Daniel´s minimalist system

[Daniel]

Full view of my system:



My listening position and a beautiful reproduction of the Charles and Ray Eames lounge chair built as a birthday present for Billy Wilder:



Top view of the SAC 300B PP amp in Glow Master Chassis:



Side view of the amp with wonderful BJ 300B tubes:



Front panel of the amp. Please, notice two volume attenuators, one for left channel and one for right channel, very useful, indeed. Sorry for that mess of cables (I hate cables). Cables are: Interconnects: Evidence Audio (electric guitar cables); Zu Tones cables: Evidence Audio (electric guitar amp to speakers); Yamahas subs cables: Ocos and "Old Time" red and blacks. Power cords: stock made in China.



The greatest Exemplar-Denon 2900. Fantastic sounding mod by John Tucker. Now, using GE 5922 tubes, less bass than Mullard E180CC (made in Netherlands) by more detail (in highs and mids) than Mullard:



Left channel Zu Tone monitor and Yamaha YST SW50 sub. Nice stands: a Taschen book on the work of the architecture photographer Julius Shulman. Terrific book about architecture mainly in the States in the 50´s and 60´s:



Right channel Zu Tone monitor and Yamaha YST SW50 sub: Again, curious stand: a book on the economics of football.



A small sample of what I´m listening these days:





Man´s best friend and bored with my music: León:



My family, from left to right: Daniela, my daughter; the back of my shy wife Adriana and Federico my son...and my new and beautiful house in Montrove, La Coruña, Spain:



Be patient, in a few days I´ll try to explain the philosophy (if there is one) of this system.

See ya.

[Mike]

Hi Daniel,

Welcome to AoS!

I particularly like your choice of disk spinner, I'd be interested to hear more about the modifications please.


Cheers...

P.S... Fantastic looking house BTW! Are you an Architect by any chance?

[Beechwoods]

You have just made me a very very jealous man

[Marco]

Superb, Daniel

Your pictures create a real 'feeling' of your life there in Spain - very nice.

Hi-fi-wise, I really like your system, particularly the Glow Master, which I'd love to hear. It got a really good review in the UK magazine 'Hi-fi World' a few months back.

I will get to your wine recommendations later!

Marco.

[KMair]

That is a beautiful room and gorgeous gear! Thanks for sharing!

[Daniel]

First, thank you for your comments and your patience to take a look on my gear.

Second, I´ll try to explain "why" this system. I believe the best way to go is by answering the questions or comments posted above.

I particularly like your choice of disk spinner, I'd be interested to hear more about the modifications please.

My Denon is the one modified by John Tucker from Exemplar Audio and received rave reviews a few years ago.

John uses to change the clock, add a shunt regulator with tubes. I think this last thing is the key of the whole modification, with a blend of solid state and tubes that makes the player sounds great. To be honest, this cd-player sounds very very good, with an impressive stereo image where you can hear the instruments with more body and air, compared, with my previous tubed Shanling player. BTW, today I´m hearing the Denon with two Amperex "Bugle Boy" tubes and it sings.

I can tell you this, I´ve been in touch with John by the phone -him in the States and me in Spain- and he´s a truly gentleman and stands by his products.

To have a complete picture of the modification performed by John, please, check the following link and see a photo of my Denon from the inside.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/exemplar/denon.html

Are you an Architect by any chance?

No, I´m not an architect, but I´ve designed the house. I own a restaurant in La Coruña and teach classes on investment banking and stock markets at the University of La Coruña.

Hi-fi-wise, I really like your system, particularly the Glow Master, which I'd love to hear. It got a really good review in the UK magazine 'Hi-fi World' a few months back.

Yes, give a try to the Glow Master. I think the one available in UK is the one with KT-88 tubes. Mine has an story. I´ll explain it.

I´m a bit of a "kamikaze" concerning audio gear. My main goal is "price", "sound" and "design", yes in that order. As it is pretty hard to demo audio gear in a small an periferic city like La Coruña I have to rely on reviews -and, you know, there is a jungle out there- and email those who happen to have the "desire" gear in order to know their experience -Howard Popeck is a good example-.

When I was looking for my 300B I found out two very affordable: one in Thailand and the other in Serbia. After several emails I´ve found out Kittipol from SAC THAILAND have real expertise in audio and excellent comunication -this was something that lacked the guy from Serbia-.

As I liked the Glow Master chassis, I proposed Kittipol to use it with 300B tubes and he agreed.

Also, I asked him to install two volume attenuators -one for right channel and one for left channel- and he agreed too. I find this two volume knobs very useful, because I like to stress one channel over the other so I can have more presence in the "stereo image" of say...a Fender Rhodes electric piano, is like mixing the sound using two channels. Before I forgot, I asked for this modification -the Glow Master is originally designed as a power amp- because I don´t use a pre-amp, instead I like to connect my cd-player direct to the amp.

This 300B has a "push-pull" configuration with 22 watts per channel.

What you hear with this amp:

1- Bass: tight, controled but not constricted. Notice, that I like the distortion or "bloom" that you get with an EL34 tube, you know why, because this distortion is what you get with a Marshall or Vox amp, for instance and this is part of my musical and sentimental memory

2.- Mediums with more body compared to my Unison Research S6 amp. You can hear Warren Haynes guitar sustain until the end of the note.

3.- Highs: extended but not harsh and with a precise definition. Chris Cain´s vibrato all the way up.

I took a very great risk with this amp because I haven´t had any reference and everything went smooth and it turned out a fantastic and enjoyable amp. Anyway, if anything would´ve ended up as a fiasco I´ve put a "stop loss" like in the stock markets: the price.

In the future, depending on how deep and long is the economical crisis, I´d like to try an 845 tube based amp. I put my eyes in one made in stainless steel in Germany by Silberglut. I´ve been in touch with Christof several months ago and I´ve found out, again, another designer who knows about audio. In this case, what stops me is the price, like in stock markets: wait and see.

I have to go now. Next post will be about my speakers, subs, my weird connections and room acoustic deficiencies.

Bye.

[Nick]

Hi Daniel

Nice pictorial there !! Good to see some more Zus around here too

[Third]

nice house,

that room looks like it would be quite "live" with all those hard surfaces, do you also get standing waves? i imagine you would as the room looks quite unform in dimension.
nice gear though

[Daniel]

that room looks like it would be quite "live" with all those hard surfaces

Not only hard surfaces, concrete and too bared, so I´m missing some bass. The feeling in my chest of the lower octave, for instance the E note in the first string of a bass when played to the air. I can tell you this because this same kit sounded perfect in my previous room. I expect to solve this matter once a library with my books is installed and some paintings on the walls too. The picture does not show the whole dimension of the room: 30 sq, meters. Time will tell.

Good to see some more Zus around here too

Yep, they sound very very good. No too analitical as my old Yamahas NS-10M, but with more "live" presence, if you can say so. Sometimes they are a bit forward, but I love this. It´s delicious to listen Joe Louis Walker´s guitar or Robert Walter´s Hammond B3 organ coming out of these boxes.

In the future, I expect a pair of used or demo Zu Mini Method crosses my path. The economic crisis surely will bring some oportunities.

BTW, the Zu line has an amazing design.

One last thing: I connect the subs and the speakers in parallel to the amp. This way I keep the bass coming out form the speakers. Also, I go a step further: I connect the right and left channel of the left side sub the left speaker connector output in the amp. The same for the right side sub. This way I achieve a most powerful bass. Weird, hmm.

See ya.

[John]

Nice gear The Glowmaster is very special
What made you use books to alter height of the speakers