I've been doing a lot of system shifting the last few months. Everything but the speakers. Ditched half of the 70's Harmon/Kardon integrated, got an early 90s Rotel power amp. That got me much more focused sound, and made me realize that my speakers are actually pretty damn good. (In keeping with my ultra-cheap philosophy, born of massive student loan debt, a mortgage, and two small children, they're Dynaco A-25s, modded with new tweeters and a rebuilt crossover. I swear that I haven't heard anything at a store that costs less than $1k that touches them. John Marks is right-- there's a distinct lack of entry level quality speakers with reasonable bass response. The A-25s have a rather nice 10" SEAS woofer. Nothing but floorstanders use 10" anything anymore.)
Next step was ditching the HK altogether and playing with a Dynaco PAT-5 that BillB sold me for next to nothing. My Dynaco fetish has to do with the fact that most of 'em were built here in Philadelphia, and I grew up with my dad's system, which was based around A-50s in front and A-10s in back. I've never heard a piece of Dynaco gear that sucked. Some of 'em are bland, but even the early transistor stuff is listenable.
(Incidentally, JA-- if you want to do speaker tests on a practically virgin pair of Dynaco A-10s--which, with their small woofer, are much more like modern bookshelf speakers than the large but more famous A-25s-- I'd be happy to lend them to you. Given that they were the rear speakers for a quadrophonic setup for 20-some years before my dad upgraded and I made off with 'em, I doubt that they even have 1500 hours of use. Still sound great.)
The PAT-5 was good in some respects: the line stage was better than the HK. It was worse in others-- lots of crosstalk between channels, and the RIAA equalization was, typically for the 70s, pretty far off in spots. I started disassembling it to try experimenting with more modern opamps in the linestage and more exact resistors and caps in the phono section, and haven't had time to put it back together again. (Note to BillB, I will, probably in the next month, I promise!) It's hard to do hardware hacking with a toddler and a near-4-year-old wandering about. Something about soldering irons that makes their mother nervous.
A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a Dynaco PAS-2 on ebay. One of the later PAS-2s, with the faceplate that looks like the PAS-3. It didn't attract too many bids, in part because the seller had rebuilt the rectifier and power supply capacitor section. People seem to like things to be original. I scored it for less money than a tube preamp tends to go for (less than $175, including shipping cross-country). It was more or less an amusement-- something I could play with until I decided what I was going to do next with the PAT-5 or until I figured out what pre (Adcom? Jolida?) would replace the PAT-5. I mean, I'm not a tube guy. They're wonderful for guitar amps, but they're hot, noisy, prone to breakage, not always linear, and filled with extremely high voltage that needs to be respected during any modification.
It arrived tonight. Well packed, other than the fact that the seller left the tubes in their sockets. No harm no foul-- I just needed to reseat them, something I've done in guitar amps about a zillion times. Nothing broken. The seller's mods were quite competently done. I powered it up, hooked my CD player to a line-level channel, and ran it into my power amp. Amusingly, the smell of patchouli came out of it when I opened it to check the tubes.
I pushed play on my CD player.
Oh my.
Oh. My. It had all of the typical faults that PAS-2s are accused of (weak bass, notably), but the midrange was *so* right. I brought my wife downstairs to hear it, and she admitted that it was *far* better than anything I had before. Instruments just sounded like they were in the room. Voices were stunningly, reach-out-and-touch 'em real. I could hear strings slapping against fretboards in the instants before harmonics sounded. Utterly, completely beautiful. A little congested with orchestral music, but for the folk-rock and chamber music I put through it, just stunning. (I'll digress again here to highly recommend the Espers, a local freak-folk band who sound kinda Pentangleish. Beautiful music, beautifully recorded.)
I can see where it can be improved (phono section tweaks, maybe replace the linestage with an Aikido board, new jacks on the back, new volume pot), but this is the first time in a very long time that my own system gave me goose bumps. Actual goose bumps.
Maybe I'm a tube guy after all.
I've been doing a lot of system shifting the last few months. Everything but the speakers. Ditched half of the 70's Harmon/Kardon integrated, got an early 90s Rotel power amp. That got me much more focused sound, and made me realize that my speakers are actually pretty damn good. (In keeping with my ultra-cheap philosophy, born of massive student loan debt, a mortgage, and two small children, they're Dynaco A-25s, modded with new tweeters and a rebuilt crossover. I swear that I haven't heard anything at a store that costs less than $1k that touches them. John Marks is right-- there's a distinct lack of entry level quality speakers with reasonable bass response. The A-25s have a rather nice 10" SEAS woofer. Nothing but floorstanders use 10" anything anymore.)
Next step was ditching the HK altogether and playing with a Dynaco PAT-5 that BillB sold me for next to nothing. My Dynaco fetish has to do with the fact that most of 'em were built here in Philadelphia, and I grew up with my dad's system, which was based around A-50s in front and A-10s in back. I've never heard a piece of Dynaco gear that sucked. Some of 'em are bland, but even the early transistor stuff is listenable.
(Incidentally, JA-- if you want to do speaker tests on a practically virgin pair of Dynaco A-10s--which, with their small woofer, are much more like modern bookshelf speakers than the large but more famous A-25s-- I'd be happy to lend them to you. Given that they were the rear speakers for a quadrophonic setup for 20-some years before my dad upgraded and I made off with 'em, I doubt that they even have 1500 hours of use. Still sound great.)
The PAT-5 was good in some respects: the line stage was better than the HK. It was worse in others-- lots of crosstalk between channels, and the RIAA equalization was, typically for the 70s, pretty far off in spots. I started disassembling it to try experimenting with more modern opamps in the linestage and more exact resistors and caps in the phono section, and haven't had time to put it back together again. (Note to BillB, I will, probably in the next month, I promise!) It's hard to do hardware hacking with a toddler and a near-4-year-old wandering about. Something about soldering irons that makes their mother nervous.
A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a Dynaco PAS-2 on ebay. One of the later PAS-2s, with the faceplate that looks like the PAS-3. It didn't attract too many bids, in part because the seller had rebuilt the rectifier and power supply capacitor section. People seem to like things to be original. I scored it for less money than a tube preamp tends to go for (less than $175, including shipping cross-country). It was more or less an amusement-- something I could play with until I decided what I was going to do next with the PAT-5 or until I figured out what pre (Adcom? Jolida?) would replace the PAT-5. I mean, I'm not a tube guy. They're wonderful for guitar amps, but they're hot, noisy, prone to breakage, not always linear, and filled with extremely high voltage that needs to be respected during any modification.
It arrived tonight. Well packed, other than the fact that the seller left the tubes in their sockets. No harm no foul-- I just needed to reseat them, something I've done in guitar amps about a zillion times. Nothing broken. The seller's mods were quite competently done. I powered it up, hooked my CD player to a line-level channel, and ran it into my power amp. Amusingly, the smell of patchouli came out of it when I opened it to check the tubes.
I pushed play on my CD player.
Oh my.
Oh. My. It had all of the typical faults that PAS-2s are accused of (weak bass, notably), but the midrange was *so* right. I brought my wife downstairs to hear it, and she admitted that it was *far* better than anything I had before. Instruments just sounded like they were in the room. Voices were stunningly, reach-out-and-touch 'em real. I could hear strings slapping against fretboards in the instants before harmonics sounded. Utterly, completely beautiful. A little congested with orchestral music, but for the folk-rock and chamber music I put through it, just stunning. (I'll digress again here to highly recommend the Espers, a local freak-folk band who sound kinda Pentangleish. Beautiful music, beautifully recorded.)
I can see where it can be improved (phono section tweaks, maybe replace the linestage with an Aikido board, new jacks on the back, new volume pot), but this is the first time in a very long time that my own system gave me goose bumps. Actual goose bumps.
Maybe I'm a tube guy after all.