Aye, it was a good day.steve s wrote: ↑Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:02 am No problem Steve
The little ? speakers sounded great today I was really impressed. I don't think you could wring any more than you have done from those drivers. They had an impressive bass considering the size but the star of the day for me was your amplifier, it was really good.
Lush, detailed and just so easy to listen too. I thought it was easily your best yet.. quite an achievement Steve
I was also impressed with Ed's old amp, it sounded great on Steve's new speakers too
A great day
Ed's nearfield monitoring amp was great after it had warmed up. It took hold of my speakers and showed them who was boss. Excellent top detail and a fine overall balance, very like the A20.
Highlights for me were the Chi-Lites, doing "Have You Seen Her" Hadn't played that for years and TBH, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to put it on. Didn't realise what an awesomely good recording it is.
Wish I'd had the foresight to play it through your speakers later on. I've made a note to bring that disc to Owston as one of my three.
Another highlight was Scott's "WTF is this?" expression when I put on "Water" by Geno Washington and his Ram Jam Band; a bit like my expression is at Owston when King Crimson gets played. After the initial shock, he was tapping his foot though.
I think that the way my amp sounds now, has a lot to do with Nick's advice on the grounding scheme. It is now on a completely different level to what it was before, as you guys heard. The lushness and tonal colour saturation is probably down to it being three stages, and using a power valve to drive the output stage; that and the Hammond 1627SE output transformers.
Hammonds are often looked down on and regarded more as a "get you going" transformer than a proper. Indeed, they were only intended to get my 2A3 amp going, as I had sold off all my SE iron, but they're very very good for the money and wonderfully musical devices.
Will was always an advocate of three stage amps.
I'm trying out the Sylvania 6V6 you tested for me. They are not substantially different to the French Mazda, early 50s ones I was using at your place, which is as we suspected. Both those valves are great sounding drivers for 2A3s. Bet they'd be good with 300Bs too.