintilla would compare sonically to the A1. But I do understand the H20 was designed with the Apogee speaker so I would expect it to perform its best with that speaker line. I wish we were closeby as I'd be willing to lug over the CAT amps to try with your Scintillas. I would have to call Ken Stevens first to make sure they could handle the 1-ohm load but I believe they can be configured to drive such speakers. I understand them to handle a load under 2 ohms with ease. And I suspect with some modifications, they could be turned into welding torches! 8-)
Concerning me going with the H20 signature, the CAT amps were so far ahead of the std H20 that I do not see me letting go of the CATs anytime soon. They do dynamic contrasts and the leading edge attack of the notes that you simply need to hear to believe. And they portray volume of space that the H20 does not even begin to do. One local audiophile who visited me said he had never before heard a tube amp with such speed as this. And he is much more detail oriented and particular to perfection in a music reproduction system than I am. With all the tube amps I have owned and have heard before, I could not have said it better. It was this attribute that caused me to purchase this amp.
I don't want to go into a count-by-count comparison between the amps because that was no my intent of my report here. The dramatic difference in cost alone makes this kinda silly. But I wanted to hear the H20 as I suspect it could be an ideal match for my home theatre system which I want to be fully ss based.
My initial report here was to state the areas where I felt the H20 was lacking relative to a "reference" product but also conclude that for its price point, it performed remarkably well. I also wanted to point out that an older "low-cost" model like the Counterpoint holds its own to today's great solid state amps in that it still does a 3-dimensional presentation like no ss amp I have tried in my home.
Audiofankj: I can so very much relate to trying cables in my system that just did not work at all. One immediately comes to mind: the highly raved Audioquest Diamond. It completely obliterated all the harmonic richness, bloom and decays in the music that I had worked so hard to achieve. That is a cable I too will never consider at least in the context of a tube-based system.
My MIT cable experience is strictly from line stage to amp. Again, I have no experience with MIT speaker cables. A few years ago I tried the MIT ICs as they are rather affordable in longer lengths. And I was mightily surprised at their performance relative to the NBS. And with 5 different tube amps and 3 different line stages, I did not at all have tonality problems with the MIT 350 when compared to the NBS Statement. The NBS has been my reference cable for the last 5 years since replacing Cardas Golden Cross, Harmonic Tech One and SilverAudio Passionata.....all of which are excellent cables for the price.
When I had balanced amps I ran with a 20' MIT 350 Ref Proline XLR cable with the same results, no tonal coherency problems nor fatigue issues at all. Unfortunately I have these loaned to a friend or I would have tried them with the H20 to once and for all put the "to MIT or not to MIT" or "single-ended vs. balanced" issues with the H20 to bed.
So it is NOT a global issue of MIT incompatibility with tube amps. Some other factor is going on out there but I have not heard it here. And the implementation between the NBS and MIT is about as different as two cables can be. How these two cables can both sound so exceptional and remarkably similar with the wide range of electronics and with Talon Khorus, Magnepan 3.5 and now Sound-Lab A1 speakers causes me to believe it is at least, a non-issue for me.
I might add that not every MIT cable sounded the same for me. I had a 30' M1 IC on loan for a month and I could not get it to perform like the MIT 350. The M1 was very sterile whereas the 350 brought on dimensionality that was right behind the NBS.
Woodburger brings up a concern that I share: maybe another cable will resolve the interactions with the H20 but if it takes away the magic elsewhere that we had before, then it's a "this for that" issue. And giving up many attributes in my system just to correct an interaction problem is not acceptable.
Bob: Thank you for pointing out the input impedance issue. I had no idea the H20 was so low in single-ended. This could very well have been the problem running the H20 singl-ended from the Callisto and not an MIT cable issue at all. I do not know if the Callisto has the same "requirement" as the Calypso in terms of needing to see a higher impedance load.
Only a month or so ago did I move my equipment rack from a side wall to the wear wall. Up to this time, I was using the NBS XLR cable to the CAT amps with adaptors. With the greater distance, I now use the 25' MIT cable and run from the SE outputs of the Callisto. Phono and DAC inputs to the Callisto are both through balanced NBS Statement XLRs.
I might add that switching configurations with the CATs and the Counterpoint during this amp evaluation did not cause dramatic changes as was clearly the case with the H20. So it was definitely not an issue of connectors or cables not being burned in.....except for the possibility with the H20's circuits/connectors themselves. Still, there is absolutely no way the problems described in the initial run with the H20 could be attributed entirely to this.
John
