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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Cerebral and psychological evolution of amp matching for the Avantgarde Duo
Post Subject: New amplification vs. extra channel.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 4/14/2011
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 Tax wrote:
Given the varying degrees of how different individuals process COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION there will be differences in between how the plumber Vs a brain surgeon  handles COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION. I guess on some things the Plumber would be better and vice a versa. I take your point.

Yes, it is correct the COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION (COoS) as far as origination of playback concern would be different with different people. But here is the most interning part to the game: the value of the other’s people COoS is not in the COoS’ outcome but in observing the reasons and argument the people use to support own COoS. Probably the plumber and the brain surgeon would use different rational to justify own COoS. For an outside observer the recognition and evaluation of these rationales and correlation them with own experience is all what needs to be important. 

 Tax wrote:
So my first foray into domestic horns were via AG Duo,s later upgraded to Duo Omega after visiting the AG Factory in Lautertal Reichenbach. I upgraded to the Omega drivers for better integration in the LF as the fs on the Omega midrange is lower than the stock unit. The Omega brought some smoothness to the HF as well, I also liked the increased sensitivity of the new drivers and yes they did bring with them system noise issues.  I had done much reading and experimenting with the Duo subwoofer and trying to integrate it from 120Hz – 160Hz with the stock Duo and the Omega. Finally settled on 140Hz. I then listened to a friend’s Trio and realised that the LF horn on the Trio allowed me to hear more of the tonality of the LF and had more dynamics in those frequencies, Yes the amplifier was commercially 3 X the price of mine, but I know my amplifier well and can tweak its sound to what I like, so I am of the opinion that it was more to do with the Trio’s extra horn which has an fS of probably 80Hz or lower and XO’s at100Hz and looks after bandwidth till 600Hz before the MF takes over. So the MF of the Trio does not have to work as had as in the Duo which has to tTRY and go below 100Hz at stress. I LIKED this.

I then listened to another friend’s Duo Omega driven by the Lamm ML2.1, and felt that I like the presentation and the depth that the ML2.1 added to the Duo Omega’s LF. I then contacted some current and former Duo owners (former US distributor and others included) and asked about the types of amps they had used and the perceived differences. I then specifically read about and contacted Duo Omega owners who were running with Lamm ML 2 and 2.1. Their responses together with what I hear in my friend’s system then led me to start playing with different amps in my system to see how they respond. Some of these amps were my 300B PSE, 70Watt EL34, 35W 13E1 driven by 45, Yamamoto A-08S with emission lab tubes etc. Some of these addressed the LF that I needed some didn’t. Where there was LF, it lacked the HF, where there was LF and HF it lacked the midrange etc etc.

I see, what you are basically saying that addressing of some shortcomings you indentify with your Duo was observable by you when you heard Trio and when you heard another Duo driven by Lamm SET. So, you wonder if the improvement that you experienced was because an addition of upperbass horn (Trio) or because a better amplifier (Lamm). Is it correct?

 Tax wrote:
So now what.. I keep thinking about the Lamm’s, read more about the Lamm’s read more about ML2.0 vs 2.1 vs 2.2 vs 3.0 and keep looking at the prices, think about shipping weight etc etc, and not wanting to pay for over priced commercial items which I felt needed more tweaking in my system as I am not completely happy with the ML 2.1 sound (not many ML 2 used for sale). Then a Lamm owner friend sent me a link to the Melquiades and I was interested as it was based on the 6c336 valve, had the bandwidth that I thought I required, was not as expensive as Lamm’s, and I had a good old school technician no BS amp builder who I showed the schematic to and we discussed it in great detail and we decided that we could try it.

I also liked the fact that YOU had tried many amps in your playback system and had 2 pairs of ML 2.0 and knew that they were one of the better commercial amps out there, but also knew their weakness and had decided to build the Melq to hopefully overcome those weaknesses, and knew the kind of sound you wanted and had moved away from the mass fi area of audio, and had invested a lot of thought, time, money and effort into your system approach. So I could relate to a benchmark of cognitive  thinking and concurred with your approach to your system building (even though at times I cannot agree with your approach to civility, nor do I know your subjective ‘tastes’ in sound reproduction)

So that was the 6c336 Melquiades exploration and COGNITIVE ORDER OF SUCCESSION in regards to solving the LF issue via an amplifier based approach.

Ok, if to presuming that “solving the LF issue via an amplifier based approach” is the direction you would like to go then certainly your interest with Melquiades right in your COoS path.

What can I say about it? The Lamm ML2.0 vs. Melquiades is not the subject that I am willing to comment. It was a subject of my interest 7 years ago when I was working on Melquiades, since then a lot of time passed, I learned a lot new about sound and I did not heard Lamm ML2.0 for quite a number of years. Lamm ML2.0 was very fine amplifier but the way how I understand and treat amplification at my today’s understanding the Lamm electronics is absolutely unsalable with today’s Macondo. I have no doubts in my mind that if Lamm ML2.0  would driver the whole Mocodno now then it would sound like a childish blabbering compare to 6-chennal of Melquiades. Can you however to compare 6-chennal DSET with DHT in MF and with a full range SET? Of cause not, the topological advantage of DSET configuration is much higher than any normal differences between amplifiers.

If you would like to hear Melquiades then there was a guy in AU who built one a few years back. There was a thread about it at this site, if you want I can find it, you could get in touch with him. Still, I am not in the business of prompting Melquiades. I do feel gratify if people built it but in the larger scale of the things I truly do not care. I did what I felt I need to do – I found a good SET configuration. I made the solution public. Then I lost interest in it. It is me – anything is expressed in it’s completion does not fascinate me anymore. Melquiades was fine 7 years back but my I move forward and nowadays my fascination would not be by something like Melquiades but by elaborate multichannel amp with very intricate inner amp filtration. I in a way do not see an amplifier as a stand along entry anymore. I see an amplifier, filter and narrow-band speaker channel as one atomic expressive substance.

If you would like to build Melquiades then be my guest, I think it is fine amp. In context of your playback I would not recommend it. If I am a doctor and you are a patient and you came to my office with reedy to erupt appendix and with skin irritation and asking me to prescribe to you some kind of skin lotion then I would probably point to you that your itching  skin shall be the last of your problem.

I know that is you implement your Midbass Horns then very next what happen to you will be disposing your AG Duo. You will find yourself in very different stage then, which might require very different thinking about amplification. So, I do not want you to propose you to commit to other amplification that in my view is irrelevant in your playback now. This is where my Cognitive Order Of Succession come from. I know that in “audio related cyber world” the behavior when a person does not try to inflict his will to another person considered as “obnoxious”. For sure I can spray cultural pleasurable nothingness, make a lot of friends online and become an audio dealer, like most of the other audio dirt does. It is not what interest me however. It is Romy the Cat, not the Romy of Dog who would turn treks while bagging for food.

The Cat

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