I worship at the altar of imaging

[NorthSky]

I am beginning to think that off-axis response is much more important that I thought. I will open on the subject.

I began thinking the same in the 80s → http://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...axis-response-of-loudspeakers.730/#post-22771

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

View attachment 2566

Cut to the crescendo from Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Seriously, if we could keep these shameless promtions for the Beolab and Kii3 to the dealer area of the forum it would be greatly appreciated. I have no doubt they are great speakers, but Keith's hype of them is starting to get as thick as monkey shit, here there and everywhere.

Actually, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is in my own personal top 3 in greatest movies ever made.

 

[Thomas savage]

Cut to the crescendo from Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Seriously, if we could keep these shameless promtions for the Beolab and Kii3 to the dealer area of the forum it would be greatly appreciated. I have no doubt they are great speakers, but Keith's hype of them is starting to get as thick as monkey shit, here there and everywhere.

Actually, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is in my own personal top 3 in greatest movies ever made.

Yep

 

[Sal1950]

but Keith's hype of them is starting to get as thick as monkey shit

How thick is monkey shit anyhow, can you provide viscosity measurement to detail/support that claim?

 

[whazzup]

The problem with that approach is the idea deeper is better. The triode amps I mentioned earlier will typically give deeper soundstaging, with enhanced see thru transparency and yet do so by coloring the signal fed to them. That is how they work such magic even on highly produced recordings that aren't natural. So you would be lead away from fidelity. That is okay, it is enjoyable. It can be confusing if you don't realize that when trying to deduce fidelity to source.

It is interesting to hear that triode amps typically gives deeper soundstage. Would like to hear more about your experience with them. And are you talking about those priced in the stratosphere, or does your comment also include more mortal amps (thousands and below)?
Have not tried them, curious to wade into the waters, but they can burn a substantial hole in the wallet, so studying up for now.

*if there's some policy against grave(thread)diggers, my apologies in advance...

 

[mhardy6647]

It is interesting to hear that triode amps typically gives deeper soundstage. Would like to hear more about your experience with them. And are you talking about those priced in the stratosphere, or does your comment also include more mortal amps (thousands and below)?
Have not tried them, curious to wade into the waters, but they can burn a substantial hole in the wallet, so studying up for now.

*if there's some policy against grave(thread)diggers, my apologies in advance...

Single-ended triode is best of all (IMO)
Decent SET can be done at modest cost (especially if a kit build or DIY is an option) -- the only problem is cheap SET will mean low power, which will mean high sensitivity loudspeakers. If that's an option for you --- you might find this post interesting. Offered strictly as-is and FWIW.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/entry-level-tubes-amp.11590/#post-333442

DSC_4281 (2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[Blumlein 88]

It is interesting to hear that triode amps typically gives deeper soundstage. Would like to hear more about your experience with them. And are you talking about those priced in the stratosphere, or does your comment also include more mortal amps (thousands and below)?
Have not tried them, curious to wade into the waters, but they can burn a substantial hole in the wallet, so studying up for now.

*if there's some policy against grave(thread)diggers, my apologies in advance...

Most of my experience is not recent. I used tube amps for 15 years or so. Most of my triode amps were Ultralinear designs I changed to triode.

The experience making things clear is a series amplifier experiment I did. I had some VTL 75/75's in triode with Quad ESL63's. Also had a Spectral DMA50. I liked both, as both could make music. The triode painted a bigger, 3D, deeper more dynamic space than the DMA50. I thought the triodes managed getting more off the recordings than the Spectral. In an effort to see how much the Spectral filtered out I thought I would run them in series. Loaded the amp with some power resistors, had a voltage divider to achieve unity gain. I could connect my DAC directly to an amp or have a 2nd amp in between. Get an idea I thought on which was accurate.

My first run was VTL triode feeding Spectral which powered my Quad ESL 63 speakers. I expected to hear the sound of the Spectral. To my surprise I heard the sound of the VTL. Spacious 3D, wide, deep, dynamic soundstage. I was surprised. Remove the VTL and feed Spectral direct and all of that went away. I then reversed the amps with the VTL Triode powering the speakers. You could tell no difference if the Spectral was in circuit or out. It was the old straight-wire with gain result. The only conclusion that fits is triode sound is a group of usually pleasing colorations.

For a time I used a 2 watt SET for a preamp. It worked giving my Quads the sound of being driven by an 80 watt SET. Now in my experience with SET's most are too colored. They go a little too far. I prefer the sound of push-pull triodes. Knowing they aren't accurate, but often very enjoyable.

PS-I also would say having done a little bit of amateur recording, I find the pure accuracy better than triode enhancement. But you don't know how the original recordings were just playing back commercial recordings.

 

[HammerSandwich]

Interesting experiment. I expected your results to correlate with a Bob Carver comment about high output impedance in power amps. They did not.

Paraphrased, Carver stated that low damping allows the speaker to act as a microphone, putting a little reflected & delayed sound back into the system. I read this as a minor reverb effect.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Interesting experiment. I expected your results to correlate with a Bob Carver comment about high output impedance in power amps. They did not.

Paraphrased, Carver stated that low damping allows the speaker to act as a microphone, putting a little reflected & delayed sound back into the system. I read this as a minor reverb effect.

Well that could be due to using the Quads. A lower frequencies they have a very high impedance. So the damping at that end is not too bad. Were I using a Maggie with 4 ohm impedance down there the triode would have done very little damping. The Quad IIRC peaks at 32 ohms.

There was some minor FR differences in using the two amps this way. But they were swamped by other effects. The low end was raised just a bit when the VTL was connected to speakers. But the xfmr and ESL panel xfmr created a resonance at something like 24 khz when using the VTL. This lifted the upper octave or so just about as much as the output impedance dropped it.