Depending on the gain of your preamp and amp, I still think the DI’s need close to 30 watts of quality power to sound their best. A friend brought over a First Watt SIT-2 to try with my speakers. It sounded great at lower volume levels but my Pioneer M-22 outclassed it at normal listening levels when listening to classical music. If I were buying a tube-based amp, I would have to give a hard look at this one: http://www.dsachsconsulting.com/custom%20kt88%20tube%20amp.html |
John Atkinson writes reviews and summarizes test results based on advertiser dollars. Stereophile is a shell of what it once was.
The rest of your text is just as senseless.... |
@grannyring
Maybe another thread should be started, but what parts would you recommend specifically to upgrade the $3300 DI speakers?
What is the part number for the better woofer drivers?
If you prefer, we can take this offline... |
In other words, he is just guessing and has no measurements to go by.... |
Really? I tried the ML Electromotion ESL's and they sounded almost dead compared to the DI's. The difference in sound quality was massive. I listen to 60's/70's/80's classic rock and a lot of Classical with some Jazz mixed in.
I wonder if it is the listening room or equipment synergy. |
@grannyring
How much better are the Eminence Beta 10a woofers and Eminence Beta 6a 6.5 inch midrange drivers compared to the stock drivers? I guess I asking if replacing them as a first step is worthwhile at all or doing you need all the other mods to hear improvement?
What are the part numbers/name of the stock drivers anyway? |
When I was a kid, my dad would take me out to the Mojave desert to ride dirt bikes with a bunch of his police cronies and their kids. McQueen was a frequent rider in with the group. I didn't know he was famous until years later when I saw him in a movie. In that desert setting, he was anything but anti-social and never had a "don't bug" me attitude. Probably because he was just one of the guys and treated that way..... |
|
|
I have not posted or even read this thread in a long time. I am glad to see it survived that period of strong "negative Nancy-ism". It sure is interesting to see the new products from Tekton and how they are being received.
Anyway, I am now using the following chain:
Roon (sonicTransporter i5)
PS Audio DirectStream w/Bridge II (Ethernet input)
Don Sachs Model 2 6SN7-based line stage (balanced input)
Don Sachs Kootenay 120 KT88 tube amp (65 watts per channel)
This setup sounds absolutely stunning with the upgraded Double Impact speakers. I get incredible detail without any digital harshness and the soundstage has width, height, and depth. The bass response is phenomenal with this amp. It is much stronger than the Pioneer M-22 Class A solid state amp I was using but is tighter and more defined. I am still VERY happy with my speakers!!
Those Encore speakers sure are interesting though!
|
|
@david_ten Thanks! Yes, I thought about buying the sTi7 DSP version but I don't need the horsepower. At least not yet! I wouldn't have bridged the Ethernet anyway as I like to keep the Roon core in another room separate from my audio system. My switch does a great job of blocking noise on the Ethernet port used by the DAC.
I am finding that the DI speakers do better with 65 wpc versus 30 wpc. In fact, I tried some of the SET amps discussed in this thread and while I found the mid-range to be sublime, I found the low end and sometimes the top end lacking. I prefer the sound I am getting for the Don Sachs Kootenay 120 push/pull amp. The bass is the best I have have ever heard as is the top end. On balance, I don't know that I have heard a better overall sound top to bottom.
What are you using these days for an amp? |
Nice list of amps! The Kooteney 120 uses KT88 tubes. I am not sure why Don calls it a 120.
That is one nice integrated amp! I could afford the price of admission but don't think I would ever spend that much on a piece of audio equipment. I am at a pretty good place right now. I am concentrating on listening to music and filling out my CD collection now.
Have fun! |
First post here....
I ordered a pair of the Double Impacts (4 Ω) last week. I went with the standard black soft gloss finish and the $300 internal upgrade.
My plan is to drive them with either one Schiit Audio Vidar amp in stereo mode or two Vidar amps in monoblock mode. These amps are rated at 100 watts per channel at 8 Ω and 200 watts per channel at 4 Ω. In monoblock mode, it is 400 watts at 8 Ω. Vidar will not be rated at 4 Ω in monoblock mode.
I am using a Schiit Audio Freya preamp using the tube mode. My DAC is the Schiit Audio Yggdrasil. |
@kdude66 : the Vidar amp is not released yet...probably early next week. The power specs were given out by the designer so I am confident they are accurate. The designer did say the amp is rated conservatively.
@david_ten : I race an air-cooled 911. It’s an 87 Turbo chassis with wide 993 bodywork with a normally aspirated 3.6L engine.
I can’t wait to get the Vidar amps and DI speakers. I ordered the speakers over a week ago and have heard nothing since then. That concerns me a bit. I guess getting the internal upgrade and holes for the speaker grills added complicates the process. |
No!! Vidar is an amp only thank goodness!!! |
@david_ten
I will be using an Yggdrasil DAC, a Freya preamp, and Vidar amps to go along with DI speakers. If I am using two Vidar amps, I will be running balanced differential interconnects from DAC to amps.
My speakers are suppose to ship at the end of the week. This a week late, but I don't have the amps yet so it is no big deal.
Scott |
@david_ten
I had been out of high end audio for 30 years when I decided I wanted to get better sound out of my nearfield computer workstation setup. I enjoyed the setup so much that I knew it was time to setup a nice 2 channel setup in my little used Library. I didn't want to spend more than $10K on the whole setup including speakers, headphones, and headphone amplifier. I could afford more, but I wanted to have that limit.
$10K is not a lot when you want quality equipment and great sound. I
knew I would need to find high value equipment if I wanted great sound. Fortunately, I had some friends with some nicer high end equipment against which I would have a chance to evaluate and compare my more budget minded choices.
It became clear early on that Schiit Audio was a company that made a lot of high value products. An example? I had a chance to compare a friend's Yggdrasil to a friend's Chord Dave and another friend's PS Audio DirectStream. I won't get into specifics, but Yggdrasil held its own very well against the Dave and was a bit better than the DirectStream. Especially with the Red Book content I listen to 99% of the time. I found that Schiit's tope of line preamp, the Freya, sounded great yet was priced far lower than comparable sounding preamps. I bought a Mjolnir 2 because it pair well with the headphones I like and, again, it performed as well as much more expensive equipment. I am planning on buy two Schiit Vidar amps. This is on faith. Monoblock amps that have the same features cost MUCH more. I have confidence that these amps will sound great too.
The TektonDesign Double Impact speakers are another example of a high value product. These speakers, combined with the Schiit audio equipment I have listed above, should provide me with a fantastic sounding 2 channel setup, for under $10K, that sounds as good or better than setups costing two to three times as much or more.
I'll have a pretty good idea by the end of next week! |
@david_ten
I've had my Yggdrasil since late February and Freya since mid May. I have a real nice selection of 6SN7 tubes for Freya. The only new components will be the two Vidar amps. I use Pangea XLR interconnects to connect everything and Mogami 3103 speaker cable.
Currently, I am using my MacBook Pro as an audio source. USB sucks so I use a Singxer F-1 DDC to feed the Yggdrasil via S/PDIF coax. The sound improvement is quite noticeable. Soon I will be getting Ethernet->AES/EBU Roon endpoint which will cut out USB altogether.
@mac48025
I have a heard time believing that 10 watts, much less 1 watt, is enough to properly drive the Double Impact speakers. Plus, I have no desire to spend $3K or more on a stereo amp with just 10 watts.
|
@david_ten
The best setup I found to feeding Yggy via USB was using a UpTone Audio ISO Regen/USPCB/LPS 1 combo going to the Singxer F-1 then to Yggy using a 1.5m coax OFC cable. That sounded fantastic.
The LAN to AES solution should be announced in the next couple of weeks. I can't talk about it much yet but the price is VERY reasonable!
I can't wait to get the speakers and the amps!! Otherwise I am ready to go! |
What about dynamic range and headroom? I have always found low power setups, even great low power setups, to sound a little flat when driving large speakers...even very efficient large speakers. This has been especially true with some classical recordings. I have also noticed clipping, even with tube amps, that I didn't hear with higher power amps. |
|
Just because 1 watts seems to work doesn't mean it is "best". I don't see how you can say that 51 watts is overkill. From a physics standpoint, this makes no sense. |
What thread size and pitch are the threads for the speaker feet? I plan on buy some Herbie Gliders here soon.
I tried to search through this thread and could not find the specifics. I am sure they are there...I must have missed them.
Thanks! |
|
1 watt does generate volume...but simple physics tells us it is impossible from 1 watt to reproduce music in the best possible way. It has no choice but to sound flat compared to more appropriate power levels for the speakers. This is especially true with music recorded with more dynamic range. |
I am not saying anything about my requirements room size or amplifier choice. The physics part is that it takes power to move the voice coils in the various drivers. Even if you listen at low volume levels. Look at section 2 here: http://sound.whsites.net/articles/pwr-vs-eff.htmTo quote: "To reproduce a signal with a 10dB crest factor cleanly (without clipping distortion) means that if your average level requires 10W, the peaks will need 100W - a 100W (minimum) amplifier is needed to get 10W of clean undistorted average electrical energy. "
That's the physics part! |
What I am posting about has nothing to do with the "sound" of an amplifier. That is different than the power of an amplifier and what is considered "clean" power.
Let’s assume for a minute that the 1 watt is enough to drive the DI speakers with no clipping distortion. That means that they are only using .1 watts at their average level. Are you ready to go there? .1 watts???
This is when I start to worry about what people are reporting and have a hard time believing it. IF a 1 watt amp is working well for someone with these speakers, either the music has no dynamic range or their ears aren’t hearing the clipping. Or, they listen at whisper sound levels. Yes, tube amps do usually clip much less obtrusively than solid state. But there are limits......
I am not saying you need 400 watts per channel. But 1 watt, on paper when you do the math, comes up on the wrong side of what is enough power.
I don’t even have my speakers yet. They should be here on Tuesday or Wednesday. I will have two Vidar amps ready to test. I will try them in a monoblock setup that has 400 watts a channel at 8 Ohms (not rated at 4 Ohms) and with a single Vidar at 200 watts per channel at 4 Ohms. One Vidar has more than enough power but I like the advantages you get in monoblock mode. When using one Vidar you have to use SE inputs while in monoblock mode you use XLR inputs.
|
Has anyone compared the stock Double Impact setup to the $300 upgrade version? I was just curious if anyone heard a difference. I ordered the $300 upgrade...... |
Well, I didn’t even bother unpacking the second Vidar and sent it back to Schiit. 200 watts per channel into 4 ohms is WAY MORE than enough power. Especially when you factor in the gain from using the tube stage with Freya.
Vidar is dual mono back to the transformer. Power used by one channel does not affect power used by the other. So there really is no significant advantage to running two Vidar amps other than it is cool. The downsides to running two Vidar amps include more tube noise and less granularity in the volume control.
These speakers sound great and I haven’t even played around with room placement or toe-in yet. I can’t wait to hear how good they sound after 200 hours and I get them placed properly.
How much toe-in are you guys using?
|
Schiit Audio Freya is a nice tube preamp with gain. It also has a passive mode and a JFET mode. Check it out. I love mine. |
|
|
Eric doesn’t publish anything but this for the DI speakers:
20Hz-30kHz frequency response
±1dB deviation from 70Hz-20kHz
Personally, I would like to know what the ± is for 20Hz. I suspect it is more than -3dB.
Based on that, you would not want the crossover frequency to be higher than 70Hz and probably a lot lower. I would not crossover at all and just add a single subwoofer. Then see how that sounds. |
|
|
Yeah, the Schiit stuff aren't the best components out there, but they are the best value I could find in the price range I was comfortable with. The same goes for the DI speakers. Which, by the way, are now sounding incredible. I installed a new amp, new speaker wire (Mogami 3103), and new speakers all at the same time so I am not sure which needed to burn in or if all did. But with 100 hours or so on the new stuff, I am getting the sound I hoped I could get! |
Thanks, All!
Yeah, there are actually 3 bikes over by that wall right now. Those will be moving soon...as will all the boxes and crap in the room behind the speakers.
Another 150 hours, huh? Okay.... |
@grannyring
What speaker wire do you like? I am using Mogami 3103 in my setup. I am not noticing any negatives with it but I have not tried other speaker wire.
Thanks,
Scott
|
Okay, all four of my woofers have a dimpled dome. In other words, it looks like someone pushed them in. They are all the same and it looks uniform. I thought nothing of it until I saw @grey9hound 's photos. His aren't dimpled....
Anyone else have dimpled domes in their woofers? |
The boxes came in perfect shape. There was no damage to anything in the box either. All four woofer caps look exactly the same. They are so much the same I thought it was intentional and by design. |
How did you mod the crossovers and what were the differences you heard? |
Has anyone tried a Pioneer M-22 class A amp with the DI's? 30 watts of dual mono pure class A power should sound great! |
|
@kdude66
Unless there is a Threshold amp I am unaware of, I am not prepared to spend $4K to $6K on an amp. Which Threshold do you like? |
@kdude66
What sound level do you think I can get out of the First Watt F7? I listen to Classical, older Red Book content, as well as the more compressed current Red Book content. I think my average sound level is about 85dB with current Red Book content. Sometimes I will bump that up to 90dB to 93dB for some tracks.
I can pick up as "demo" F7 from Reno HiFi for about 20% off of retail. They will let me demo the F7 for 10 days and send it back if I don't like it. Is that a good deal?
Thanks! |
@kdude66
I have several different sets of 1940’s and 1950’s NOS tubes that I am using with Freya. I am using the tube gain mode with Vidar because I prefer the sound with the tubes. But, I am not happy with the audible hum from the speakers. I suspect if Vidar had 16dB or so of gain, we wouldn’t being having this conversation.
Not knowing any better, I am very happy with the sound that I am getting from Vidar. Push comes to shove, I can certainly live with the hum as it is very difficult/impossible to hear once I sit down and listen to music. This is due to the fact that my brain adjusts to the higher sound pressure levels and the hum is below the threshold of hearing at that point. If I just sit in the silent room, I can hear the hum faintly from my listening position. But it sounds like dead quiet when music briefly stops.
But, this gives me a chance to listen to some other amps and figure out if there are better options out there that I choose to afford. |
@klh007
Thank you for the suggestion.
The hum isn't power related. At least I don't think it is. I have a 2.5kVA Topaz .0005pF isolation transformer (146dB of common mode noise reduction) wired up in balanced power mode (good for another 20dB of common mode noise reduction) that all the audio devices are plugged into. Power should be very clean.
The Topaz setup cost me $200 and is by far and away the single best investment I have made in sound quality.
Anyway, I am pretty sure the hum is gain related. My preamp has 14dB of gain in tube mode and the amp has 27dB. That's a lot of gain for speakers as efficient as the Double Impact. If I put the preamp into passive or JFET mode with 0dB gain, the hum gets quieter but it is still there. If I unplug the RCA cables from the amp, it's gets a tiny bit quieter.
This mirrors what the preamp and amp designer said would happen with high efficiency speakers.
The First Watt F7 has 14dB of gain so I would be cutting 13dB. About the same as going into passive or JFET mode on the preamp. |
@sbayne
Do the Rothwell attenuators alter the sound signal. I suspect they must. Any experienced there? |
@almarg
The output impedance of my preamp in tube gain mode SE is 210 ohms. Is that considered high? |
Eric said that it was due to air pressure changes during shipping. He said use a shop vac to "gently" pull them out..... |
So I used the shop vac....it pulled the covers out.....but there are still remnants of them being collapsed. I fear these covers will always look like this which is like crap! As I said, the covers looked like they were supposed to be like as all four looked exactly the same.
Eric should warn people about this. It's not like it should be a surprise considering the possible altitude changes during shipping. |
I am waiting on Eric to respond with something other than "use a shop vac".... |
No, that didn't come with the speakers.... |
