Tonight's schennanigans....
5A for the Meridian power amp, 1A for the Dac.
https://i.imgur.com/idkg0vX.jpg
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Tonight's schennanigans....
5A for the Meridian power amp, 1A for the Dac.
https://i.imgur.com/idkg0vX.jpg
New valve day.
Input stage/ volume control on Preamp uses ECC82 signal valves as part of the design, been running stock ones from new, over 3 years now.
Amps normally stone cold quiet, but felt one channel was a wee bit hissier than it should be, so decided to swap out the input valves.
Have faffed about (and been stung) chasing after potentially fake/tired/unreliable NOS valves, and life's too short for that hassle.
From the new manufactured 12AU7s, these Genalex Gold Lions seem to get consistent praise used across different amps, so went for them.
My Preamp responds well to valve improvements, see how this goes.
Will need a bit of time on em to bloom of course.
All good stuff, and at 70 quid for a matched pair won't break the bank.
https://i.imgur.com/NApDGRg.jpeg
Out with the old, In with the new.
https://i.imgur.com/4w4x1zA.jpeg
Gold Lions are replacing the stock Psvane's.
Should be an interesting weekend of listening.
I snapped a pin on the Psvane's I had in a phono stage and replaced them with Gold Lion's. I preferred the Gold Lions no doubt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazjam
They're the thinking man's tube for me. As in don't actually have to 'think' about it too much as all their models perform very well. Yes you can get so called 'better' tubes but the ball ache of sourcing NOS and genuine tubes (especially well matched) is just getting a bit tedious if you ask me.
They're the best new production tube I've heard.
Enjoy.
Cheers Chris,
that’s good to know.
Your thinkings the same as mine I think,
been down that NOS rabbit hole, just not a chase I can be arsed with any more.
Yep know what you mean mate, it's a real minefield nowadays, and just getting worse. Just glad I've already got all the small valves I'll likely need.
Last Christmas present to myself, and last round of tweak level upgrades for 2021.
Better isolation feet for Pre and Power amps, as well as my Dac.
POWER AMP
Had previously just plonked the big Meridian 557 down on stock rubber feet onto glass top shelf of my rack, would get around to something different at some point?
Its a bit of a beast at 60lbs, with a heckin’ big and heavy transformer, so knew directly onto glass wasn’t the best way to sit it.
Isoacoustics to the rescue.
Patented design, and used around the world in top recording Studio’s, that’ll work for me.
Use some of their Orea feet under my turntable to good effect, and had their studio monitor stands in the past, so know from experience these work really well.
Each foot takes up to 20Lbs, so 4 under the amp is perfect.
https://i.imgur.com/ARx5TQx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/B4POJjh.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/WPEmG5p.jpg
PREAMP AND DAC
These isolation pucks have an operating performance window, based on weight of what you sit on them?
Unlike the Meridian, my Preamp and Dac are much lighter at 22lbs each,
so different products were needed.
Again,
Isoacoustics to the rescue.
you match the product to the weight, so got a set of the 8 smaller Isopuck Mini’s, each takes 6 lbs, so 4 under each bit of kit.
https://i.imgur.com/WERS1hr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RBnPGE0.jpg
So that’s all that done then, what was the result?
Noticeable change in two areas:
Good improvements to soundstage and bass definition.
The system gets out the way better, overall a nice step up.
At £65 and £77 for both sets, didn’t break the bank, and great bang for buck for what they cost.
Highly recommended.
I was banging on about these beauties in 2018Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazjam
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/top...ink_source=app
Was advised by Mark Westley of Tresham fame about these supports ... predominantly used to support studio monitors on the edge of mixing desks....
Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Hi Don.Quote:
Originally Posted by donmarrese
Yup,
very impressed with these.
Mark Westley, that's the Tannoy Head Production Engineer?
Be picking up another set of the 8 Mini pucks for under my Oppo 203 and Audiolab 6000CDT.
Highly recommended Peeps.
Let the 2022 shenanigans commence
Where I'm coming from nowadays, System wise...
is to make the most of what I have.
Who knows what financial pressures are round the corner, right?
Last major upgrade i did was better speakers, a big jump for sure and now hearing more of what the rest of the kit is capable of.
With that in mind...and having enjoyed modding my Oppo bluray player..going forward to '22 I'm looking at Mods for my system.
In what way can I improve on what I have?
UP TO THIS POINT:
AC Power and all cables are a done deal.
and I've already looked at better isolation feet: (Previous post)
The Isoacoustics footers really did the business, improved things for my Poweramp, Pre and Dac.
Getting another set for the Audiolab CD Transport and Oppo 203 soon.
One additional isolation thing I want to do is for my speakers,
and replace the supplied spike feet with better.
Speaker/floor interaction can be a big deal and getting this right will make a difference.
Current setup:
https://i.imgur.com/REyTxIP.jpg
I had the speakers sitting on a big heavy ceramic floor tile, sat on carpet before - my Impulse H2's had bass that went through the floor and the slabs helped.
Never thought to remove them for the Wharfedales, but tried it and with the spikes sitting on Sound Damped Steel isolation plates (black discs on carpet) the Evo 4.4's bass and soundstaging improved.
Had initially thought about IsoAcoustic's own GAIA replacement speaker feet,
but these are quite large, would raise the tweeter height too much and kinda ruin the aesthetic of the speaker.
Painfully expensive too, not Stillpoints money but still too salty.
Read a lot of the American hifi forums and the guys over at Herbies Labs in the US are highly thought of?
Be picking up a set of their speaker isolation feet, and sitting my speaker spikes in those to replace stock Wharfedale spike pads.
Well priced too.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/22...g?v=1569270214
After this I'll call speakers DONE.