Justin & Jerry's Hifi Blog

[jandl100]

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the valve amp that your friend is bringing. Do you know what it is yet?

Marco.

Yes.



__

I'll see if I can stir up some disagreement between us, Marco ....

In my experience, solid state amps that have a more relaxing presentation invariably do so by smoothing things over, resulting in lower rez sound. Whilst valve amps that relax things a bit can do so without necessarily losing rez (although some do so, of course).

Which is why I said I fancied trying a somewhat relaxed valve pre.

Waddyathink?

[Marco]

Sure, dude, I can go with that

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

I'd say valves in general have a more "open" sound, for want of a better word, and to my ears give less of the edgy type sound I hear from so much SS stuff, but without any loss of detail. An exception are these Bantam Golds- to me they sound quite valve like in their presentation.

[jandl100]

Well, I know that I started it! - but I really don't want to turn this into a valves vs solid state thread.
I'll just say that I have heard way too many simply boring sand amps that no-one could ever accuse of edginess. Audio Analogue, Chapter Audio, Wyred4Sound class D ... the list goes on ... A bit of edge would have helped!

You can get all flavours of sound from both amp technologies, imo, and I have much enjoyed examples of each.

[Ali Tait]

Nah, not trying to start a war either Jerry, just MHO. I bow to your greater experience with SS amps, you've heard way more than I have. I'm not against SS in any way, I just like the way valves sound.

[jandl100]

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the valve amp that your friend is bringing. Do you know what it is yet?

Marco.

Oops - I forgot to update you on this.

It was an ARC LS25ii.
Oh dear - pure Pipe & Slippers! At least, it was in my system.
Huge soundstage, superbly detached from the speakers. But it couldn't latch on to a rhythm to save its life. . I can imagine some folks loving it, but not for me. Sad, as based on its rep I had fully expected it to take up permanent residence here at Jerry Towers. Ah well.

This new arrival is much more to my tastes though ....



"Last years model", as it were, from MF - so readily available at stupidly low prices!
Gadzooks - it oozes kick-ass dynamics, transparency and detail. It doesn't quite have the 3D imaging of the ARC, but the music is so much more interesting I couldn't give a damn!

Another new arrival has also hit the spot ....



One of the more, errr, 'controversial' CDPs of recent years. An MHZS CD88. It got a thorough online blasting by that Lampizator chappie, but received many very favourable reviews and online comments by others.
At the eBay auction price I thought it was worth a punt just to hear it for myself.
Bloooody Hell - I'm glad I did!
It has the stunning sheer in-room presence, focus and speed of the Krell 25S CDP that all too swiftly left my shelves (due to a fault developing).
Responds well to toob rolling as well - it has two 12AX7 in a tastefully blue-lit, easy access compartment to the rear right of the top plate. You can just see the tops of the valves peeking out in the photo!
It does have slightly higher noise levels than ideal, although this is only noticeable when I have to really crank up the volume on a recording cut at a low level. Most CDs are just fine.
Def a medium-term keeper this one.

[DSJR]

Oops - I forgot to update you on this.

It was an ARC LS25ii.
Oh dear - pure Pipe & Slippers! At least, it was in my system.
Huge soundstage, superbly detached from the speakers. But it couldn't latch on to a rhythm to save its life. . I can imagine some folks loving it, but not for me. Sad, as based on its rep I had fully expected it to take up permanent residence here at Jerry Towers. Ah well.

I don't know the "ii" suffix, but the LS25 made a wonderful "processor" of the signal fed it, the output sounding very different to the input I found.....

You mean those MF units still work ?

[jandl100]

Gosh - it is irritating when someone quotes a whole long post when the original is just one space up. ... and then just puts a couple of lines of their own at the end of it.

And yes, the MF pre is working just fine, thanks. Any particular reason why it shouldn't? It's a bit beyond your "area of expertise" I'd have thought - doesn't it come way after your oft-mentioned "years in the trade"!

[RochaCullen]

Gosh - it is irritating when someone quotes a whole long post when the original is just one space up. ... and then just puts a couple of lines of their own at the end of it.

And yes, the MF pre is working just fine, thanks. Any particular reason why it shouldn't? It's a bit beyond your "area of expertise" I'd have thought - doesn't it come way after your oft-mentioned "years in the trade"!

The MF looks great. Let me know when you get box swap fever, I might be interested!!

Nathan

[jandl100]

The MF looks great. Let me know when you get box swap fever, I might be interested!!

Nathan

Yup, it's a very fine pre-amp, Nathan.

Jake / lordmortlock heard it in my system just the other day, and I do believe that he was a bit bowled over by the overall performance of the system.