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I'm not surprised, Martin! Good valve amps 'flesh out' their presentation, particularly that glorious midrange, and add weight to the bass, making them sound less 'frigid' than they do with some solid-state amps.
It would be interesting to know if Dave heard any of the LS3/5as he mentioned earlier with quality toobs :)
Marco.
My 15 Ohm Chartwell LS3/5a do seem to work very nicely with Radford STA25 IIIQuote:
Originally Posted by Marco
And there we have it.... And I doubt the Beeb would've used them with toobs either ;)
Marco.
Well, I've just bought some PROPER back-breaking valve gear from eBay and only just down the road from me.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RIGONDA-BO...item2eb6db4ba9
This will now form the basis of my new reviewing reference system, if I can tear myself away from playing with the auto tuning......;)
two of them plus a pioneer pl12D - nice:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Beobloke
Did the Soviets make these specifically for export then?
Brilliant, and a PL12D, the Rigonda speakers were reckoned to be good, never heard any though.
We have one of these, very good sound.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/...08887715_b.jpg
Never gone wrong, never any parts replaced.
The whole Rigonda naming thing is a bit of a black art, as both of the ones I have bought are Bolshois, but the copy of the brochure shows them with "Simfonia" on the front. Equally, I have a third Rigonda radiogram already, which is a Symphony, but apparently this was known as a Bolshoi in other markets. To complicate things further, one of my newbies has the tuning scale marked in kHz and the other in metres, so I'm not sure what this signifies either!
As to the speakers, they are very good. My first introduction to Rigonda was at university when a friend offloaded an unwanted large pair of speakers onto me, which turned out to be the ones from the Symphony radiogram. After a spot of fettling they sounded superb and I used them for a few years, until one heavy night left me with a blown bass driver. The reason why became clear when I found my first matching Symphony radiogram and realised the amplifier put out a hefty 4W per channel - somewhat less than the 60W amp I was using at the time of the incident......:doh:
The speakers with the Bolshoi are a bit chunkier and deeper than the Symphony's, so comparisons wuill be interesting.
As the seller alluded, the weak point of these units is the turntable which sounds fair enough but has a ceramic cartridge, thus limiting it a bit. Naturally now I'm on the search for a Rigonda Victoria radiogram (or Intermezzo record player) which came later and had a proper transcription deck with a magnetic cartridge. Keep your eyes peeled everyone!
Hmm, maybe my Scalford Hall room next year should have a radiogram theme....
I was after a project turntable that would play 78 speed. My Mum has a heap of 78s left to her by my Grandfather. I don't think she has ever played any of them. I thought I'd eventually copy them all to CD for her. This is what I picked up on ebay today to do the job.
I'm looking forward to restoring it to its former glory and having a tinker with it. :eyebrows:
If that is a 1019, great deck, Mine has as ancient B&O cartridge in it. Fantastic sound, unexpected.Quote:
Originally Posted by Canetoad