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In the Forum: Melquiades Amplifier
In the Thread: Herbie's Hal-O Tube Dampers
Post Subject: What the new Hal-Os seem to doPosted by JJ Triode on: 9/21/2007
For me the "delta" with the newer Hal-O dampers was in the direction of increased clarity. One example is in vocals, where consonant sounds like "f" and "th" were much more realistic (my "s" and "sh" were already pretty good.) Beyond these typically-audiophilic effects, I also noted that lyrics were easier to understand, not only that I could tell better what words were said but that I could better understand the singers' intented meaning, an effect I did not expect and was not listening for. There were improvements at lower frequencies as well, and in symphonic and chamber music etc.

I would tend to agree that the early Hal-Os were not always positive in their effects and sometimes had no effect or were even negative. With the newer ones (the so-called BlackBery and UltraSonic rings) I am confident that you would hear a delta over the old ones (or no damper) on most tubes, and it would almost never be negative (but could be "merely different" in some cases.) I can well believe that you have your vibration issues much better worked out than most people, but I suspect that your installation also recognizes much smaller deltas, so there should be some benefits, or at least some interesting observations.

I was especially surprised at the benefits of the UltraSonics on output tubes, not only mine (2A3) but in a friend's installation (845) where the effect was about like cleaning a car's windshield after driving through a buggy summer day...

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