Charlie:

In the "Audio Anthology" reprints, there is an article about a man who built a straight bass horn where the mouth of the horn was one whole wall of his room, and the back of the horn extended into his yard!! Here is a picture of him standing next to his "creation". He said he did it all while his wife was away from the house visiting relatives. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when his wife returned!!



[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited January 27, 2003).]

I suppose that would be, in most respects, the exact opposite of a Bose system?

Well, I guess you could build an entire wall of those silly little cubes and have, well, SOMETHING!

back to the original question...i'm an old guitar player and after years of searching for an amp that "sounded like me," I found an H&K with a tube pre-amp and solid state amp. I loved the pairing so much, I decided to recreate that setup in my audio system. When I finally saved up the bucks to plop down for a tube pre, I found an Anthem (model PRE-2L) with remote volume and a cool little button that puts it in bypass mode for HT applications. This allows you to set up your mains with a pair of monoblocks or a stereo amp backed by the Anthem and your choice of sources. I use cd and turntable (with an outboard phono pre-amp). When you want to watch a DVD (or listen to SACD or DVD-A if you have it), you hit the bypass button and your home theater processor/pre-amp (in my case, an Outlaw 1050)is able to play through the anthem to take advantage of the amp and mains used for 2-channel listening. This eliminates the need for extra speakers or cables or switching cables. The reason this was so appealing to me: I went for a budget system for movies (Toshiba DVD, Outlaw receiver, Energy Take-5 satellite surrounds and center) but I take my music very seriously. I listen to vinyl and cd on a Music Hall MMF-7 and Jolida JD-100 tube/hybrid cd player ,respectively, through the Anthem to a B&K Ref-2220 going to a pair of Quad 22L loudspeakers. The Anthem has allowed me to watch movies with the benefits of the B&K and the Quads, where before, I had two completely separate systems with nothing but satellites all around. The 1050 is a monster for the price and adequately drives the Quads; I have been thrilled with it, but it does not keep up with a 220 wpc reference series B&K for dynamics and clarity in 2-channel listening. This is why I have always had two systems (the two receivers I cycled through prior to finding the 1050 left an even bigger gap in performance). The warmth of the tubes is amazing for music and I will probably always have a tube pre-amp of some kind somewhere in my listening arsenal. I am thinking of upgrading my 1050 for a 950 to get the extra processing formats and other upgrades (I have six Marantz MA700 monoblocks just sitting there burning a hole through their boxes)but I will still use the tube pre-amp for music. There are other tube pre-amps that function like the PRE-2L but they were much more expensive to start with and I got a deal on the PRE-2L anyway (retail $1300, I paid $900 NIB). I have seen some PRE-2Ls on E-bay and Audiogon and saw one on consignment recently at Atlanta Audio in Marietta, GA. It is recently out of production but you may find a new one at an Anthem dealer (that's where I got mine). The fun never ends; good luck finding the right equipment for yourself.

Cowboy, I'm doing something similar, but slightly different. I have a Behringer Ultra-Q T1951 on the way. 2 channel, 4-band parametric eq, with tubes. (Will go in between the 950 and my ss power amp only for the front L & R channels.) No "bypass," but has a knob to dial in the "warmth" or "tubeness" of the sound, vs "cold". Somehow "mixes" in the tube sound. So "warm" for 2 channel audio, and "cold" for HT. Should be interesting to play around with it.

Any opinions on driving Klipsch RF7's,rated at 102db/watt/meter, with a "755," using a
HK AVR85 as preamp.
This is the post, I was referring to in another speaker thread.
Is this a situation where the 755 would be operating at its lower threshold, at most normal volume levels, producing too much noise?

[This message has been edited by gwhunran (edited April 17, 2003).]

Soundhound,
I always enjoy reading your informative posts. How do you handle the differences in gain/input sensitivity and power of different amps when you horizontal bi-amp? Do you use an active crossover? How about differences in speed and characteristic in the amps. Could it degrade the sound in any way. I use Newform Research moded 645's with crossover set at 1000 HZ between the ribbons and scan speak mid woofers and was always afraid of horizontally bi-amping because of the relatively hi crossover point. I do have a pair of Rogue Mangnum 120's in triode mode driving the fronts with active sub crossover at 100hz (with db Systems active crossover) using one paradigm ps1000 for both channels (yes, I know two would be much better). I do have a 5-channel parassound HCA2205 220x5 which I love that is sitting idle on the side and can use it to horizontally bi-amp. But the problems of gain and speed of the amp have prevented me form doing so. Also I know the Rogues have no problem driving the 96db efficient speakers so I do not know If the benefit is worth the complications. Your insights are appreciated.

Best Regards

Amir

For those intersted the link is to the list for the most exotic horn systems for "music lovers"
http://aca.gr/system_world_a.htm#worldjyk
Now this is what I call the listining room (the second picture)

enjoy

Amir

Thanks for your comments. I have installed potentiometers in all my power amps that control the gain. Otherwise it would be impossible to get the differing amps balanced. The crossover is a custom built job that has crossover frequencies at 60Hz for the sub to woofer, and 1,200 Hz for the woofer to tweeter. Except for the subs, the mains are completely horn loaded.

If there is a difference in "speed" between the amps, I haven't noticed it. All of them have been very extensively modified in similar ways, so maybe this is equalizing out some of the differences. Also, of course, all the amps except for the sub are tubed. The tweeter amp is a single ended triode.

Well SH I will mention that I love my speakers,I have done some demos of more expensive speakers like the B&W 12,000 per pr,but I always come back to the sound of my speakers,they can play at live levels and I just love them,the others you play them loud and they start to compress,no detail and no dynamic range at all.I need to mention that I like the sound of live bands on intimate settings weather is acoustic or electronic.So do I love my horns????You bet I do!!!!