What about these bad boys? :cool:
97A Monoblock Amplifiers — Western Electric - Maker of electron tubes and high fidelity
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What about these bad boys? :cool:
97A Monoblock Amplifiers — Western Electric - Maker of electron tubes and high fidelity
SET is sweeter, more open, three dimensional, a little slower and more liquid. The 590 is probably better for classical music or when you want tighter bass and a little more taughtness overall. Both are great in different ways and really depends on the music that you love.
When I received the Duo Mezzo’s, I had the ARC Ref75SE. Not a great combination, so I tried my Valvet A4 mono’s and preferred them considerably. On my prior Zu Definitions Mk 4’s, the ARC was easily the better. Tried my friends Atma-Sphere MA-1’s (originally mine). It was excellent, but they need the Hexfried diode upgrade and lower gain version to be livable with the AG’s, just too noisy. I then traded my ARC for my brother’s Audion Black Shadow 845 SET (mine originally). Definitely the right direction.
I had been following Thomas’ blog for some time and thought this was the time to take the plunge. In discussions with Thomas it became clear that the best sound quality path was the lowest power for my budget...started narrowing in on the 45 amp driven by either the 10Y or the 45, but couldn’t get over the idea of 2w/ch being sufficient, despite having used 300B’s with the 101db Zu’s to good effect, mathematically equivalent to 2w on 107db. I decided to purchase an Oliver Sayes 45 Korneff clone before deciding. When I first put it in the system I liked it better than all the others and I still had all of them, save the ARC in house. Ran it through its courses and when it transfixed me on Tool’s latest album, I realized 2w/ch would be just fine so pulled the trigger with Thomas.
While waiting for my amps and linestage, I purchased another 45 clone, this time a Yamamoto clone, again made by Oliver Sayes. And then picked up another Oliver Sayes built amp, a 46 based amp. For some music the 46 based amp was outstanding, but overall, 1w/ch just wasn’t enough for times i wanted to “jam”.
Received the Thomas Mayer gear and sold my entire inventory except the Valvets and the Audion Black Shadows. The Valvets I’ll eventually sell and my friend really wants to buy the Black Shadows when he has the money so I’ll hold them until he can afford to buy them.
I think that about covers it. I have zero interest in anything else...I’ve found my end.
You can see some of the amps in this pic.
Attachment 29009
Viva, VAC, SIT-3.
Can’t say I’ve heard many better.
You can see the Oliver Sayes Yamamoto 45 clone and the 46 amp in the upper left of this pic.
Great to hear about your experience, Jordan. The Thomas Mayer stuff would probably be first in line if i splurge on Duo XDs some day. Viva Solista a close second.
One other amp I'd love to hear on AGs is the new 47 Labs amp. Minimal parts, circuit path.
Good point, Keith. The Viva and VAC were on my "lust list" after buying Mike's AG Duo Mezzo's. With such efficient speakers I was drawn toward the concept of building around just the watts I needed, though. I also felt Mike had gone above and beyond with sending me his MSB Premier DAC to trial with no strings attached so probably resisted fully vetting the Viva or the VAC. I didn't want to be asking so much for no guarantee I would buy, especially with big heavy amps.
The 47 Labs looks interesting, Keith. It does use alot of NFB though which might not be ideal for the short throw drivers in the AG's. Nevertheless, I hadn't ever even looked at the amp prior to your post...interesting approach.
I tried two gainclone amps on AG, the Audiosector Patek SE and Valab Vanus, both are based around the LM1875 or LM3875 chip like the 47 Lab. Yes the signal paths are extremely sort, in the case of the Valab there are so few components the circuit is actually hardwired. You should understand the pedigree of these chips, they are used in boom boxes and soundbars because they are cheap, compact and simple by design. I sold off the Patek and kept the Valab which powers a widebander I use on my desk top. They sound much better than you'd think i.e meaty, rich tonality/textures on AGs but not the ultimate in resolution.
Back when I was involved as the North American Avantgarde distributor, I tried the 47 Labs gear.
Technically, it was excellent. Unfortunately (to me at least), that's how it sounded - technical.
No musical involvement at all. Hopefully, they have improved that aspect after 15 years or so.
I'm interested in you Valvet experience. I have recently purchased Duo XDs and have been considering the 12 watt Valvet E2se rather than the more powerful A4 monos. The E2se is single ended (rare for solid state I believe) and at leat one Duo or Mezzo owner favours this model. Have you heard this amp? Peter
I haven’t heard the E2se, but have heard good things about it from more than one I would even fathom a guess that as a single-ended design and lower, but sufficient power for the AG’s, might be a better option than the A4’s. That said, the A4’s are incredibly good amps for what they do and what they cost.
Good luck!
I’ll jump in to say that after a loooong break in, the valvet E2se is stunning. More than enough power. And once broken in, smooth, sweet, 3D, quiet, and layered with depth.
Thanks for the Valvet comments. I've spoken with the UK distributor today and he will arrange a loan of his demo E2se when he gets it back from a dealer. It'll be interesting to compare it with my very different Purifi-based Class D amp. Peter
I’d love to see your thoughts on the valvet. I hope you concur with my opinion but I know gear is so personal.
Hi Joe - of course I'll post here.
Incidentally as you probably know I have my new Duo XDs but still have my 2006 pre-Omega Duos. These are 3 generations earlier if you consider the Grosso as a pre-XD Duo with 12" drivers. I have both pairs of speakers rigged up to my amp via a Speaker Switcher placed on the table in front of me. Not ideal as the effective lengths of speaker cable are 8 meters or so, but I can compare one pair with the other by pushing a button. I had 2 friends around the other evening and we listened to numerous tracks while switching speakers. Very strange because there is a significant difference in the sound, but which we preferred varied continually. Even during some tracks, the comment was "I prefer the last speakers" and later when switched back, the same comment - or vice versa. And my friends didn't know which they were listening to. After a couple of hours there was still no consensus. I conclude that my old speakers are still very good (possibly improved by my support and isolation mods) and stand up very well with the latest XDs. This is pretty disappointing after spending so much on the new speakers!
I'm now in touch with Armin Krauss of Avantgarde and I'm hoping we can get the new speakers sounding better. I still have plans to ditch the upright support poles and the spikes, but I'd like to talk these ideas over with him first. I hope AG won't follow the very unhelpful "If you change anything, your warranty is void" attitude. I don't think they will as his boss Helgar Fromme has favourably commented on the mods to my old Duos!
My efforts with Dirac Live have been frustrating and disappointing. I had hoped that this procedure would provide pointers as to where to make speaker adjustments with the XD software. However, after running Dirac twice very carefully, it has produced poor sound, in particular it has over-emphasised the left channel so soloists have shifted over to that side. Again I'm in correspondence with NAD who include this in their M33 amp - no reply yet.
I'll post again with a progress report. Peter
Peter,
Good luck with the optimization. I’m sure I could use a little tweaking but overall extremely happy.
I’m sure you’ll get taken care of. Fingers crossed!
I'd love to hear these little monos with my Duo XDs. - Gallium Nitride MOSFET powered
AGD THE AUDION Monoblock – AGD Productions
I have been using with AG Trio ( and heard in my friends system) lately Audio Note ( UK) 211-variants ( Jinro, Tomei, Ongaku ). Very, very good sounding. Ongaku was one of the best ever heard with Duo Mezzo XD. ANUK 300B-amps are also very good. Also many First Watts, Ear amps work well. Even monster ASR worked well.
Curious if anyone has listened to, or tried Avantgarde’s own X-series amplifiers with their speakers? Just a thought anyway...I have always liked the looks of them, and ability to get them with different face plate colors, interesting, but I have never listened to them, as my closest dealer doesn’t have the electronics. Not sure if he ever has.
Thanks for your reply, Mike. It would seem you have plenty of various bits to compare to the Avantgarde amps, so you would know! I do not believe I know anyone that has heard them, so no idea of their signature at all. Not that I am in any position to look for anything in this price bracket either, I am pretty well set for the longer haul.
Yes, I have.
Too bad they do not sound as good as they look. The speakers can sound better, and be far more musically involving with other electronics, including those mentioned here.
I really wanted to like them, but to no avail.
Just my opinion, not stated as irrefutable fact…
I was pleasantly surprised Sunday when I hooked up a naim supernait3 up to my Duo Mezzo XDs. It worked very very well. Much better than I expected. It wasn't as good as the VAC or my Border Patrol, but it's also 1/10 the price of those.
Sometimes-and I don’t know why, I am surprised how well my Naim Nait XS3 and ND5XS2 sound with my Duevel Venus. I guess I just wouldn’t think of these as being a good match, yet they are, quite a bit better than just good! Funny how these things go!