Torpedo

The cryo treatment was performed by a company that does that for Hovland and other electronic parts manufacturers using cryo treated components. I don't know if they know their bussiness, but I'm prone to believe they do.

Yep, the high sensitivity and affordable speakers market is full of compromises. Even of the big very expensive ones is. My advice is that you tried to listen to a few ones with your amps and took the ones you found more satisfying for your taste and priorities. Rgrds

We had already done that. The tubes after cryoing (the power tubes) not only sounded different, but also measured different after treatment. Measurements were taken -the manufacturer told us and I have to believe him- right after the tubes got to him, then he burnt them for about 24 hours and repeated measurements. I don't recall the exact figure, the manufacturer told us that they had lost some power delivery which hadn't recovered after that burn-in. In our experiment the tubes were used already burnt-in by the manufacturer. This was less significative on the small signal tubes (6922) and while the sound was different, it really wasn't "that" different. Justin, I won't get into the statistics discussion about how many trials give significance to a test, nor how to make a proper DBT, please consider that I'm a MD involved in clinical research. We made this more than two years ago just to help the manufacturer to decide if it was worth cryoing the tubes he included with his amps. We didn't pretend to make a scientifically 100% valid test, nor I'm claiming this is even close to "true science". IMHO the test is good enough, and as far as I was involved in the listening, I'm pretty sure the tubes sounded different, especially the cryoed power ones. Rgrds

Oh yeah, Happy Bday mate!!!

No, not easy at all, specially in the first assessments when the cryoed and un-cryoed very hot EL34 had to be swapped. The guy used the gloves to take hot trays off the oven. We were afraid of the tubes being damaged for hot swapping, but they stood well.

This was a long "experiment" and we worked on 4 different scenarios: - Cryoed input 6922 using non-cryoed power EL34 - Cryoed input and cryoed power tubes. - Normal input tube and cryoed EL-34 The reference for the DBT was a set of normal tubes and we carried it only to compare the cryoed 6922 + normal EL34, because it was this combination the only one that offered small and not so clear differences. All the other combinations involving cryoed power tubes sounded so different for everyone attending the test, that we decided it wasn't necessary spending much time on a DBT. We had two sets of cryoed tubes and two sets of normal tubes, but only needed one set of each, all measured by the amp designer-manufacturer and matching within 99.5% before the cryo treatment. We had two amps, one used just to keep the tubes warm driving a resistive load and the other for the listening. The trickiest part was swapping tubes while they were hot Obviously the test wasn't strictly double blind since the pal swapping tubes knew which ones he was plugging, and it wasn't immediate A/B, but none of the listeners knew if the cryoed or un-cryoed 6922 was on until the end. We were 4 listeners, plus the manufacturer who was swapping the tubes. I'm not sure now how many trials we made, something between 6 and 8. Two of us spotted the tubes used right in all of them. I've made other blind tests using tubes, but none as thorough as this one and none invoving cryoed tubes. Rgrds

We used tubes from the same manufacturer, which were measured by the amp's manufacturer before being sent for cryoing, and also after treatment. The power tubes were matched as quartets. They were JJ 6922 and JJ E34L. For sound and measurements, it's as though cryoing had aged the tubes. The DBT was carried quite seriously, the manufacturer of the amp was really into knowing if the cryo treatment was worth the expense and the hassle. Using the same procedure, but without being able to DBT, is how the cryoed and uncryoed caps were used. Two identical amps measuring the same, using the very same tubes, one with cryoed caps and the other with normal ones. We made it twice, one in my place and the other at one of my friend's. Despite the non-DBT I think the results were consistent.

I don't know what KG has to say, but I've had the chance to carry a DBT at my place using cryoed and uncryoed tubes on my speaker amp, and I spotted them with 0 errors . This doesn't mean the cryoed were better. They weren't. Cryoing was clearly an awful thing on power tubes. On caps I also noticed clear differences, but for obvious reasons it was impossible to carry a proper DBT. Probably some parts change more undergoing cryoing than others. Not sure the plastic sheet on an electrostatic HP would change a wee bit.

Thanks, still hadn't heard of him. Interesting stuff for the DIYers.

Thanks for the update. Probably S&B decided to earn the big bucks selling their trannies through their doughter company Music First and to selected companies like EAR. I hate when companies get that greedy. Good news abut Bent Audio. I have no references of Slagel. Any experience?

Do you have an approximate idea on what's the current eff. weight your tonearm has now? If you're already on the 25 grs range then you're done and probably listening the DL-103 at its best -tonearm wise-. Were you under that weight, just try a bit more

Especially if you load those detachable shells with some lead and silicon to increase tonearm's effective mass over the 20grs range J shaped arms also work incredibly well, and were it a 12" arm... Most of the B&W sound becomes quite colorist, which is not the same as colored

Yep, the DL-103 is a very good cartridge for the price. Kind of "black & white" sounding, and a bitch to match with tonearms. That very low compliance, while on numbers can be handled... you'd be surprised how much better it sounds on a heavy tonearm. If properly set-up, I wouldn't spend more money for many many of those "high-end" carts in the kilobuck range.

You're welcome mate. This vinyl thing has too many variables to tweak and can become a nightmare hehehe. For an affordable DIY project the Lundhals can be just OK, however getting that Denon on Ebay -or any other when it came out- could be interesting, quite affordable and "good enough". Not sure how much would cost you building a SUT using some Lundahls, but probably not much cheaper. Rgrds

I would advise the Music First unit, it uses the S&B trannies and it's very configurable for load and gain, but it's rather expensive. S&B trannies are among the most transparent, no identifiable character nor frequency rolloffs IMHO. As Aerious said, Bent Audio used the S&B TX-103 trannies in their Mu step-ups for a way more affordable price, but they had to stop using them for distributor policies -nobody was purchasing the Music First units when they could buy the same trannies at half the price from Bent-. I don't know if BA still produce some SUT, but if they did, they'd be a very interesting product to try, John Chapman at Bent Audio knows a few things about "good sound". I don't care very much for Tamuras nor Lundahls, I find them more compromised soundwise than S&B, but heck, many people prefers some flavour on their sound. The Ortofon Vento SUT uses the Lundahls and sells for 550 euros. Not a bad option nonetheless If you're good at DIY, you may get the TX-103 directly from S&B and build your own SUT. This is their information e-mail, I contacted directly Jonathan Billington using it: [email protected] About three years ago they asked 200 euros for each trannie. Adding shipping and eventually VAT were you in the EU, the total cost could be something around 550 euros, depending on how much has the price increased in these years. For an affordable option the own Denon produced a quite fine unit years ago which can be found on Ebay. Now there's one on auction. Never tried it, but I have been told it's quite OK for the price with Denon carts. Rgrds

LOL not really, I just got home from the hospital after a 24 hours on-call shift. I'm in that state of mind which I call "Illuminated hating the World", coming from an excess of work and little sleep. Fortunately I managed to sleep about 4 hours, but not in a row. It feels like a hangover but without the headache, dizziness and upset stomach, with a high degree of intolerance to human moronity. It's not that I'm very tolerant to that on my "normal" state, but I have a harder time to bite my tongue. Not that I found your misspell moronic hehehe, I just found funny that it meant right a very different word in Spanish

Nice piece and nice playing. Thanks for sharing

Congratulations man, for both, the girl and the breastfeeding

New SACD player from Sony? They said they'd be stopping SACD hardware production

LOL I know... these things happen when you can't get scientific evidence, nor being sure you're measuring right the right things. Fortunately for some of my gear, the speakers amp, I know that it doesn't measure the same right powered on than after 10 minutes or other 10 minutes later. But that's the only device I know really changes during warm-up. However my subjective perception of needed warm up is longer than the time it needs to measure steady. We humans are strange creatures

hehehehe, who knows, I wish I were able to measure some things. The fact is that I have some components, even tube ones, that I don't find significant changes and sound good right switched on. Others take a lot to sound right, and I mean more than 1 hour from a cold state... If it's my subconsciousness, she's really creative

Same here, but if it were just my head, why do I feel different components have different warm-up times to reach their nice working point? My subconsciousness can't be that smart

Just in case he didn't find:

Oh yeah, happy birthday. But don't listen to Deepak's wishes, just start having sex right now and don't stop until you're knockout. Nontheless you can do that while spinning vinyl and eating, drinking... cooking seems more complicated though.