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In the Forum: Melquiades Amplifier
In the Thread: 6 Channel Version of Super Melquiades
Post Subject: The singe-stage, the S2, the RL filter and the … Alleluia.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 9/20/2007

One of the most interesting outcomes of the Milq conversion into 6 channels is the impact it had to it MF channel.  The tweeter is a separate subject, I still work on it, I know how it will be done but I did not hear the final result. I would like to report something special about fundamental channel but there is nothing special about it – it sounds as it was before. I have with the dedicated amplifier some flexibility to play with it but basically it the same. The upper bass not has own dedicate amp with 14dB superfluous gain and I can theoretically to put in there any driver I wish, not necessarily as crazy sensitive as Fane was. I might do it in future if I find more interesting sounding driver then 8M. However, the sound of MF did change quite interestingly.

If you read above then you know that my primary concern was the inappropriate harmonic changes with volume when a channel was high-passed and with opened top. After many experiments I summarized that it was related somehow to the filtering capacitor.  Not necessarily a capacitor as a “better or worst sounding capacitor” but rather a capacitor as a topological entity. A serial filtering  capacitor is not coupling of power supply capacitor and it is not charged by DC, therefore it’s dialectic is not polarized and it gets re-polarized with every electron of AC signal. It usually impacts sound statically, injecting permanent  coloration, and I never seen before that it had dynamic impacts fluctuating with volume. The Air cap was better solution it had no re-polarizing dialectic. However, the RL fitter was juts way out there. It immediately did not just answer all questions but make the question do not need to be asked.

The S2 driver with the RL filter sounds exactly how it sound without any filter at all, in fact it sounds slightly better then without any filter. Perhaps it has to do with unloading bass from inductance-challenged transformer but I did not hear any distortions what I drove the 4H MF transformer full-range. So what is so special with the sound of the new S2 channel? Here are a few factors:

1) Less “bad granularity” without loosing of the “good granularity”.

2) Way cleaner upper region, though without the “bad granularity” it might feel in beginning that it has “less HF extension”

3) The awareness of the driver about the full range or something that I call the “neighborhood watch effect”.

This last entry should be explained because it was EXACTLY what I was looking to get from my MF driver. When I listen my stand alone S2 now it reproduces above 1K but it has awareness about the whole spectra of music. It is not the bottom knew response and but rather some very long acoustic-like harmonics that make the driver to reacts upon the events that are outside of it reproducible range. If I have a bass note that shell not be auditable via the MF channel then this note of course is not auditable but the MF channel still creates a “perceptional event” that indicates that there is a hole in the music that should be filed with sound or with mental extrapolation.  The channel with capacitive filter does not do it – it masks out events from the non-reproduced regions. The driver in the way acts as a pointer that shows off what the others channels shell be and how they shell sound. Of course it is necessary do not subtract from it the S2 it’s speed, the phenomenal transient capacity, the “absolute tone” and the vintage ability “to go boiled” with tone when it necessary.  Hey, if the second channel will do the same then it looks like I will be able to play the brutal London Symphony’s valve trumpets and soprano trombones as they should be played…

I am becoming a more satisfied Pussy with my 6-chennal DSET project…

Rgs, Romy the Cat

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