Gromit's music centre...

[WikiBoy]

Thanks for the info Richard - I think I just about understood it.

I'm on my tod this weekend (no little'un running around to knock things over) so may try one of the speakers stands under the NAS, would be interesting to hear what it does. I've still got my old Kan II stands to use as spares for the Royds.

Will report back.

Think of it as the opposite to musical instrument design. In designing a clarinet you want resonance, but you want that resonance to be musically correct, in tune, and you are looking for the typical timbre / sound of a clarinet as opposed to oboe, bassoon etc. Tuned resonant frequency of reed, body, bell, throat, note holes, timber (or not) used in construction, even key and pad all join in to create this *character*. And you have to bend yourself (train) to be in sympathy with that character.

In hi-fi design you have to selectively take out as much character as you can so it doesn't interfere with the character of the musical instrument (playing a musical instrument *through* another musical instrument). But the same as in musical instrument design it is instinct and ear that creates masters not scientific theory and equation and test gear. You cannot design a clarinet with test gear nor can you design hi-fi with test gear, you can get the genus and the application, but then the ear of the maestro has to be applied.

Try to get rid of all and you end up with a big wet flannel, understand what can be kept, and sometimes enhanced, creates song. And when a system sings your natural test equipment on the back of you neck (little hairs), which are directly linked into your emotional recognition system, tell you it is right.

[Gromit]

Nice analogy Richard - and one that funnily enough ties in exactly with what Tom Fletcher at Notts Analogue relayed to me when I visited the NAS factory a couple of years ago. He went on to describe how some TT manufacturers seem to be designing (in his words) 'brass violins'. It's just plaing wrong.

He also took great pains to describe to me (in some wonderfully colourful analogies) how the control of resonances, the safe-keeping of the good ones, and the desire to get rid of the bad ones as much as possible, caused him to end up with the turntables he now has on his product list. Thoroughly nice guy too - shoots from the hip and as result has upmost my respect.

[Gromit]

Latest acquisitions in the black box dept...



NVA Phono2/psu & P90sa pre amp.

[Filterlab]

You like your NVA gear mate. I'd love to try the monoblocks but the garb says they're for passive pre-amps only. Shame.

[WikiBoy]

You like your NVA gear mate. I'd love to try the monoblocks but the garb says they're for passive pre-amps only. Shame.

If you want to use them with an active pre then you have to buy this as well.

Volume Control and Circuitry for NVA Power Amps.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...e=STRK:MESE:IT

It act as a L pad preset and gives enough attenuation and decoupling at about 95% to work well with active pre if you have to use them. The only logical reason for using is in cinema systems or for active speakers with long line level cable runs.

[Marco]

You like your NVA gear mate. I'd love to try the monoblocks but the garb says they're for passive pre-amps only. Shame.

I've never heard NVA stuff, but it gets a good rep and I like its 'simple but business-like' look

It would be interesting comparing them to the ECS monoblocks

Marco.

[Mike Reed]

If you want to use them with an active pre then you have to buy this as well.

Volume Control and Circuitry for NVA Power Amps.

Excuse my ignorance, but when I went to the E-bay link the blurb stated as a principle that ' the best component is only surpassed by no component at all' ( not verbatim).

Yet to use an active pre. with NVA amps I have to add a volume control?

Unless I've lost the plot, I can only imagine that the sensitivity of the amps is much higher than usual to accept the lower output that I imagine a passive pre. would emit. I have little technical nous so can only used (flawed?) logic.

As my amp. situation is parlous at present (whether to add 2 more 135s to bi-amp, or bugger it and go for a 300/500 or go down a different path), I have been taking heed of Gromit's musings on this and P.F. forums.

NVA is is East Anglia (useful) and Gromit's observations on sound and presentational differences between Naim and NVA (not to mention the cost differences!), especially with classical CDs and LPs, has made me think.

Fascinating thread, this! (each to his own, I s'pose!)

[WikiBoy]

Excuse my ignorance, but when I went to the E-bay link the blurb stated as a principle that ' the best component is only surpassed by no component at all' ( not verbatim).

Yet to use an active pre. with NVA amps I have to add a volume control?

Unless I've lost the plot, I can only imagine that the sensitivity of the amps is much higher than usual to accept the lower output that I imagine a passive pre. would emit. I have little technical nous so can only used (flawed?) logic.

As my amp. situation is parlous at present (whether to add 2 more 135s to bi-amp, or bugger it and go for a 300/500 or go down a different path), I have been taking heed of Gromit's musings on this and P.F. forums.

NVA is is East Anglia (useful) and Gromit's observations on sound and presentational differences between Naim and NVA (not to mention the cost differences!), especially with classical CDs and LPs, has made me think.

Fascinating thread, this! (each to his own, I s'pose!)

You can try-ee and if no like-ee it costs yer nowt.

Your thinking is basically right, but an L pad is just two resistors, in this case one is variable. Otherwise the input stage would have to be buggered around with. Lower resistance / increase capacitance reset the gain around the first stage - too much agg, and you can't mess some things without altering the balance elsewhere. The amp is designed to look at a passive pot or switched attenuator, so just think of your active pre or processor as a source. I have a couple of customers with both cinema processors as source and another one with a valve pre (Croft I think) he insists on using and they all seem happy. In the case of a home cinema system there is even an advantage as it give another way the balance the channels if the room is squif. In an active system it is another way to balance the drivers instead of messing with the crossovers.

[Gromit]

I've never heard NVA stuff, but it gets a good rep and I like its 'simple but business-like' look

Marco.

At the risk of appearing like a lazy git I've just pasted my thoughts from what I said on another forum...

Having spent a lot of time listening to these amps I'm more convinced that they're a very wide open window on what's fed them. They don't do 'applied' musicality (ie they don't imprint their own sonic signature) rather they allow the music created (or not!) by the source to do its own thing. If the music bounces/rocks so does the amp.

Of course I would say my Naim rig (72/Hi/180) is a faster, more bouncy amp with bags of life and pep but whilst this is fun on the right material, on a lot of stuff it's just not right. It hits harder than the NVA (although with the better P90sa pre amp this gap has narrowed somewhat) but with some music one does get the impression that it's a sledgehammer being used to break an egg. On classical music the NVA's so far ahead of the Naim rig it ain't funny. On rock/funk etc the gap is much narrower.

It's a shame I still haven't got it to compare but the NVA isn't far off the sound or sheer sense of 'rightness' of my hot-rodded WAD KEL84. Trust me that's a compliment. Where the NVA scores is that it has much stronger speaker-driving power, as one would expect of course.

For the time being, the NVA rig is doin' da business quite nicely.

[Filterlab]

Lazy git!