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

[walpurgis]

Have you tried any other speaker cables recently Mike? They could be a source of brightness. It won't be the interconnects, Straight Wire stuff is well behaved.

[Marco]

Listening to some jazz now, the spaciousness and live feel is great, but a stringency still exists in the high notes of sax/trumpet solos, which is hard to bear. My never ever ending gripe, no matter what system I have! Gonna try to get some vinyl versions of a few of my jazz cds, see if it helps.

Have you tried any mains treatments, Mike? Or experimented with cables? Also, what kind of valves are you using in your amp - modern production or NOS?

All of the above, IME, could potentially contribute towards the "stringency" you mention.

Marco.

[Marco]

Have you tried any other speaker cables recently Mike? They could be a source of brightness. It won't be the interconnects, Straight Wire stuff is well behaved.

Great minds...

Also, IME, poor mains and cheap modern production valves can be a source of brightness.

Marco.

[Mikeandvan]

Have you tried any mains treatments, Mike? Or experimented with cables? Also, what kind of valves are you using in your amp - modern production or NOS?

All of the above, IME, could potentially contribute towards the "stringency" you mention.

Marco.

Speaker cable is Van Damme LC-OFC, supposed to be on the warm side I believe. I also use a Power inspired mains regenerator. Not sure on the valves in the Soro, I'll plug the S500 back in tomorrow and see how that sounds.

[Mikeandvan]

Have you tried any other speaker cables recently Mike? They could be a source of brightness. It won't be the interconnects, Straight Wire stuff is well behaved.

Use Van damme lc-ofc.

[Marco]

Speaker cable is Van Damme LC-OFC, supposed to be on the warm side I believe. I also use a Power inspired mains regenerator. Not sure on the valves in the Soro, I'll plug the S500 back in tomorrow and see how that sounds.

It certainly won't be the Van Dammes - not sure about warm sounding, but they're not bright that's for sure. More neutral, I'd say. Mains regenerator sounds fine, what about mains leads - are you using anything decent there (I don't mean expensive), or just standard 'kettle leads'?

Defo check the valves, as IME a lot of modern production ones, especially Chinese and Russian varieties, can sound a little 'edgy'.

Marco.

[Pharos]

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.

If these rather forceful comments are directed specifically at me, I am offended by their tone, and find the post rather rude.

[Marco]

You can rest assured that they were not. I was making a general point aimed at folk with that type of blinkered, staunchly objectivist mentality, so unless you think that you qualify, then please be blissfully unoffended

Marco.

[Pharos]

I don't think that I qualify as an objectivist blind to truth, that would be an oxymoron. I do however think that the ear is an overrated instrument, it only transmits an electrical correlate of what it is receiving. The rest is done in the brain and this is very much 'software' (brain) effected, and so dependant on the individual's development.

My friend calls me deaf, and instructs me to get my ear trumpet, but I can hear the HD on my PVR at ten feet away, and he cannot with better hearing technically.

I have also designed and built power supplies, and I think I understand the relationship between 'iron', rectification and storage capacitance.

[Marco]

Well, I'm in no position to dispute any of that, but we'll have to agree to disagree on the importance of 'iron' in valve amps. For me, it's a LOT more significant than you think.

IME, there's no such a thing as 'too big' a power supply in ANY piece of audio equipment. As long as it's well designed and compliments the partnering circuit, bigger, in that respect with greater capacity (and heavier), will almost certainly mean better!

Marco.