Charles,
The Ypsilon SET-100 uses a single-ended triode input tube followed by 16 parallel-single-ended MOSFETs. And a bunch of transformers are involved.
It is both "single-ended triode" and "singled-ended transistor."
Phil |
Spirit,
The short answer is, Nope.
There's a longer answer, if you're interested:
I haven't heard the Ypsilon SET100s nor the Koda electronics. As for the Ypsilon, massed paralleled single-ended MOSFETs aren't the top item I'm looking for in solving amplification problems, but it's one way to try.
I often enough get a chance to hear alternatives to gear I settled on, including steeply upmarket hardware. I don't burn many mental cycles on envy nor on worry that there's something better if only I spent a *lot* more cash. There are two reasons for this. The first is that audio isn't my only interest in life. I'm never going to spend all my disposable income on hifi. The second is that the majority of hyper-cost gear I have heard (let's define hypercost as anything that's more than 4X the price of what I own) sounds worse than my choices or not better holistically. And the few items that clearly outperform aren't sufficiently numerous to make me intrinsically optimistic about everything expensive I read a rave review about.
Because here's the problem: the industry and most of the buying public has not grasped how much of a breakthrough a Zu speaker is. I read reviews of hypercost amplifiers only to see that the speaker through which it was listened to is a multi-driver, crossover-intensive speaker that obscures amplifier differences, imposes its dynamic choke points and phase non-linearities on said amp and generally offers only a more distant facsimile of human-produced music than a Zu speaker for 1/10th to 1/3 the cost. I read a user commentary on the Ypsilon SET100 wherein Ypsilon electronics replaced Shindo and the rave result was communicated as Ypsilon yielding a much brighter sound, which the writer explained by likening the Shindo to an incandescent bulb and the Ypsilon to white LED. Well, compared to natural light, they are then both wrong. But *if* that's true, which one do you think you could live with for three years on the widest variety of recordings? Sometimes I just wonder if hifi people have any idea what they are talking about outside of impressions formed in the last 20 minutes. OK, that sounds harsh but I think you understand why I say it.
After several years of willfully ignoring the matter, I am in a Spring of phono preamp trials. I was asked by a manufacturer to evaluate a phono preamp with a retail price in five figures. A search of the planet's digital repository disgorges a river of praise for it, but again in most review cases the ancillary gear leads me to usually wonder how they could discern the reviewed preamp's true traits. Suffice for the moment to say that I found the unit disappointing to the degree that despite its many good, even great, qualities, I had a hard time figuring out what I'd want to pay for it at any price, on sound alone, given what else is out there. People who don't have Zu speakers -- or anything close to them as widebanders without crossovers -- have a hard time understanding how much conventional speaker designs homogenize the gear feeding them, relatively.
Most really expensive digital gear sounds little like music, tonally and texturally. Clean and resolved isn't the same thing as getting the sound of instruments and humans right. Most highly engineered crossover-intensive speakers disconnect you from the suggestion of reality but do a good job of selling a "hifi" sound that other people put a lot of effort into convincing you you should like. There are turntables I'd like to buy that I don't own but there are many more that have no existential argument other than the ego of designers. There are tonearms I'd like to buy that I don't own, but why is $10K, $20K, $30K needed when Thomas Schick does it better and simpler in most cases for $1800?
We are in a niche hobby industry where pricing has become divorced from benefit. And the more niche it is, the more we are subjected to the rules of a niche economy: increasingly designers figure it is more efficient and less work for them to make and sell 30 things at $100,000 each than 3000 things at $1,000 each. Look at all that cabinet engineering in a Magico speaker. It's cool, and you can write a nice mechanical engineering story on it, but it still sounds like a crossover-intensive speaker with choke points, false spatial cues and some residual zip. Almost nobody has heard Zu Dominance in a quality setting (i.e. not at the only show they were exhibited at). Only one pair exists and they are well-installed in a discerning customer's house. While the Definition 4 benefitted massively from development of Dominance, the bigger brother quashes any pretense that li'l brother can play in the same league. If you ever hear the $60K/pr. Dominance you can only cheer Zu on to cross the $100K mark. You have to hand it to Sean Casey: it would be a lot less work for him to find 30 customers willing to buy $100K speakers. He could do it. But he doesn't want to. He is on a mission to build a full line of uniquely breakthrough speakers, priced to be accessible to everyone. To do that, he's made really smart choices in his allocations for where to focus engineering intensity.
I've heard so many hypercost amps that are not able to be as musically-convincing as $19,000 Audion Golden Dreams, that the burden of proof is on anyone placing their amps at the six figures threshold. And let's face it -- to real world individuals those Audion amps are nutty expensive already. But understand that if the world had only 86 (even 90) db/w/m speakers choked by crossovers and blurred by the disunities of many drivers, I might not know the real standing of the Audions. I imagine owners of the merely four-figures Coincident Frankenstein amps understand my point as well as anyone.
"So real you can touch it reality" is perpetually out of reach. We get closer only to find that the experience reminds us how far away we actually still are. But I don't have confidence that most of high end audio is keeping its grasp on what's real. They're aiming for something else that enough people find tantalizing or satisfying. Real is something else. If Ypsilon and Koda are getting us closer, I'll be saying so if listening proves it.
Phil |
Other than academically, there's no point in comparing the Zu103 cartridge to the Soundsmith Straingauge system. They are two entirely different instruments that address differently-ordered priorities. Outside of both cartridges serving their owners' hope of the illusion of aural fidelity, the two are radically different.
Throughout the 1970s, I experimented with a wide range of phono cartridge types. I started with the Shure V15-Type II which didn't have the ultimate tracking prowess of the later V15 Type III but had a more convincing organic quality than any moving magnet cartridge after it. Getting a V15 Type III was one of my earliest cues that the industry's single-minded chase for resolution didn't always deliver a holistically improved outcome. The V15-Type IV ended that vector. The last moving magnet cartridge I bought was the excellent Signet TK10, which I still have and use occasionally. Coincidentally, I dove into Denon moving coils early. Denon DL103D and several other 103 versions have been in my systems continuously since 1974. I've been down several Ortofon MC vectors along with early Koetsu and Supex, and the 80s Accuphase and Monster jewel cantilever moving coils. After that I pretty much peeled away from the general trend of making LPs sound more like CDs all through the 90s and the 00s. 35 years ago I also experimented with the immediacy of the Win Strain Gauge, the Stax Electrostatic cartridge and the Micro Acoustics electrets. And I wrangled the Decca London. Over the past 15 years as my systems moved to SET amplification and crossoverless speakers, I revived my interest in my very early exposure to the Ortofon SPU series -- not state of the art trackers but in the right tonearm, profoundly musical and engaging. Going upmarket pricewise in moving coils, from Zu103, meant for me a few different SPUs rather than one or more digital-like Lyras, Shelters, Clearaudios or the more self-consciously-voiced-but-beautiful modern Koetsu.
So it shouldn't be surprising that a more perfect strain gauge is intrinsically interesting to me. I've heard the Soundsmith strain gauge system at shows, and because of the associated gear and the show conditions what I heard was neither off-putting in any way nor compelling enough to dump my moving coils and phono preamps in favor of the strain gauge. Tracking and event immediacy are startlingly good. Sonic textures are rendered in very high resolution. I did not hear the world-beating dimensioning described in some reviews, but no surprise given the show conditions. Some of its tonality rang a little false or evaporated. But as Peter plainly says, nothing is perfect, including his strain gauge system. It is for example uncanny in floating a voice out of silence. The lack of noise in the system is a huge advantage over most RIAA phono preamps. But it still lacks some of the resonance of "the whole pipe" of the human body as an element of voice. On the other hand, I have never heard the Soundsmith Strain Gauge system in my systems, nor in any SET amplifier/crossoverless hifi resembling Audion transparency and speed with Zu revelation and shove. That could make all the difference.
I'm not in a hurry; reason being that the strain gauge is a system. It uproots the whole moving coil investment. I'm wired for variety. Not long ago, someone I will charitably refer to as a "hifi enthusiast' posited that if I was really serious about audio I'd sell both my systems and "buy one great one." Sort of reminded me of the person who visited years ago only to tell me that if I was really serious about hifi I wouldn't have a coffee table in my living room where my primary system is located. Morgan got the Pappy's 23 Years; those guys didn't even get the Buffalo Trace leftover from the last Zu party!
All the cash allocated into one pair of speakers, one preamp, one pair of mono power amps, one digital source, one turntable/tonearm/cartridge, one phono preamp, one cable loom, etc. Yup, it would be easy enough to turn both my Luxman PD444s and my Garrard 401, plus six tonearms and 20 cartridges and four phono preamps and four MC transformers into enough cash to buy a Brinkmann Oasis or even AMG V12 + a strain gauge system. Maybe I should. But these things have to be considered purchases. There's a reason Denon moving coils have been in my systems without a break for 39 years an counting. Why an Ortofon SPU sounds even more inspiring today than it did when I first knew I was hearing one in 1967.
I just had a few $5,000 - $15,000 phono preamps through for audition, which was enlightening primarily for reminding me how flawed most gear is. The common error designers seem vulnerable to is using premium economics to create extreme competence in one or two traits, at the expense of balance. And reviewers tend to reward this. The phono preamp on the upper end of that range isn't going to find its way into either of my systems.
This morning I listened to 1970s/early 80s recordings by David Bromberg, Norman Blake, John Fahey, Gene Clark, Ry Cooder, Eric Bibb, the great Doc Watson. Guitar players all; that was just a thread I got on for a few hours. I've had guitars under my fingers for 45 years. I know acutely what acoustic guitars sound like, acoustically. Not quacky piezo-pickup acoustics that people now *think* is the sound of an acoustic guitar, but a real acoustic guitar with bronze strings moving the air between it and your ears. Cartridges were SPU Synergy and DL103D into ZYX Artisan 2 phono preamp, and SPU Meister Silver into Cinemag 1131 Blue xformer, into Audion Premier tube phono preamp. All that into Melody Pure Black 101 line pre driving Audion Golden Dream PSET amps, driving Druid Vs. There wasn't nearly enough wrong to be eager for upheaval, and more than plenty right to eschew it.
Spirit, when you hear the Soundsmith strain gauge in a dealer setting, it's going to be fantastic in specific ways. But it is what it is -- a system. High compliance, so you need a low-to-medium mass tonearm. No mixing/matching cartridge traits to preamps. It will certainly be highly resolving. The audiophile's hungry ear will be fed. Listen for holistic representation and balance, evaluating for a smooth polar graph of qualities in your imagination. And if it compels you, tell us. If you just have to have it and money cascades out of your wallet right on the spot, send us the YouTube link for the video!
Phil |
GB,
You can expect brand new 845B tubes to be improving for the next 150 hours or so. Some congestion in the lower midrange should fade away; deep bass will tighten up some, and the top end will open gradually. They're a little chalky fresh out of the box.
Just as my high silver content 300B PSET amps are more resolving than the silver wired 845s, I expect your Frankensteins to maintain an edge in resolution. That's the nature of 300B vs. 845. How much you value that over the large dynamic advantage of the Black Shadow is up to you.
The B tube lowers the center of gravity for tonality a bit. The stock A tube has annoying glare but if you find you want to shift the tonal center upward in your room, more akin to the Frankensteins, the cheap vehicle is the cryogenically-treated 845A, which shaves off that tube's glare and gooses its jump factor. The more expensive and refined vehicles are the Canada Fuller GX and new Shuguang premium graphite plate tubes. And the one that will give the most 300B-like resolution with seemingly MgHz extension is the KR 845, which Audion's owner says is a drop-in replacement.
The input and driver tubes that Sean shipped are way above stock but those positions also give you "dials" so once you settle on what you're hearing and know what delta you want to close compared to what you want, get in touch and I can give you specific recommendations.
Have fun!!! You have three different aural "flavors" of amplification there to explore, and each is a great representative of its genre: transformerless push-pull, small audio SET, big-glass transmitting tube SET.
Phil |
>>Magico/Constellation Audio sounded better at the last HE show than Zu/Audion- admittedly under show conditions and in different rooms<<
No kidding. Uh...the Zu room was absent anything more than casual (and asymmetrical) setup, and the source was a Zu-modded Technics SL1200 with an Audiomods Rega-derived tonearm and $695 Zu cartridge.
The Magico/Constellation sounded different, that's for sure. And all the annoying crossover traits were loudly present and accounted for. As was true for Focal, Wilson, Vandersteen et al. Imagined flat response didn't make up for it.
Audio Note has 2-way speakers designed for corner placement, with a designer's highly idiosyncratic voicing. That's a polarizing sound and one that isn't accommodating of a wide range of musical genres. It neither represents the widebander & crossoverless Zu approach nor the highly-engineered multi-way and crossover-intensive Magico.
There *are* comparatively well-executed crossover-based speakers. There *are* comparatively badly-executed crossoverless widebanders. Nevertheless, designers of crossover-intensive speakers have been unable eliminate crossover sound, whereas wideband crossoverless designs have improved dramatically and quickly, so that frequency deviations are now quite small and usually in domestically favorable ways. No speaker is linear in actual use. In fact I will go further and say that the crossover artifacts are becoming *more* apparent, not less, as drivers and systems become steadily more resolving -- including resolving that problem. If crossoverless designs hadn't gotten so much better in the last decade, I'd still be listening to crossover-based speakers, too. But now I don't have to, and none of the rest of Zu owners are either.
EVERY speaker requires careful amp matching to get the best performance from it, if you are chasing convincing musicality rather than confirmation of anechoic measure.
When you hear Zu's Dominance, you will understand how laggard Magico really is.
Phil |
Warren,
The Koln concert. (I can't recall how to get an umlaut over that "o" on my PC in a web data field.)
The vinyl is great. The CD has some glare but a good DAC can leaven that.
Phil |
>>...but within the first hour of listening to the Audions I heard a "phasey" annoying brightness on certain piano recordings...<<
Jordan,
Not surprising. I have to ask: Are you driving your amps directly from your DAC? The tubes selected for the Black Shadows you bought presume a preamp as the feeder. I'll wait for your answer to say more. But overall you can expect some inconsistent anomalies from the 845Bs when they are brand new, including a short period of noisiness.
It's also worth investigating how your system responds to altering the gain relationship between the driving source and the power amps. Since you have 0.7v input sensitivity, almost anything before the amps with a volume control will work better with the amp inputs dialed back. In the case of a strong preamp, the amp input level controls would be quite attenuated. I generally prefer to use as much of the preamp gain as possible and minimize SET noise by running the amp inputs dialed back. With the Melody preamps, the Audion input levels are only at 9 o'clock. With lower gain preamps they'd be around the noon position. In any case, optimizing the distribution of gain for both noise and sound is worth exploring, as it can fine tune how the input section of the amps respond to what's incoming.
In general, I find Audion amps, though they have the input sensitivity to be *easily* driven by even a weak output source, to sound more authentic driven by a tube preamp. The 845 amp doesn't even get along with a TVC as well as Audion's 300B SET and PSET amps either. It's OK with a TVC but by contrast my Golden Dream amps are synergistic with a TVC. However, the choice of input tube can mitigate source-drive traits if you choose not to run a preamp, and the 5687/ec182cc driver has a lot of leverage on tuning the aural properties of the power tube. You only have three tubes to roll, but that's a tidy triplet of indices for bending sonics to your satisfaction cues.
Phil |
>>"Koln Concert", a favorite of mine, the piano was difficult to listen to at normal listening levels.<<
I thought this was interesting, so I got both my original vinyl and later CD copies of Koln Concert to listen to on Black Shadows/Def4s. It's been a years since I listened to this on Black Shadows and never have on Def4s. The reason is that I mostly listen to piano on my Druids system, and that is powered by the Audion 300B PSET amps, which have KR Audio 300B tubes installed.
For anyone who doesn't know, Jarret's "Koln Concert" is a live recording at the opera house in Koln, Germany, in 1975. It was a startlingly clear recording when it was released, having come out smack in the middle of the junk vinyl era after the first Arab oil embargo and the general 70s assault on quality on just about everything. Atypical for the era, the surface is very quiet. Before audiophile LPs went mainstream with Sinatra and classic rock, this was about as good as a common record store disc got. This is an excellent recording and I'm glad Jordan brought it up because more people ought to know it and use it to get familiar with new gear. The piano is quite close-mic'd and the recording gives you some idea of why clean dynamic power helps even a solo piano recording, all other things being reasonably equal. Even then, on the not-as-wide-bandwidth speakers of the mid-70s, the recording sounded assertive and shifted somewhat bright. Not at all ever harsh but it nakedly lays open the tonality, transients and dynamics of an open concert piano.
Koln Concert was one of the first recordings I listened to on Definition 1.5s back in 2005. Played loud, this recording excited enough of that speaker's untamed MDF cabinet talk to limit pleasing SPLs. It was how I first noticed Def1.5's mid-to-treble glare. Of course at the same time, Druid v3.5's darkness over-tamed the recording, rendering it beautiful in an amber way but not quite revealed for what is in the groove. Druid 4-08 handled it quite nicely, for balance and transmitting the smack of the mic'ing arrangement. Def2 gave it a fairly objective reading with some tonal forgiveness thrown in by virtue of its midrange recession.
I listened today on Druids/Audion PSET 300B first, because that's how I've listened to the recording exclusively over the past few years, with Druid V being the voicing speaker since last autumn. I also listen to this now and then on Stax headphones driven by a vintage Stax tube energizer/preamp. That's always a good linear check on whether anything downstream of the source is telling the truth or not. The brightness intrinsic to the clarity and mic placement (and the quality of the mics themselves) is there no matter what I've ever played the recording on, BUT it's not objectionable *to me* because that's how I came to understand the recording to represent the performance from the start. Put another way, if I'd had my ears where the mics were placed in 1975, I feel pretty certain I'd have heard a similar glare where the recording has them too.
So after listening to the vinyl copy, I went to the CD. My CD copy is a Japanese SHM-CD print from maybe 10 years ago or so -- whenever SHM first appeared. It is clearly mastered a little differently than the vinyl LP, sounding somewhat less immediate and focused though quite beautiful for CD. Its perspective is a bit back and away from the soundboard, and the spikey glare of the sharpest piano notes in the first cut aren't as peaky nor is there all the graceful decay of the analog pressing. Stax again to verify, then moved both recordings over to Def4/Black Shadow.
The "phasey" part might be new tubes limbering in. The brightness -- all there and I can imagine new 845Bs aggravating it some. I put a softer-sounding rectifier in my preamp and changed out my Siemens CCa input tubes for the milder and more euphonic RCA 6922s. Hmm...just like dialing back the midrange tone control a skosh on a Marantz 1060 integrated amp. Then I also pulled the muscular NOS Tung-Sol 5687 drivers, subbing in the Buick-ride, whitewall Raytheons. Shaved the remaining glare right off while still keeping the essence of piano chime, making everything more distant.
So to me, the Audion amps and the truth-telling Def4s are playing what's there. But the recording is vivid and not leavened for a distant audience perspective. No doubt, if you'd been in the 5th row of the opera that night in 1975, your experience of the sound projection would have been quite different from someone else in the 25th. This recording forces you near the stage.
I went back to the Druids/300B system. I replaced the x-ray KR 300Bs with the willfully euphonic Sophia mesh plates. More mist and romance but the brightness persists. I changed phono cartridges from the agile Denon 103D to Ortofon SPU Synergy. Whoa, Baby -- did that piano suddenly get Way Huge, Dude! All the SPU glories in heaps but no getting away from the mic'ing. Going back to the CD, I replaced the vivid Bendix 2c51 output tubes in my DAC with the creamy Hytron 5670s. There's that magic Marantz midrange tone control again, dialed back just a bit.
The Black Shadows have all-silver signal paths and those amps had the Nichicon power supply recap. They're not going to be hiding much about the essence of a recording and neither are Def4s. But if you hear a pattern of recording traits that seem worth shaping in your environment, the small glass are the tack hammers; the 845 is the sledge.
Phil |
>>Input tubes on the BS's are the Amperex White Label 6922 (I think?).<<
Against type, Sean tubes Audions for some reticence. All of the Amperex 6922s are quite nice; beautiful sounding, really. But they are polite and smooth, not vivid and dynamic like the Siemens, Siemens-Halske and Valvo e88cc and CCA tubes. That's what I use for a more bursty, incisive sound from the amps, to the extent the input tube influences the output. The 5687/e182cc driver tube has more leverage over how the 845B sounds. The NOS Tung-Sol 5687 and the Mullard NOS e182cc wake up the big graphite plate B tube compared to milder versions, and the scarce and expensive (but long life) Bendix/Mu 6900 is the most aggressive and vivid driver I've found so far. Depending on how hungry your room is, that's either a great benefit or a step too far.
Overall, patience is advised at this stage. Especially when you are knowingly hearing gains and reversals. It was so much easier earlier in audio life to not notice, not care or not have downstream speakers to reveal such things...
Phil |
>>I'm just saying (as Srajan did before) that just because a speaker doesn't have a crossover, doesn't mean it's better than others.<<
There's an error here that is a misstatement of what's actually been said by me and others about crossoverless speakers. At no point has it been written here that one speaker is better than another just because of being crossoverless. In fact, I've written explicitly that there are poorly-executed crossoverless speakers and well-executed crossover-based ones. Zu's breakthrough has been that it has demonstrated that a crossoverless speaker can be built to the frequency accuracy standards claimed for crossover-intensive/multi-driver speakers, while crossover-based speakers have not been made that shed, prevent or eschew the deleterious effects of passive dividing networks.
There was a time that in order to gain the clear advantages in unity and holistic projection of a crossoverless speaker, you had to accept fundamental and often distracting compromises in the essentials of fidelity. And some still chose to do that. Zu and others are meeting or beating the crossover adherents at their claimed "accuracy" game while delivering unity behaviors and resulting sonics not attainable from dividing networks feeding several disparate drivers.
Phil |
|
In HT2.0, Definition 4 excels. Frankly, all Definition versions work beautifully in HT2.0 / 2ch Music applications. The dual FRD array truncates floor and ceiling effects, and induces horizontal spread considerably wider than the single FRD Zu speakers, which do pretty well in HT2.0 since the introduction of the Nano FRD. My primary system does double 2ch Music/HT2.0 duty and I have richly-dimensioned movie sound from any viewing position, even seriously off-axis. Dialog is unerringly anchored to the lips of the actor speaking regardless where the character is moving on screen. The down-firing FRD evenly loads the room with deep, impactful bass, and locational cues are only somewhat less dimensional and directional than 5.1 or 7.1. The only thing you don't get is the helicopter flying in from behind you.
I have zero multi-channel envy with movie sound over Definitions. My room has the speaker centers 9' apart. In the sweet spot, it's 10.5' from each ear to each respective baffle. Toe-in is not severe, placing the imaginary X point ~1-1/2' behind my head. The spread of soundtrack distribution is broad and has 3D sense even from a severely off-axis viewing position. 2ch Music is completely uncompromised by this.
Phil |
>>Def4 users, can you post your setup arrangements?<<
9' and inches apart, each baffle 11.25' to listener's skull centerpoint.
The snap point for focus will be room dependent, and there is a dial between scale and pinpoint focus, which is normal. In any case, for the vast majority of recordings, you have no idea what's "right." There's a lot of latitude for preference in this. You don't mention toe-in, which in many installations will have a greater effect on perception of focus/scale, than the width and listening distance proportions.
Phil |
>>Can an amp be more earthy, bass orientated, and still present more treble info?<<
Yes, I have this argument all the time with people I don't think are listening carefully enough. There is a difference between the apparent extension of an amp that has unnatural transient emphasis, especially on the top end, and an amp that is midrange-tone focused with very good bass underpinning while nevertheless not obscuring actual event information. Amps especially are highly varied in their presentation of information, even when they measure pretty much the same.
I've heard some....well....shocking of presentation characteristics in well-regarded amps simply losing (or really, simply obscuring) event information despite the fact that sharp sparkle was present. There are a lot of ostensibly good amps that simply get presentation wrong, so everything sounds more hifi than natural.
Phil |
>>...this is the second time the 4s have been described as lean-sounding, first by Roy Gregory in his Audio Beat web review, and now by you.<<
The Def4s are not "lean" sounding. They are just more objective than most of what passes for a listenable speaker in the price range, and much less artificial than the many crossover-based competitors with tilted up detail and treble gloss that isn't present in actual acoustic instruments.
If Druid V is your reference, Def4 is "lean." But it's Druid V that has the contributing error (though a euphonic one), not Def4. Now Def4's slight midrange recession is less present than in Def2, and particularly because of the extended beauty of the Radian 850, Def4 can make a difficult solid state amp listenable in a way that it would not be on Def2. Such an amp is generally lean itself. A relatively objective triode amp, like a Coincident 300B or Audion Golden Dream running KR 300B tubes will nicely maintain Def4's objectivity.
The larger problem with leanness is the rest of the audio chain. Almost every modern phono cartridge has a lean recession. All but a very few solid state amps have it. Nearly every Delta-Sigma DAC at any price is guilty. And then it's a sonic bias built into the majority of our current recordings. Between the modern propensity in hifi to sacrifice tone in exchange for unnatural detail, and relative slowness, unintegrated behaviors, and real-world colorations in the vast majority of speakers people hear and buy, it's easy to imagine why some people hear Def4 as "lean," but reality is context makes all the difference.
Phil |
>>....who loved the system for it's dynamic range, bass impact and transparency, REALLY felt there was a shortfall in vocals solidity and tone. Me? I heard it, but it had to be pointed out to me, and even then didn't jar me in the least, but realised there was scope for improvement - is this a function of possible lack of tonal density or harmonic development in the mids as a product of ss amps thru the 4s?<<
Yes. This is almost always the case, even with an otherwise convincing solid state amp, and not just on Zu. I've heard only two solid state amps that don't tone bleach and at least slightly desiccate vocals and midrange acoustics generally. One is the First Watt SIT-1, which sounds very similar to a very good (but not great) single ended triode tube implementation. Compared to your Radia, you would hear this as a slight thickening of tonal body and density. This the SIT-1 does in a good way. The other transistor amp that doesn't lean out vocals and midrange information changes the presentation in a bad way. The Valvet Class A monoblocks congeal midrange sound like a 1990s Cary 805 SET and blur both event and tone composition information, to the point of seeming to simply miss some event content in the music. This was highly surprising and compromising to an amp that is otherwise smooth, energetic and compact, if harmonically arid on the top end. I expected to find it convincing and instead found it glaringly distracting for what it concealed in recordings I know well.
>>So, my qs are ahead of my two week stint with Audion Black Shadows and NAT SE2 SE SET demos - do I need to adjust my attitude to listening to 'get' the SET sound, or just let things wash over me for that period? Is this apparent wispiness to vocals a function of ss amps, that likely will be corrected by SETs? Is my analysis correct that SETs re-emphasise the bass qualities of the presentation, but this enhances rather than obscures mids and treble, despite not striking me this way to begin with?<<
Unfortunately, nothing in high end is not "voiced" in some way by its designer. Sometimes a little, often quite a lot to the point of the designer bending the sound of music to his presentation biases. But that written, generally for a listener conditioned to push-pull and solid state amplification can find SET as initially disorienting as a listener conditioned to crossover-intensive speakers can find a phase-coherent, crossoverless speaker like Zu.
We live in an era when most recordings take tonal weight and harmonic completeness out of a human voice, and then the transistor amplification that prevails, along with speaker crossovers do the same damage again and again. Find some recordings from the '50s and early '60s, before rampant multi-tracking and when consoles were still mostly tubed and mic techniques were kept simple, so hear authentic voice and instrument recordings.
I think it is fair to say that initial exposure to SET sound will drive a perception that the center of gravity in sound spectrum presentation has shifted lower. But less so with Audion than any other SET implementation and even then, this is highly dependent on tube selection. A Black Shadow will not sound shifted in this way with an 845C or KR tube. It may, to you, with any of the Chinese graphite plate tubes, to varying degrees. Even cryo treatment will alter how you perceive this.
However, play a recording with little or no bass information below 100Hz and, no, the center of gravity shift isn't vivid at all. In some amps the bass focus is because of rising harmonic distortion below 75 or 100HZ and when that's true you're electing to live with an anomaly to gain other advantages elsewhere. In such a case, Def4 has great tenability below 60Hz to settle those effects. In other cases, the better SET amps change your sense of bass presence, particularly with acoustic bass, because you are getting much more tonal character from the instrument (or, for instance with electric bass, from or about the amp's sound and the speaker motor & cone). On many transistor amps, bass sounds tight and strong, but also generic. It's not as easy to hear the differences between Fender Precision into an SWR amp vs. an Alembic. But the fuller character of each, along with the players' techniques, will be better resolved and revealed.
You just have to approach an SET audition expecting to lose a little of a few things to gain a lot of others. With Definitions however, you need any SET main power amps to have exceptional bass. The Def4 sub-bass module takes its input from the output of the main amps. So while its a Class D amp that is moving the 12" sub, it is doing so while carrying the sonic characteristics of the full-frequency amp that is feeding it. A bloaty SET amp that might work ok on Druids or Superfly will be harmfully thick and full on Defs of any vintage.
If SET is a new experience to you, listen and play, and if you plunge in, accept that you're going to be experimenting with some tube combinations. A Black Shadow or Golden Dream measure pretty much the same with different tubes but the actual presentation effects can be widely different as glass is varied.
With the NAT's, I am not surprised you felt the sonic center of gravity descended.
Good luck, have fun, and regardless of the outcome enjoy hearing some of your music in a new way.
Phil |
I don't have extensive experience with the NAT amps but when I've heard them, they were energetic but totally dark and while relatively quite good they did not exhibit to me the same league of speed & transparency that distinguishes Audion. That said, I again caution that while the frequency response of various 845 tube types in a given circuit are not meaningfully different, the presentation of detail, harmonic presence and events vary noticeably by power tube choice, so if you like the NAT for specific reasons it is possible that any shortcomings can be addressed by different tubes. NAT sounded more like Melody than Audion in my listening. How one perceives bass imaging is hard to anticipate without knowing their room.
The Black Shadow transmits excellent bass character but it isn't the last word in bass slam and shove. The Audion 845 has a lighter, faster step, better for resolving texture, differences in instrument materials and playing techniques. If electronica or EDM is your measure for convincing bass, then other options with more push and less nuance might impress you more wrt bass. However, the fleetness and agility of Audion prevails up and down the frequency range and for that you get more illumination and beauty from Audion than NAT.
Your Hovland tube preamp will mate well with the Black Shadows. It's possible you'll prefer different tubes in it with the Audion than with your Radia, and even the choice of 845 glass may alter your preference for preamp tubes. For reasons I haven't yet determined, I find my Black Shadows much less compatible with a TVC than are my 300B PSET Golden Dream monoblocks. My S&B-based (pre Music First) TVC is sonically synergistic with the Golden Dreams but I've never found it equal to a good active tube preamp with Black Shadows. Maybe you'll have a different conclusion.
The Audion line stage matches well, of course. It shares the speed, agility, tone density and transparency of Audion tube power amps.
One thing: the Black Shadows have input level controls and the amps have input sensitivity of 0.7v for full power out. So you need to scrub off some gain. Since SET amps aren't completely silent like your SS Radia, generally the best way to run a preamp with Audion amps is to turn the input level control down quite low, where you have great range of utility in the rotation of the preamp volume control, rather than to run the amps wide open and have little useful rotation on the preamp volume. Play with the gain relationship until it sounds best. With my Melody P2688 preamp, my Black Shadow input level pots are set at 9 o'clock. With my Audion preamp they were at 12 o'clock high.
Phil |
Spirit,
With small glass preamps, the question is, are you a vintage Telefunken or vintage Siemans listener?
Back in the day of early High End, when Absolute Sound was getting started, we used to resolve this question in the Audio Research SP3, SP3a, SP3a-1 by putting Telefunken (back then it wasn't "NOS" it was just Telefunken) glass in the phono section and Siemens in the high level, though you might reverse that depending on your phono cartridge. Now you're usually dealing just in line level pre amplification.
Of course there was room for the Mullard, RCA, Osram, Valvo and Mazda midpoints. The 50s Teles should be musically convincing and tone-rich in that pre.
You can adjust the Audion input & driver tubes in the same fashion, and use the leverage of the 845 to dial in the amps. You'll probably set the Black Shadows with base 845A tubes, which deliver an upper midrange/low top glare. If you hear that try to listen around it and if you report what you heard otherwise I can suggest some tube combos that bring it (or other 845 amps) in line with your preferences in presentation and tonal composition.
Phil |
>>...the Telefunken route for the Hov pre after hearing my desire for speed and transparency rather than a traditional warm, fuzzy tube sound....<<
Telefunken NOS tubes don't yield fuzzy but I wouldn't have sent you on that path for speed and transparency. Generally, would take the Siemens route for that. But the tone density of the TFs should be great in that preamp, and it's a fast circuit anyway.
>>The NATs were very muscular, propulsive, without an inch of fat, but more a really pungent red wine type sound. I get the impression the Audions may be more of a refreshing white, but just as potent.<<
I don't generally try to explain audio in food terms. I think the NAT amps are very strong, though "without an inch of fat" wouldn't be my description. But this is very dependent on the tubes chosen. You should find the Audion Black Shadows more agile and resolving, faster and more nuanced but probably overall less weighted. BTW, I think all voicings are colorations -- just judiciously-chosen ones to improve fidelity in real world listening, with real-world recordings.
>>Do you think the Black Shadows will not draw attention to any aspect of the frequency spectrum, and as a result I'll relax into the sound more readily?<<
You will have to listen for yourself, but yes, that is my expectation. BTW, you will not get the best out of Black Shadows with a TVC in front of it. Use an active preamp. For reasons I haven't figured out yet, the Black Shadow specifically tends to sound a little choked with a TVC feeding it. This is not true for the Golden Dreams.
A note on Keith's comments which will illustrate your challenge. I've heard just about every amp he's tried in his room on Def2s and Def4s. *Easily* the biggest sound stage and greatest tonal fidelity in his room was from Def4s driven by Audion Black Shadows, 845B or 845A tube. If I discount tonal fidelity, his McIntosh 601s had a bigger soundstage. Now he didn't hear it the same way. When he talks about SET being "closed-in" with a smaller sound stage and a "warm" sound, I have no idea what he's talking about because everything he's listened to that he described as more open and larger spatially was decidedly smaller, and brighter-than-real with a glaring top-end emphasis for me. He complains that the 845B tube rolls off the top end yet I hear more extended harmonic information from that tube in Audion or Melody amps, than I hear from his Valvet Class A solid state monoblocks. In fact almost everything he likes in amplification is top-end tilted in presentation relative to the sound of real instruments, to me. On the other hand, we both love Zu Def4s for the same reasons. What to make of it? Point is, Spirit, apart from trying to triangulate to an understanding of how you perceive fidelity by the gear, music and tuning experiences you relate, I really have no idea how you're going to hear the amps you audition. I can be sitting right beside Keith and be unable to connect his amplifier preferences to the sound of actual music as I hear it. But we converge on the same speaker and generally are pretty aligned on preamps. We're not widely apart on sources. So what you are going to think eight time zones away from me is only a guess. What Keith and I do agree on with Audion is that his room eats bass and he's had stronger bass amps than the Black Shadows or other SET. His current Valvet Class A amps have very strong bass, for example. I didn't find the latest generation Sophia 845 SET preferable in any way except I'll say it had more energetic deep bass, owing to it's large power supply. But it is a design taken too far -- hard, hammering and overselling at every turn. It has resolution but lost the design's former balance, agility and nuance.
With tube amps, especially SET, you have to try to hear the essential qualities of the amp circuit and its implementation, through the specific traits imposed by the choice of tubes, regardless of basic spec performance being the same. Every one of these things is tunable, but you can't make an Audion SET amp lazy and slow, for instance, nor an Almarra 318A or a Tri amp energetic and fast.
Phil |
>>So can SETs, Audion or NAT in my case, return the presentation to a more tonal mids centred presentation without losing the real cognitive ease I have with the system as is with the Hovlands?<<
Yes. But you can't determine this for sure in a day or two. Essentially, you must listen for reasons to commit and then know you have to take the time to allow power supply break-in, tubes experimentation, and even possibly be prepared to adjust your cables loom or your source. With a Zu speaker, the power amp is the most influential next component and anything you select can disrupt prior choices you made elsewhere in the system, especially if such choices were made in the context of previous crossover-based speakers, solid state components, etc. If some basic element of what you hear in your SET auditions grabs you, then you have to make the jump if you want to get the most out of it. In other words, migrating from the Radia to an Audion SET amp will be a start, not a finish.
In Audion terms, there is great synergy between Black Shadow and its 845 tube, and Definitions (any vintage). But for some the same-power / less-drive Golden Dream 300B PSET amps can be the ticket. Just understand that for Black Shadow alone, the differences in perceived presentation between the 845A, 845A cryo, 845B, NOS RCA or United 845 and KR 845M, for example, can be quite large. If you want a destination amp with no further experimentation needed, then probably stick with what you have because any change in topology is going to set you on a course of discovery, and some disruption to your satisfaction with other aspects of your system. But if you do hear the Audion SET advantage enough to want to take that trip, then know you can bend the aural presentation via a variety of options downstream, or even when you spec a new pair to be built by Graeme's team.
I don't think there's any long term disadvantage to leaving push-pull solid state behind. I haven't changed my power amplification in either my Defs or Druids system since 2005, and it's not because anything was constraining me, other than not having heard anything better. But I bought both of my current monoblock pairs knowing they could be disruptive to some other choices and knowing that from that starting point, I would have to live with them for an extended period of tuning to get them to their best. I had no regrets whatsoever.
Phil |
Spirit,
Sounds like the essence of Audion speed, resolution and tone -- especially when hitched to Zu -- are registering with you. Good start.
Phil |
|
Spirit,
A few items from your SET experiment:
1/ These SET amps, and especially 845 SET, can be sensitive to mechanically-transmitted resonance and vibration. With Black Shadow monoblocks, one tends to place them close to the speakers and run relatively short speaker cables. With Def2's rear-firing sub-bass line array, the problem of mechanical resonance in the deep bass region was easily managed. I found with Def4 and the downfiring 12" sub, that I had to take extra measures to isolate my amps when placed adjacent to my speakers, and this is on a wood composite floor bonded to concrete in a 1-story slab foundation house. If you have suspended flooring, it's worse.
I use Herbie's Audio Lab Iso-Cup/SuperSonic Hardball under my Black Shadows, and Herbie's Medicine Balls under my Audion Golden Dream PSET amps. The difference in bass articulation and bringing bass back into balance is quite large. Without resonance management, the vibration transmitted into the amp induces what sounds exactly like steeply-rising bass harmonic distortion -- euphonically fat until it isn't. You might experiment with this to get the cleanest possible bottom end.
2/ 16/44 digital material definitely has a different top end presentation than analog, and both are highly variable by material as well as the source the system sees. By the latter, I mean that for vinyl analog, phono cartridges and cartridge/tonearm/tt combinations are virtually fixed-paramentric tone and phase controls. There's no objective standard despite the 20Hz-20kHz flat frequency trace that came with your cantilevered transducer. Same is true for DACs. There are some characteristic traits to 16/44, 24/48, 24/96, 24/176 and 24/192 sound, but they all have the potential to sound wrong in some way, as well as right. And Non-OS DACs for 16/44 material sound distinctly different than delta-sigma types. And then 1-bit DSD has its characteristics.
Given that the power tube (particularly) choice in an 845 amp discernibly alters presentation if not response, if you're really fanatic about it, you can listen to analog and digital on different output tubes. It isn't unusual for well-appointed vinyl analog to sound harmonically complete, compared to 16/44 digital. If you have a DAC with multiple filters to select, experiment with those alternatives. You may find that you prefer a different digital filter type for SET than for SS or push-pull tubes. The other thing you might consider is a good Non-OS DAC specifically for 16/44 material.
Phil |
Spirit,
I have listened to Music First copper & silver, S&B-based Django and several DAC-direct examples into Black Shadows and Golden Dreams sans preamp. Into the 300B PSET amps, TVCs were successful -- not better than my preamps but different in interesting ways and essentially silent. On Golden Dream, I can go either way: TVC or a select few active tube preamps. I almost always prefer a preamp over DAC-direct.
On Black Shadow, every TVC I tried was conclusively worse than my Audion, Klimo and Melody active tube preamps. Less shove, less tone density, flat depth dimension, soggier bass, more grain, reduced body & weight. I wasn't hearing the whole note from any instrument. The sound wasn't severely degraded but never equal nor preferable. I can't comment on your dealer preferring TVC with Black Shadow. Moreover, I've had three pair of Black Shadows brought to my systems by other owners to compare against my re-capped amps, and the result was always the same.
Why? I'm not sure, but I haven't really dug into it. I also haven't seen a schematic for these Audion amps. But despite both amps having only 3 tubes, the input and driver stages are different. The Black Shadow uses a 6922-family dual triode at the input position, and a 5687/e182cc dual triode as the driver tube. The Golden Dream has an Audion custom-number CVX100 input and CVX120 driver. Audion makes the claim these are somehow unique. No; they are selected. The input tube is an ec86 single triode and the driver is an e280F pentode. Those are quite different.
The input tubes that the TVC or preamp output sees differ, but both were originally developed for TV use. The 6922 was designed for amplifier duty in VHF/UHF tuners. The ec86, has more gain in a single triode and was intended for high frequency grounded grid amps in television applications. I don't know how Audion has deployed the 6922 dual triode in the Black Shadow. The driver tubes differ in that the 5687 family are dual triode types while the e280f is a pentode. It could be used in pseudo-triode mode. I haven't looked to trace the circuit. In any case, the two input/driver stages may simply present sufficiently different conditions to the source/pre/TVC output to cause what I hear. Audion is incomplete on their specs. The amp input impedances could be different, too.
In any case, I've found TVC superiority over active preamps to be selective and specific to certain amplifiers. For some amps, TVCs are decidedly worse than a very good active preamp, but usually much better than a poor one. For me, TVCs complement the Golden Dream amp yet fail to achieve synergy with the Black Shadow.
Phil |
Chas & GB,
The Audion Elite, as I understand it, was developed to keep the cost of the Black Shadow circuit in check. So it costs less than than a pair of Black Shadows despite having the cost of a third chassis. The Elite doesn't have "an extra power supply," it has a common power supply to both channels and that is isolated in the third chassis. Only audio circuitry is in each L/R chassis.
When I compared an Elite to my Black Shadows, it was tonally almost identical, but it was less punchy and tidal in its dynamics, and the soundstage was somewhat smaller. These were relatively small differences, so for anyone who needs to save the $1500 price diffence, the Elite 3 box 845 will be impressive and outperform almost all other 845 amps I can think of. But the 3-chassis arrangement is a difficult complication for placement.
Each of the three chassis is smaller than the chassis of the Black Shadow. I didn't get inside Elite and never got a clear answer from Audion about whether the power supply is just smaller than that in Black Shadows but still using two power transformers, or just one common transformer. I think it's the latter. Less than 2 lbs. separates the total packages by weight, though. Audion's own catalog describes the Elite as the "budget version" of the Black Shadow, though when it debuted, Black Shadow was discontinued and Elite was positioned as its successor. Popular demand for the real thing brought it back. Regardless, Elite sounded a step behind in direct comparison to its big monoblock brother.
Phil |
>>To ad to Charles's thought, adding an additional chassis should raise production costs in itself.<<
If everything else is the same, yes. But if the collective power supply components are smaller and less costly, there may be net savings.
I bought, direct from Audion, what were claimed to be the last two Black Shadows produced at that time. The amps were announced discontinued with a replacement coming "soon." This was during the time Audion was changing from steel to aluminum chassis for the whole line, with an easier-to-build design and somewhat more contemporary aesthetics and improved interior layouts. When the new 845 amp was released, it was the three box Elite. For awhile, Black Shadow was represented as no longer in production, though there were hints that it might be possible to get a special order pair built. Interestingly, Golden Dreams, steel chassis and all the rest, never left the catalog.
After another change in US importers, the current agent advocated for restoring the monoblock pairs configuration and I was aware people elsewhere around the globe wanted it back, too. the Black Shadow was reborn. I assume the Elite version remains in the line as long as build stock exists, given the slim $1500 difference. There's no other reason I can see to keep it at such a relatively small savings over Black Shadow monoblocks.
Phil |
Spirit,
The only changes I made to my Black Shadows were 1/ tubes, and 2/ recapped the power supplies with Nichicon. Bob Hovland did the work, but he and I both agreed on Nichicon because our mutual experience was that when caps are similar rating and materials, taller/thinner proportions tend to sound "faster" in discharge/recharge. We got what we anticipated, and then some.
It's only recently that Audion offered (at least promotionally) the Golden Dream "Levels" on Black Shadow. Level 5 Black Shadow has silver signal path wiring. As you pay for progressively higher levels of execution, you get upgraded caps (I think Audion still has a stash of Black Gates, for example, and I think Graeme will take any spec right up to Duelund) at progressively higher prices. You can also proceed up the ramp of silver content: from silver signal path you can add silver wound output transformer secondaries, then primaries, then full silver even in the power transformers.
Is it worth it? My Golden Dreams are Level 6. I'd say yes. I will probably wait for any upgrade there until I can drain the bank for a $36,000 pair of Golden Dreams Level 9.
When I was running the company, I commissioned my tech team to develop and build the Seymour Duncan Zephyr silver coil guitar pickups. I had a pair of identical test bed guitars built from the same board, body and neck, so we could play a reference pickup and a design change in direct comparison.
I knew from my Audion amps that the sonic value of silver in coils was far more uniformly favorable than silver in cables. Guitar players were skeptical, citing the relatively small conducting difference between copper and silver. But the first listening and playing test of silver against copper on the same bobbins and installed in the two identical guitars made the burstiness, responsiveness, frequency range and tone density of silver pickups immediately obvious to everyone. Vibrant, tone-drenched copper of the same pickup design sounded suddenly dull and truncated by comparison.
There was a lot of fear among my staff that silver would amount to a "hifi" pickup. "Hifi" is a perjorative in the distortion-oriented electric guitar world where amp designers generally don't want anything over 4kHz coming out of the speaker, unless it's for an acoustic guitar amp.
I didn't think sterile, wideband, toneless, hifi sound would be the result and it wasn't. People who thought that were extrapolating their experience with silver guitar cables. Not the same thing. In coils, I have always found silver to improve clarity, speed, transient shove and tone-density all at the same time. Interestingly, what silver pickups did for intentional guitar distortion was to make it richer, more expressive and harmonically more complete. My tech team found some other contributing synergies in using glass-fiber-nylon for the bobbin, machining bi-metallic pole pieces, and then we tested another hifi practice -- cryogenic treatment. Every change was play-tested in isolation. So, for example, cryo improved a stock copper pickup in the same way it improved silver.
A few professional players who live with pickups for a generation returned a verdict: best pickup they ever heard.
Downside, they're damned expensive, so limited in appeal. But they are worth the price for any player who can afford them. Having worked through the economics of building a tiny guitar pickup around silver, I easily appreciate how amps in distribution can get expensive so quickly as silver content heads toward the full coil and wire package.
If I were buying Black Shadows today, I'd go as high in Audion's "Level" scheme as wallet allows, and not look back. If you already understand the Black Shadows as I do, then however high you buy into, it will be all good.
Phil |
Marc,
The initial "Mk 2" Audion Black Shadows were transitional and didn't have new nameplates. With some further work, the full Mk2 shipped with the nameplates, and in Audion parlance, these became "'Mark 2, Mark 2."
What you have is excellent in its own right; don't worry about it.
Phil |
3' from front walls should be no problem. My Def4s are closer. The side walls proximity is more likely to alter your sound in ways both noticeable to you and that you might feel need to be managed. You also will probably have to alter your sub settings, as you will be close enough to the corners for horn/corner effects to be heard.
Key is, we all have to deal with the rooms we have unless we build custom rooms around a system. So there are going to be some differences changing placement to accommodate a large screen. It's pointless to obsess on the immediate differences that register to you in contrast to placement you just migrated from. Live with it and adapt where you can to make up the differences, and where you can't let the new reality sink in. Adding substantial screen real estate to a room & system tuned for hifi, comes with some compromises in most domestic settings.
Phil |
John,
1) Can you offer an opinion comparing the Def 4 to the 10c?
Different machines. My main reservation to the Sanders and all prior mixed-driver speakers is the dynamic mismatch between (in this case) the 10" transmission line bass element and the ES panels. It's distracting to me and no one has ever really closed the gap. But if you don't notice it, the Sanders is quite good.
The Zu, however, is 7db more efficient, and that gives them a sense of bursty dynamic life the Sanders doesn't really match. The Sanders has an advantage in sheer articulation, but most hifi is over-articulate compared to how real instruments sound at listening distances. I've been a long-term ESL listener and all I can tell you is that after landing on Definitions, I have no reason to go back. You might prefer to continue.
2) Has Sean settled on caps? Apologies if this is already answered; haven't gotten all the way through the thread.
Sean will never "settle" on caps. It's a continuous improvement investigation. For now, Clarity is standard.
3) Which caps do you think sound best in the Def 4 context?
There's no one answer. Like speed, how much do you want to pay? Clarity MR are quite good, after a long burn-in. If price is no object, Duelund should have your attention.
4) Any additional considerations you believe I should investigate beyond your original list?
Better to ask questions.
Phil |
>Guys, does anyone have any experience of running a TVC passive pre, either with the Zu's, or generally? My Audion SET amps dealer is a massive fan of them, but prevailing opinions esp Phil 213Cobra, maintains it's a misfire.<<
It's not bad, but not as good as it should be. I used an S&B-based TVC with Audion Golden Dream monoblocks for a couple of years, and it was clearly better mated to that amplifier than to the Audion Black Shadow. I had three different TVCs through my systems and found this to be consistently so. I couldn't explain it on input stage impedance specs alone.
On the other hand, the TVC is a great match to Quad II monoblocks. With all the Audion SET amps I've owned, a well-selected active preamp easily trumped a TVC, except with the Golden Dream 300B PSET amps, in which case, the TVC has some advantages in immediacy if not dynamics.
My TVC is on a shelf. It's my backup preamp. I returned active preamps to both systems.
But try one. It might float you.
Phil |
>Phil, is there a way to identify which version of the super tweeter is in my Def3's?
It tends to get bright to me especially at louder volumes.
Do you think a cap upgrade would help with this? Thanks, scott<<
Yes; call Gerritt or Sean at Zu. Seriously. Especially on the very low production models.
What is your amp? If the Def3 supertweeter sounds bright to you, a cap upgrade will definitely help, but if you talk with Sean and tell him what you're experiencing, a small value change to the cap may be in order as well.
Phil |
|
Dentdog,
What are the dimensions of your listening space, and how far from the speakers is your listening position?
Phil |
Dentdog,
Your room isn't very different dimensionally from the room my Definitions system is used in. That room's dimensions are 21' x 14' x 8-1/2', and it's in an open plan house, so there are substantial non-bounded openings on two sides. I listen 10-1/2' from the speakers.
It's difficult to know for certain what is aggressive to you vs. me. However, I've never hit any practical limit with my 24w Audion Black Shadow monoblocks (845 power tube). Same with my 24w Audion Golden Dream 300B PSET amps. If they were double that output, it would only yield a 3db difference. My room clips before the amp is the major problem.
You will always hear the limits of an expensive amp in some way. It might be dynamics. It might be sudden onset of harsh, odd harmonics clipping. It might be in terms of the definition and tone you sacrificed in exchange for more power. You also should consider whether you in the past have used volume to try to find more detail in your system. Many people do this without realizing and then find that they listen at lower SPLs after one or more upgrades. Hard to say. But if you truly fear that Black Shadows won't be enough, then you probably will need to make the jump to push-pull in the 80-120w range. An Audio Research REF75, for instance, using the KT150 tube, Quad Two-Eighty monoblocks, many other choices and all different presentation than Audion.
Line Magnetic amps are well built and sonically robust. They don't have the same speed and transparency as Audion's SET and P-P circuits but certainly very credible if you like their more old-school tube sound. That line is not my sonic recommendation, but there's nothing wrong with considering them from a quality of execution standpoint.
Keep in mind that Definitions have a powered sub-bass section where the sub amp's input is derived from the main amp output signal. One effect is this relieves the main power amp from having to drive large amplitude deep bass. The speaker's parametric settings will determine how work is divided between amps there, but nominally your tube amp will be doing very little muscling below about 35-40 Hz.
Phil
|
I have had the Melody M845 in my own systems for extended audition, with the specific mission to get it as close to the Audion Black Shadow as possible, through tube rolling.
These amps are made to a very high standard of build quality. The stock-tubed M845 is not nearly as fast, dynamic and transparent as Audion, but they are half the price, hence their attraction. The stock tubes afflict the amp with an old school, rolled-off, lazy sound, leaving the sonic gulf between M845 and Black Shadows enormous and out of scale to the price difference. Fortunately, you can close the gap considerably by ditching the stock tubes in favor of vastly-better replacements.
Working back from the power tube, the ubiquitous and prosaic Shuguang 845A stock tube has good dynamic shove, but it has a dry, chalky character with a stunted top end. If you needed to stay cheap, getting cryogenically-treated 845A improves things but you can do much better. The cryogenically-treated newest Psvane 845 (it's a "B-type" diskless-top carbon plate) extends the treble, opens up the sound and gives bass more discipline and depth. For an even more transients speed and transparency in the vein of Audion, us the newest 100w dissipation Shuguang 845C metal plate. The older 70w dissipation 845C works. Ideally power tube bias as stock is a little hot for that tube, so yu will get some faint cherrying of the plate. It's stable though and won't go runaway, and in my experience the tube life isn't severely affected. But if you want the 845C sound without either a re-bias nor nagging concern about dissipation, the newer 100w dissipation 845C is a drop-in.
Next, the amp uses a 2a3 triode as the driver. The stock tube throttles the amp's sonic potential. By far the best way to put some added punch and clarity in the mix once the 845 is sorted, is to toss the stock 2a3, replacing it with a KR 2a3.
Last, the input tube is a 6sn7. The stock $5 tube is notoriously bad sounding. You find these in a wide range of preamps and amp inputs today because they are cheap and reliable. Put it in your backup tubes drawer and replace with either a NOS RCA red base 5692. Alternatives in new production are the Shuguang Treasure CV-181 (which isn' really a cv181 at all but that's another story) or the Full Music/Northern Electric/ Sophia 6sn7. With the Psvane cryo 845, the RCA is a great match. With the somewhat colder sounding 845C, the Treasure CV181 contributes a little offsetting soul. Use a clean, objective power cord like a Zu Event II and you're golden.
The Black Shadows are still well worth their premium but tubed properly, the M845 is convincing at its price and you can settle in for extended satisfaction for a more approachable fee.
Phil |
"I guess my question is - for $300 more (than the Omen Def) is the Druid Mk. IV a no-brainer?"
Jim,
Druid Mk 4 and Omen Def are, within the scope of Zu, very different speakers. Either one could be preferred for specific reasons over the other. If you were angling for Druid V over Omen Def, my answer would be conclusively in favor of Druid.
Omen Def benefits from the dual-FRD implementation of a "Definition" Zu speaker, so it is a higher-resolving loudspeaker than is Druid IV. But as an iteration of the Omen construction, it also has more cabinet talk than Druid IV. So it's an "on the one hand...." situation.
Omen Def is also the lower impedance speaker and its power transfer characteristics will make it seem a bit more efficient than Druid IV, along with having an impedance into which most amplifiers will deliver somewhat more of their available power.
Druid IV does have a warmth to its tonal balance that can make the very top end seems soft, compared to Omen Def. However, Druid IV demolishes Omen Def in tone density, spatial focus and true instrument-character midrange tone.
In simple terms, Omen Def is the better big, bouncy, party speaker. It's dual-FRD configuration will lay out a bigger soundstage filling a bigger room. And its bass extension will be deeper. Omen Def will play big music with more appropriate scale. Druid IV is the better serious listening "pay-full-attention-to-the-music" speaker, and it is in league with the best at reproducing convincing stringed-instrument tone, and it doesn't matter whether the strings are on electric guitar, viola, piano, Spanish guitar, dulcimer, mandolin, banjo or washtub bass. Druid IV will be spatially more precise and its bass character more nuanced and articulate.
So, tell me about how you listen, where and what makes attempts at fidelity convincing to you, and I can say specifically whether $300 is better spent on Druid IV or on more music. Otherwise, knowing these speakers, now know thyself.
Phil |
Two more things:
1/ Druid IV is generally more forgiving sonically than Omen Def, but this can depend on the driving amplifier.
2/ I ignored Essence in my notes because I'd easily choose wither Omen Def or Druid IV over it,
Phil |
Charles,
Thank you. Software startups severely divert me from my personal interests for extended periods from time to time. I've been following but scant on contributions, watching others answer for me. Trying to carry my end of it again.
Phil |
Zu has to pace its new model rollouts, given the capital requirements of a self-financed company. What you're seeing in the reported content changes to Druid 6, the rumors about Experience and Presence is convergence of the past Zu sound families into a more coherent house sound, a general push to wring noise out of the cabinets, and a more rationalized speaker line with a logical price/features ladder.
For most of Zu's history to-date, there was a distinct voicing and presentation difference between the dual FRD speakers and the various single FRD models. This two-branches-of-a-Zu-sound was starkly apparent as soon as the original Definition joined Druid in the line. Druid was immediate, focused, bursty but vintage-warm. It sounded like you had an old-school triode amp on it regardless of what you connected to it. Definition by contrast had from its first version a cooler, faster, more diffused and impressively big stage at some expense to the solo performer focus and vocal magic of Druid.
Definition 2 moved some Druid traits into Definition, largely due to its overbuilt ply cabinet, compared to the livelier MDF-based Def1.5. Druid IV/09 revision cleaned up Druid bass considerably and began to address what many people heard as a rolled-off top end.
Definition IV and Druid V were the inflection points in the conversion of sonic traits. Druid V got a much quieter cabinet, the progressively more neutral Zu FRD, the Radian compression tweeter and a more perfect expression of he Griewe acoustic impedance cabinet. The result was the first Druid that had enough soundstage width for full orchestra and movie soundtracks, the snap and sparkle of Definition and sharply-improved dynamic and texture unity from its deepest bass through the midrange and treble.
Def4 kept and improved all its prior advantages in tonal neutrality, scale, snap and bass mining, but it gained focus and near-er field listening potential, got nearly the full dose of Druid's loved tone density and also gained improved unity between its deep bass output and the rest of the speaker.
Notwithstanding how fast the line below Druid catches up, Druid 6 will be a more neutral, blacker, snappier refinement over Druid 5. Presence will, based on the prior model, give you the option of Druid sonics with active bass extension, in a more room-friendly form factor than the 2000s version. Definition will continue its role as the constantly progressing true high-end speaker for under $20K, and Experience, when we get it, will be something on the order of the $30,000 speaker (pair) that shames what the rest of the industry offers at twice the price.
A voice-unified Zu line will end or at least curtail the selling-friction buyer debates about whether to get, for example, Omen Def with upgrades or Druid. Druid + subs or Defs. Because you won't have to choose whether you want Druid's compromises or Defs'. You will be able to pick your price, confident that you aren't having to sacrifice orchestral scale to get singer-with-guitar intimacy, or vice-versa.
A lot of this is being accomplished through materials research, trial-and-error and collaboration. The speaker architectures are not radically changing but materials combinations, improvements in manufacturing at Zu, along with their advancements in finishings constantly put new value in the line. What's coming has already been shown by what's been delivered since roughly 2009.
Phil |
Any new Presence would be a re-appearance of the original in a different form factor. If Sean makes it, it won't replace anything in the current line. It would sit between Druid and Definition. Presence as defined by the original, is a single FRD speaker with supertweeter + an active bass module ala Definition. So, more expensive than Druid; less than Definition.
Soul and Soul Supreme sit below Druid in the line.
Phil |
I expect to have Druid 6 comments posted later this month. There's a back story regarding why I chose to put RIAA in the digital domain for one tonearm in both of my systems, which I suppose I'll include since people seem interested. Both systems have two tonearms on the Luxman PD444 turntables, so each one also has an arm/cartridge connected to conventional analog RIAA/phono pre duties.
But, the A>D>A arrangement on the Ortofon SPU in the Druid 6 system, and on the Allnic Puritas in the Definition 4 system flummoxes everyone because it still sounds analog to them. Not that I don't take plenty of flak from people before they hear it.
Phil |
|
|
Getting the Druid 6 FRD into the Def form factor will require a new cabinet interior design, and even the mounting holes for the drivers have to be somewhat different spacing than in Def4. For doing all that it only makes sense to also apply the materials and construction methods from the Druid 6 cabinet, to next Definition. Then there are the decisions regarding the sub and electronics. Patience is your friend, and there's a good chance you'll need less of it than you might fear.
Phil
|
