Good stuff at Heathrow

I thought that the Steinhart room sounded warm but it was probably the speakers. Felt the sound was very detailed and clear though so they may have potential. Mind you, I quite like a bit of warm.

In fact I've arranged to drive up to Northampton tomorrow and see what they do with a decent set of speakers. I'll report back.

On that subject, did anyone notice the Wavac single-ended triode power amps? At only £37,500 for the 100W monoblocks, they're definitely worth a listen. I'm going on Oct 14th. Steve Hoffman (Californian remastering guru) uses them and raves about them. The 35W version is a snip at only £20,250 but my guess it that they'd take £20K. I'll let you know.

 

Loved the Steinhart's

I thought I'd put my listening impressions of the Steinharts on a separate thread.

Er, I liked them.

 

Ah, so they make some of the top of the range silver wired Audio Note amps like the Ongaku look like an absolute bargin then!

 

I've seen the Audio Note speaker cabinets before the drive units and damping are put in (and boy do those boxes need some damping). I've also seen the prices Audio Note charge. If the amps are anything like the speakers, I doubt if anything can make them look like bargains.

 

Hey Steve,

Have you heard the border patrol P20 with your speakers?

I think it might be a (very) good match.

Also Graaf GM20/GM100 OTL

The border patrol in particular is capable of real dynamic swings and oodles of clarity - I think it would match up like beer 'n fags.


Cheers
Chris

NB Im 3/4 of the way through constructing the 'basie' pre-amp. I have a feeling your going to regret selling me this one - I havent heard it yet, but design and component quality are so first rate - I think its going to sound awesome. anyway, Im pleased as punch

Cheers
Chris

 

No regrets, Chris. I'm glad you're happy with the amp, and hope it turns out brilliant. I look forward to hearing it. BTW, the lost foot is in the post.

In the long term I have to team up with suitable power amps but not many of my prospective customers will be building kits, even though they can be fabulous.

I haven't yet heard the BP P20 with the speakers but I have heard the Border Patrol modified Audio Innovations S500. That was pretty sweet.

You know, there's a lot of dross out there but a lot of great stuff too. This doesn't of course apply to speakers. There's only one company whose products I could live with

 

Wasnt that the idea of the original Peter Snell design? I thought he wanted lightly damped cabinets. I cant remember what the reason for it was though.

 

Probably the reason was that heavy damping deadens the sound.

Having speakers that only need light damping is a worthy design goal. However, a 'box' will always require damping (unless it's a small box subwoofer where the wavelengths of the frequencies involved are way bigger than the box dimensions). If you take an undamped enclosure and speak (or sing) into the hole where the drivers will go you'll get an immediate insight into the mid-band resonances present and the damping requirement. With a rectangular box the sound will be highly resonant - a bit like shouting into a cave. I've done this with AudioNote speakers.

If you want lightly damped speakers, start with an enclosure that only requires light damping.