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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Passive transformer based preamp
Post Subject: Re: Better among worst?Posted by Thorsten on: 11/4/2005
Hi,
 morricab wrote: |
| no mention by the manufacturer what brand of autoformers are in use (or if they roll their own). |
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There is one thing I can say. Nickel Lams are bright, shiny and light coloured. Steel lams are dark and dull. I can tell you what is inside those bobbins in that particular case.
| morricab wrote: |
| I am curious about the S&B transformers though. If I were to explore that avenue are the silver ones truly superior to the copper ones or is the difference slight? Are there better ones to be had than the S&B? |
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First, there are differences between copper and silver, I tend towards the copper versions, they sound to my ears more balanced, but in some aspects the silver TX's are better but their virtues and vices are not as well balanced. Silver is certainly even closer to "straight wire" than copper, but tends towards a slight thinness and whispyness....
Sort of like the taste of the warranted genuine snark:
"The first is the taste, Which is meager and hollow, but crisp: Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist, With a flavor of Will-o-the-wisp."
It's a system thing I think. To me the slightly looser, fuller and resonant sound of the copper version seems to please my esthetic sensibilities more.
| morricab wrote: |
| I am not sure what you mean by stressed out |
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I do not know how to describe it any better.
Let me say that the difference between a true virtuoso and an excellent musician is not that they cannot both play the same piece, be exact on the same difficult notes and all that, the difference is that virtuoso makes is look, sound and seem as if it is the easiest and slightest thing in the world, while with a merely good musician you notice somehow how hard he has to work to "get there". It is this kind of feel I get from OTL's. I have heard Graaf, various Croft ones, Atmasphere, the Einstein and a variety of DIY ones. I find that the more output valves and the lower impedance ones the designer throws at the job the more the strained sound goes away, but the evils of paralleled devices (a seeming loss of defintion, a blurring of focus to wit) become more noticable.
For me in order to use OTL's you either need to go for ESL's directly driven by the Valves (a friend uses such a system, a massive one and it is indeed very good) of for high impedance dynamic Drivers, such as Philips used to make.
Maybe a line source with a large number of good quality small diameter drivers all in series might work, but again we have multiple devices.
I'd love to a 2500 Ohm version of the Supravox fiedcoil driver I use now.
| morricab wrote: |
| What speakers did you hear them with? |
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Odeon.
| morricab wrote: |
Its a pity they use an inferior pot in such an expensive preamp. Of course I didn't have the opportunity to dismantle one to look inside  . |
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I have german reviews (Image HiFi) of all these items, they have quite detailed Photos.
| morricab wrote: |
| What exactly did you find to not be so remarkable? |
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Having heard (different model but similar) Odeons before with SE Amp's I just felt that things dulled, uninteresting, laking in aliveness, mechanical.
| morricab wrote: |
| What do you pay attention to in particular and ignore. |
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Dynamics (and I mean dynamics and not compression) micro & macro and "tone" plus emotional involvement (this where the "stress" becomes noticable) - does the music move me?
Ciao T
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