Valve amps, great with Jazz, shit with everything else.

[Marco]

Fair enough, Alex. I have no problem whatsoever with the top-end or midrange of the 15s in my system, and don't find the midrange coloured at all - quite the opposite in fact!

Marco.

[anthonyTD]

Indeed, but i don't want to detract from mike's original thread, and so folk interested in anything i have been involved with Audio related over the last 25 years or so, can go to my site

And don't forget your stunning Soulmate preamp, mate, in terms of the question Martin asked you

Marco.

[Marco]

Sure, and you really should have a link to it on your signature!

Marco.

[Marco]

Here, I'll blow your trumpet for you, lol: https://tubedistinctions.co.uk/

Looking good, btw! Been considerably revamped since I last seen it

Marco.

[Marco]

Yes. It's Hoffman's Iron Law:

Hoffman’s Iron Laws of Speaker Building

1) Bass Extension

2) Efficiency

3) Small Enclosure

Indeed... I thought you were going to say something else though, in reference to 'iron' and valve amps, thus...

It's Hoffman's Iron Law:

1) Think your transformers are big enough, rude boy?

2) Think again.

3) ADD MORE IRON!

4) Repeat until you can't wipe the smile from your face.



Marco.

[Mikeandvan]

I really don't think the issues I've been having are down to a lack of power as the soro is beefy enough, and the ANJs are very easy to drive. I reckon a lot of valve users never go anywhere near rock music, so never get the cause to complain. The s500 I have too has been modded with a power supply added, so there we go. Doing a lot of changing recently, with TTs and the like so hopefully can tweak sound more to my liking in that department. End of the day though, I still reckon I'll have to buy a an SS amp if I wanna rock out, I think a £1000 or just over is the most I'll pay for each component, so that rules out £3K for a valve amp that can do rock re Marcos reccomendation. Thanks for your reply Ade, the Rega amps I briefly tried didn;t work out for me, I found the Brio too brash and the Mira too smooth, even more so than Quad. I wanted something with bite to change to when listening to certain rock music, and the regas were too extreme in either direction. I could have played around different speakers etc but they fell at the first hurdle, so I thought just leave it, they're now on ebay. I'll be changing my living room around soon and the AN Js will have more freedom positioning wise, so I hope they'll sound a bit better then. With all this in mind, I wonder what carts I should buy next, one for the Garrard with a Mayware tonearm, and one for the 1210 GR with 750D, might aim cheap and have more choice, old Shures etc.

[Pharos]

I think that it was from the late 70s on that the concept of making amplifiers characterless became a clear objective, facilitated by O/P devices like the 2N3055 making greater power O/P possible.

In about '73 my Nelson Jones 10+10 failed in one channel and I borrowed a very good Lowther design with EL84s, it was clearly muffled in comparison and the bass sloppy.

The fault was a BC 107 with an intermittent manufactured fault, and once replaced the return of the NJ was a relief. I used to run it into Gold 15s at max, near clipping, and think that as long as one is below clipping it is OK, but since the advent of digital we have greater dynamic range.

I think that as long as the power supplies are of sufficient current capability, and that capacitors large enough, the iron is not that important, transients are taken care of by those caps. Typically amps can take seconds for their power supplies to discharge.

[Marco]

I think that as long as the power supplies are of sufficient current capability, and that capacitors large enough, the iron is not that important, transients are taken care of by those caps.

Not in my experience, Dennis, where the 'bigger the better' has always proved true, in terms of giving the partnering amp the 'headroom' it needs to reproduce the most demanding aspects of music - and not just with valve amps either - all my gear uses significantly 'overspecced' PSUs, some hugely so, such as the PSU for my turntable, which is big enough to power a large amplifier, same with the PSUs in my Sony DAC, which is the reason it weighs 38kg!

Perhaps Anthony could comment on this matter?

In the meantime, have a read of this article: https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/...fier-circuits/

My favourite quote:

"Knowledge and hubris are powerful cocktails that keep us from learning. I needed to pull my head out of the expert’s books and venture into the wild unknown where discovery and progress are made."

So true.... That message needs drumming into every arrogant, stubborn-headed objectivist, who believes that everything that there is to know about audio is already known... Get yer heads out of yer freakin' text books, and LEARN more by living in the real world and applying some LATERAL THINKING!



Marco.

[Barry]

Physically small output transformers (that is, ones using a small core) will tend to saturate at low frequencies, so the amp will have a curtailed bass response.

For a good bass response you need big output transformers with plenty of iron in them.

[AJSki2fly]

Not in my experience, Dennis, where the 'bigger the better' has always proved true, in terms of giving the partnering amp the 'headroom' it needs to reproduce the most demanding aspects of music - and not just with valve amps either - all my gear uses significantly 'overspecced' PSUs, some hugely so, such as the PSU for my turntable, which is big enough to power a large amplifier, same with the PSUs in my Sony DAC, which is the reason it weighs 38kg!

Perhaps Anthony could comment on this matter?

In the meantime, have a read of this article: https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/...fier-circuits/

My favourite quote:

"Knowledge and hubris are powerful cocktails that keep us from learning. I needed to pull my head out of the expert’s books and venture into the wild unknown where discovery and progress are made."

So true.... That message needs drumming into every arrogant, stubborn-headed objectivist, who believes that everything that there is to know about audio is already known... Get yer heads out of yer freakin' text books, and LEARN more by living in the real world and applying some LATERAL THINKING!



Marco.

Hi Marco,

I find your post a bit odd for you, you argue at the start that big is best for transformer for all amps and other gear, but then at the end you state that you should try other things and not assume all done before in audio and presumably other areas is correct, are you arguing with yourself?

Also in an earlier post you referred to big is better and your 3.2 l Merc (very nice by the way), however I would point you to a bottom of the range Tesla which I think would leave your dead from any speed, so a case of new is probably better, and of course if you want smaller aspirated then I thing a current F1 1600cc even with electric boost off might have a bit more oomph!

I am just glad we are still not living with mobile phones from the 80’s, under the auspices of bigger is better.

Cheers

Adrian