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Thread: Pye Mozart HF10 stereo pair

  1. #41
    Join Date: Mar 2015

    Location: Finland

    Posts: 237
    I'm Kai.

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    Quote Originally Posted by spendorman View Post
    It would be nice to try some highish efficiency speakers on the Pye before parting with it. I have a Chinese single ended EL34 amp that is pretty sweet on low volumes. I don't have any really efficient speakers, possibly the highest efficiency ones that I have are Tannoy HPD315's.
    Oh yeah, definitely not going to part with them before at least hearing them with more efficient speakers. I'm just a bit scared of that route because it has the potential for complete upheaval of the system once again. As it is, I'm in a pretty happy place with the setup and not really itching to change much. I do have a pair of Kef 104aB currently doing nothing and while very low sensitivity, together with the Pyes they would provide plenty enough volume for near field bedroom setup... or I could use the Pyes for desktop amp, but again seems a bit overkill I don't know, I have some hobby money tied up in surplus turntables and what not, once I get around to selling all that it would probably be plenty enough to get a decent pair of high sensitivity somethings, buying used there should be no risk with that even if I eventually decided to let the HF10s go.

  2. #42
    Join Date: Mar 2015

    Location: Finland

    Posts: 237
    I'm Kai.

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    Little update - the Pye HF10s are still very much with me, I just did an easily reversible modification last night to turn the 'pick-up' input into a power-amp in, to allow bypassing the stock preamp. Only listened to an hour or so last night and now spinning something in the background. I think it did a world of good to the sound in terms of hifi qualities. Currently running with a simple passive volume control, last night I used a chinese hybrid pre. Either way, imaging is more precise and solid than it used to be. I think that was probably my biggest gripe about the sound stock. Imaging was a bit wishy-washy. That's a trait my JBLs share, so the end result was very broad strokes. Besides that the sound seems just more clear and neutral all around. The midrange is captivating, drums have a really tactile snap to them and saxophones have proper bite. There's a very euphonic 'liquidity' to the sound, I'm not sure what's that about but I suspect it's because I'm hearing a slightest amount of excess warmth/softness in the lower mids. I think I heard that trait last night also, but the passive pre might be highlighting it.

    These are just first impressions and more listening is in order, but certainly sounds very very nice indeed at the moment. I also need to play around with the "damping" control more to find the best balance between control and midrange transparency. AFAIK it adjusts output impedance and amount of negative feedback.

  3. #43
    Join Date: Oct 2012

    Location: The Black Country

    Posts: 6,089
    I'm Alan.

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    That sounds like an excellent little mod.

  4. #44
    Join Date: Mar 2015

    Location: Finland

    Posts: 237
    I'm Kai.

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    I haven't been listening to CDs / digital for years much, unless I really want to hear the music. With the Pye I've found myself going through some old CDs with pleasure. Just for kicks I did a quick 3 amp shoot out last night, and yes, with my solid state amps that enjoyment was gone. With the Yamaha A-700 it became really grating, the Sherwood AM-8500 MOSFET amp was somewhat better but still more like "tolerable". Both sound fine with my vinyl frontend. So yeah, maybe I just need a better CD-player, then again I haven't yet heard one I really liked. Except with the Pye I was liking my 1 euro thrift store Philips CDR fine enough. It makes me think I should just set the system up around this. Yeah sure, it doesn't really leave me with much headroom or probably give as much "information" but then again I have hundreds of CDs which might get some regular play time again, maybe.

    Oh, and I also think I heard a difference between the volume controls, but I can't test that, since the Yamaha doesn't have a pre-out. But in source direct mode the Yamaha preamp is totally passive, it's just a source selector and volume control. I think most of the difference in soud was due to the amps, but there was a certain thing going on with both the Sherwood and the Pye, which I think might be the potentiometer I'm using. I should probably build a new passive with better parts. Nothing too fancy/expensive, but at least a nice potentiometer or some chinese stepped attenuator. The one I'm using now I think softens up the sound. But it's a mostly pleasant coloration, so it doesn't get in the way. It would be interesting to test it side by side with something else to see if what I'm hearing is really the potentiometer or something else. But now that I think I've heard it, i'm imagining I can hear that coloration everywhere where that kind of carbon potentiometer is used... go figure

  5. #45
    Join Date: Mar 2015

    Location: Finland

    Posts: 237
    I'm Kai.

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    Well since then I've changed speakers, built some open baffles around a quad of Philips AD1200 12" fullranges w/ AD0163 tweeters coming in to help @*about 10kHz. 2nd pair of 12" drivers have 2nd order lowpass @*about 100Hz. So basically it's fullranges with a little help at both frequency extremes. Sensitivity is about 93dB/W I think, just enough of a boost in that regard to have the Pye operate in a more comfortable power range. I think sensitivity of > 96dB would be ideal, but this is enough.

    I also finally got around to changing the valves, the original late 50s Mullards gave room to a pair of JJ EL34 & ECC83S. I think the original Mullards are still good, but would have to get them tested to be sure. In any case, putting the JJs in place of the Mullard Xf1, I was surprised how little difference there was. The Mullards have slightly cleaner and sweeter highs, the midrange is very similar with the Mullard probably having a slightly softer sound - if the JJ midrange is clear water, the Mullard is more like flowing translucent syrup Anyway both I feel are excellent in this respect, the JJ sounds perhaps a bit more "hifi". In any case the difference is small and I think matter of taste and most people I'm sure would be happy with either. I haven't tried, but I have a feeling for guitar applications where things are run into distortion, the Mullard would probably sound better, with a thicker and creamier tone. Bass is where I think the JJ has the upper hand, they just seem to have a tad more grip and control. Overall I would take the Mullard over the JJs, mainly for those sweeter and cleaner highs, but there's not that much to it and I'm perfectly happy with the JJs. Delighted to be honest, even after the extended run in and matching by Uraltone they are a 20 euro valve.

    For the ECC83 it's a bit different story - here the late 50s long plate Mullard is clearly superior. Again, JJs lose out on the highs, they are coarser and less detailed, there's a little bit of "hash" to them. The JJ ECC83s were advertised as being slightly darker sounding than most and compared to the Mullards this certainly seems true. Also first impression was of a slight veil inserted between the listener and the music. It's not bad and only really noticeable when doing a direct comparison (plus the fullranges are NOT dark sounding, so it's not really a bad thing). Generally speaking, when listening to the setup with the JJs, I don't feel the presentation is veiled, but I know if I went back to the Mullards, there would be better clarity and tonality and more 3-dimensionality to the sound.

    While the difference to the vintage Mullards is greater here, I still find the JJ good and enjoyable (which can't be said of the 90s Shuguangs I found in a box of guitar parts - no wonder I got rid of those ASAP - just horrible sounding despite tonality being very similar to the Mullards) and after getting used to the sound, I'm not really missing the Mullards much. I do have to say that the darkness of the tone needs to be taken into account, but in a proper setting these are fine sounding valves. I kinda wanna try their long plate ECC803s now to see how it fares.

    What I love most about all this is now I have more peace of mind having the amp sit idle because I'm not wasting hours on the Mullards... reliability remains to be seen, though these were run in and tested pretty thoroughly I'm told, so at least there should be no lemons. I also think the Pye doesn't run the EL34 very hard, so I think they should be ok. We'll see.

  6. #46
    Join Date: Feb 2008

    Location: Middlesex, UK

    Posts: 4,481
    I'm Alex.

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    Looks like a very nice system, if you want to play with valves, you could try JJ KT77 to replace the EL34s. I run them in my Radford STA25 III.

    I'm also preserving the original Mullard EL34s.
    Spendorman

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