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I have just taken out of my system a First Watt F5 clone Tim Rawson amp, It was substituted by a Telefunken PP amp with 6AQ5 tubes.

Let me to explain.

My system consists of 6 way horn loaded speakers.  I have a round Tactrix upperbass horn with 8" cone driver going from around 180hz up to 800 hz, then a compression driver from 800hz to 6khz and horn tweeter and supertweeter.  My bass modules are sealed cabinets amplified separately by SS subamps (soon to be changed).

I mainly use a pair of Leak TL12.1 amps with passive preamp to drive de Horn module from 180hz and up.  This horn module has a speaker level Xover.

I am trying now to use multi amps in order to achieve more transparency and dynamics, one amp for each driver, for this I need to add an active preamp.  After adding the new active preamp my Leak amps had too much gain and the system started to shout a little.  So I changed the Leak amps for the First Watt F5 clone amp.  

The difference soundwise in this half range 180hz and up horn module between the Leak TL12.1 amps and the First watt F5 clone was big,  mainly the tonal balance is very different with the midrange sounding thin.  Highs were more extended but a bit unnatural, they sound less liquid and more in your face, The midrange is not rude or scratchy but it is not full and round, it also lacks the attack on piano notes the Leak amps have.

I guess the tonal balance can be readjusted at Xover level but this I will not do at the moment. 

I also have a Chipamp (Thorstens inverted design) I have used for the upperbass channel alone and I remember it sounded very good in that range, The amp is a bit more jumpy and thinner than the tube amps I tried and on the upperbass horn the sound did become more transparent and mixed better with the tube amps and compression drivers on top. This test I will try to run again this weekend.

The same Chipamp on the full horn module from 180hz and up sounded terrible with a scratchy midrange and dirty high range.

My plan is to use a pair of spudamps similar partially to the Melquiades amp for the compression driver 800hz to 6khz and for the tweeter and supertweeter, and try either the F5 amps or the chipamps for the upperbass horn.

I will leave the Leak amps for the bass modules and see how they perform there.

PS.  Johan in South Africa uses Firstwatt F3 amps for upperbass horn and tweeters,  his upperbass horn is loaded by a JBL compression driver,  not a cone driver. 

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