Chord Dave Any Good?

[spritzer]

I've got more, just love this pic:

This is supposed to be one of the new and improved ones, the Amber Balanced... Looks all clean but that's just one reason for that...it's missing all the fucking wires.  I also love just the sheer number of fuckups that are on the board and I sure as shit can't see any HV regulation. 

Then there is this oldie but a goody...

http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2966&start=10

This is worse than single power and that says quite a bit. 

[Rossliew]

This looks like what the show car guys are doing - wire tucks.

Reckon it would be a big hassle to identify the offending wire should anything go wrong..

[wink]

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by wink

[Forza AudioWorks]

23 hours ago, spritzer said:

I've got more, just love this pic:

This is supposed to be one of the new and improved ones, the Amber Balanced... Looks all clean but that's just one reason for that...it's missing all the fucking wires.  I also love just the sheer number of fuckups that are on the board and I sure as shit can't see any HV regulation. 

Then there is this oldie but a goody...

http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2966&start=10

This is worse than single power and that says quite a bit. 

He's quite successful even despite this, isn't he? At least that's how it looks like, even despite threads like this one. It's understandable why people like his stuff, they simply enjoy the sound of his decks, even though his products are kidna DIY still. Either one accepts that or moves on to something built fancier. (and/or engineered better, I can't say, not an engineer myself) Call me a fool, but personally I have nothing against quirky stuff like this AS LONG as it works for me sound wise.      

[spritzer]

This isn't DIY level...this is no skill amateur hour.  Also to think that this shit sounds good needs a high level of delusion to work.  This does fit with what the garbage peddlers push, that hifi can be suited to your tastes in a way that simply roll the tubes and find the sound you like.  More than you find the individual set of tubes that makes the circuit sound the least shitty...

[Forza AudioWorks]

27 minutes ago, spritzer said:

This isn't DIY level...this is no skill amateur hour.  Also to think that this shit sounds good needs a high level of delusion to work.  This does fit with what the garbage peddlers push, that hifi can be suited to your tastes in a way that simply roll the tubes and find the sound you like.  More than you find the individual set of tubes that makes the circuit sound the least shitty...

I'm no LampizatOr pusher and I think that I get your point. Recently I've heard Thoress integrated amp and the guy who makes them was very specific that he uses one specific tube because it does the job better than any other and that changing it in his circuitry is rather pointless. 

All this I get and I also am able to grasp that Nelson Pass pulled of things in his F7, which most other manufactures would probably sell for five times more. There are engineers who have - I don't know how to call it - a deeper understanding of the subject or they simply know more, that's how I see it. Not sure, maybe you are one of them, I've heard some very nice things about your goods as well.

Still, I don't see myself as delusioned person as far as audio goes. I share my office with a journo who reviews at least several usually expensive products per month. Point being, over the years of working near the man I've heard way too many things to gush over audio products. I'm past this, new toys became a routine. But subjectively speaking I haven't yet heard a DAC which would be better than GG we share, everything else we've tried gets murdered and there were some fancy sources here alright. Not sure what exactly,  but Fikus has to do something right in order to pull this off. I can't explain this in any other way.     

[mypasswordis]

1 hour ago, Forza AudioWorks said:

I'm no LampizatOr pusher 

...

Still, I don't see myself as delusioned person as far as audio goes. 

...

But subjectively speaking I haven't yet heard a DAC which would be better than GG we share, everything else we've tried gets murdered and there were some fancy sources here alright.  

...

[spritzer]

Exactly...  Buy a cheap TDA1543 dac off ebay with some hacked together tube outputstage and see how you like it.  For me it is just baffling that this garbage passes off as high end.  I mean isn't the whole purpose of high end sources to be as transparent as is possible and have as little of a character as you can get away with.  This sure as shit isn't the road to get there...

[SeaWolf]

I think it comes from 2 things. 

One being a fundamental misunderstanding of what tubes are and how they should be used. I blame this on a bunch of cheap tube amps designed to overtly emphasize negatives of tubes as positives. Then people assume this is what tubes should sound like.

Add to that that many high-end amps have had tubes in the design, when this group of people go to upgrade they want to spend more money because you know that means better stuff? And we end up in this situation. 

These are the same people who when they listen to a good tube amp come away remarking that it sounds like solid state.. Argh

[mainlythemusic]

On 13 Nov 2017 at 5:12 PM, spritzer said:

Exactly...  Buy a cheap TDA1543 dac off ebay with some hacked together tube outputstage and see how you like it.  For me it is just baffling that this garbage passes off as high end.  I mean isn't the whole purpose of high end sources to be as transparent as is possible and have as little of a character as you can get away with.  This sure as shit isn't the road to get there...

Here we go, all amps besides mine are shite. Well if tubes are so crap in general why are some of the best amps in the world inc the T2 using tubes? Can I ask Birgir, have you even heard the GG, thought not. Lampizator has moved so far in the last few years, they are clipping the heals of the best DACs out there. And it isn't just using tubes to 'colour' the sound. They have a FPGA for DSD which sounds superb, and a good PCM discrete board as well. Actually, the GG is very transparent and uncoloured, and IMO more accurate than any SS DAC I have heard to date. Tube in a good circuit can do something special, we all know that. So why the BS?

[spritzer]

Ehhh who hit you with the stupid stick?  I've lost count of how many tube amps I've designed so I'm well aware what tubes can and indeed can't do.  Nothing to do with my amps either, some of my customers have Lampi dac's which is why I know they are such utter shit. 

Now, since you know so much about tubes...are tubes less noisy than transistors?  Are they better at amplifying low level signal than transistors?  Are they superior in terms of distortion and other artifacts that deviate from the original signal?  Nope, fuck no and hell no respectively.  What you fail to grasp is how tubes are used and where they work the best.  That sure as shit isn't a tube output stage of a DAC which is ironically fed by a current output dac.  Also since you bring up the T2, I'm well aware of it and I'm even revising the circuit boards now to hopefully increase its performance so let's dwell on it for a bit.  Is the T2 the best amp there is for electrostatics...nope, it isn't.  Would it be better if you replaced the front end tubes with fets and the output tubes with SiCfets?  Yup...by quite a bit actually.  That has nothing to do with "tube magic" or other such BS claims based on not having the slightest grasp of what is going on.  The fet's are simply better devices, made to much stricter quality standards. 

What tubes do well is simple circuits, even silly simple sometimes and they are forgiving of "designers" who don't know what they are doing.  It's hard to blow up a tube...though some people have tried their best to do so.  Ohhh and they were excellent for HV output duty but the SiC fets are clearly better. 

As for these super qualities which are now just coming to light...is there anything to back up those claims or just your own BS?  I take it the GG is still using a Soekris dac fed by an off the shelf PSU from ebay and another ebay special USB input.  Well shit...I have all those parts...hell even two Soekris boards so I should throw something together and charge somebody 40K$ for it.  I have some DHT's too so let's make it super exclusive and throw a tube output stage that does fuckall but looks super cool...ohh and fuckups the sound for good measure. 

 

[kevin gilmore]

lampizator continues to advertise a DHT Plate Follower with a Voltage gain of +1 with a single triode.

Not in this universe.

Its crap like that, and transformers secured with double sided tape and a Mikhail class soldering job that tell me to run away fast.

20 years ago when the T2 came out, there was no such thing as a 1600v SicFet. Tubes were then the best way to do high voltages. There is a 4500v SicFet coming soon. Its going to be a bit pricey. But solid state direct drive electrostatic speakers will soon be possible.

by the way you do know what birgirs middle name is right?

Edited November 15, 2017 by kevin gilmore

[Sherwood]

1 hour ago, kevin gilmore said:

by the way you do know what birgirs middle name is right?

[SeaWolf]

If you throw that dac together spritzer, keep the tube but remove it from the circuit. Just power it so it looks cool, say something about it helping with skin effect. Get a sand cast chassis and sell it for 90k. A quad of mesh pate 300b and you might get over 120 out of it.

[wink]

4 hours ago, Sherwood said:

...and here I thought it wuz:-

[Forza AudioWorks]

On 15.11.2017 at 4:09 AM, SeaWolf said:

If you throw that dac together spritzer, keep the tube but remove it from the circuit. Just power it so it looks cool, say something about it helping with skin effect. Get a sand cast chassis and sell it for 90k. A quad of mesh pate 300b and you might get over 120 out of it.

Right, once this happens, I'll be the first in line to listen to. Seriously though, I look forward to that. 

[kevin gilmore]

actually there was an electrostatic amplifier made in Canada (mcalister audio) that did just that, 2 extra tubes so that the series filament string came up to the right voltage.

the rest of those tubes were not wired.

[Forza AudioWorks]

3 minutes ago, kevin gilmore said:

actually there was an electrostatic amplifier made in Canada (mcalister audio) that did just that, 2 extra tubes so that the series filament string came up to the right voltage.

the rest of those tubes were not wired.

Was it made as an experiment just for the sake of trolling people?  

[kevin gilmore]

nope, real product. someone here bought one.  maybe originally they had a plan for those 2 extra tubes.

I see that the current version has options for dynamic outputs, so maybe the extra tubes have found a use

[spritzer]

One could argue that mcalister audio is just out to troll people... 

The sheer level of quality here is just startling.  If I could only attain this level someday... ahhh one can dream!!! 

[mainlythemusic]

On 15 Nov 2017 at 12:22 AM, spritzer said:

Ehhh who hit you with the stupid stick?  I've lost count of how many tube amps I've designed so I'm well aware what tubes can and indeed can't do.  Nothing to do with my amps either, some of my customers have Lampi dac's which is why I know they are such utter shit. 

Now, since you know so much about tubes...are tubes less noisy than transistors?  Are they better at amplifying low level signal than transistors?  Are they superior in terms of distortion and other artifacts that deviate from the original signal?  Nope, fuck no and hell no respectively.  What you fail to grasp is how tubes are used and where they work the best.  That sure as shit isn't a tube output stage of a DAC which is ironically fed by a current output dac.  Also since you bring up the T2, I'm well aware of it and I'm even revising the circuit boards now to hopefully increase its performance so let's dwell on it for a bit.  Is the T2 the best amp there is for electrostatics...nope, it isn't.  Would it be better if you replaced the front end tubes with fets and the output tubes with SiCfets?  Yup...by quite a bit actually.  That has nothing to do with "tube magic" or other such BS claims based on not having the slightest grasp of what is going on.  The fet's are simply better devices, made to much stricter quality standards. 

What tubes do well is simple circuits, even silly simple sometimes and they are forgiving of "designers" who don't know what they are doing.  It's hard to blow up a tube...though some people have tried their best to do so.  Ohhh and they were excellent for HV output duty but the SiC fets are clearly better. 

As for these super qualities which are now just coming to light...is there anything to back up those claims or just your own BS?  I take it the GG is still using a Soekris dac fed by an off the shelf PSU from ebay and another ebay special USB input.  Well shit...I have all those parts...hell even two Soekris boards so I should throw something together and charge somebody 40K$ for it.  I have some DHT's too so let's make it super exclusive and throw a tube output stage that does fuckall but looks super cool...ohh and fuckups the sound for good measure. 

 

Hmm, a few errors here. The GG has the Amanero USB board which is built in Italy. You will find that board is OEM in so many middle and high end DACs, if you slag that off, well slag pretty much every DAC off on the market then.

https://amanero.com

Next point, the GG also has a FPGA DSD engine which BTW sounds better than PCM, which already sound damb good.

Next point, tubes can and do special things in amplifiers we all know that here. Stop trying to tell us different with your 'spec sheets'. Why is some of the best electrostatic amps (sounding the best) running tubes? GG, BHSE (final stage) T2, Justins new amp TBC, various other lauded KG designs. Not saying SS isn't good, I have a nice SS power amp for my speakers. We can go on all day about tubes v SS but you cannot claim tubes are beating by SS as a matter of fact, as it is not fact. 

Are you trying to say the current Sic Fet Carbon design beats all tube electrostatic amps, I don't think so. It is damb good, but not the absolute best IMO. Lets do a vote on here and see how many say it is v the T2, BHSE and GG shall we, which of course all use tubes in part of the gain stages.

Have you personally heard the GG yourself? As for the power supply in the GG as 'off-bay' this kind of fake news is what they hate in the states. Lampizator have worked tirelessly for the last 10 years developing their circuits. They don't need to 'buy off ebay'. Pure BS. It is you who seems to enjoy buying of ebay while we are on this subject, fair enough to try stuff out. But don't accuse a manufacturer of that without the proof.

Going back to you designing a tweaked up T2, didn't you try to build one before but it turned out to be a cluster fuck of a mess, and you bailed out?

Next, why is your Carbon CC got a half size PS in it, seems like a big empty box with a big pre ice tag - opps.

And many of your KGSShvs being mini style also have scaled done PS's. Bringing that up as you insist on talking about power supplies.

Anything I missed?

 

[Pars]

A brain?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ktm]

1 hour ago, mainlythemusic said:

Hmm, a few errors here. The GG has the Amanero USB board which is built in Italy. You will find that board is OEM in so many middle and high end DACs, if you slag that off, well slag pretty much every DAC off on the market then.

https://amanero.com

Next point, the GG also has a FPGA DSD engine which BTW sounds better than PCM, which already sound damb good.

Next point, tubes can and do special things in amplifiers we all know that here. Stop trying to tell us different with your 'spec sheets'. Why is some of the best electrostatic amps (sounding the best) running tubes? GG, BHSE (final stage) T2, Justins new amp TBC, various other lauded KG designs. Not saying SS isn't good, I have a nice SS power amp for my speakers. We can go on all day about tubes v SS but you cannot claim tubes are beating by SS as a matter of fact, as it is not fact. 

Are you trying to say the current Sic Fet Carbon design beats all tube electrostatic amps, I don't think so. It is damb good, but not the absolute best IMO. Lets do a vote on here and see how many say it is v the T2, BHSE and GG shall we, which of course all use tubes in part of the gain stages.

Have you personally heard the GG yourself? As for the power supply in the GG as 'off-bay' this kind of fake news is what they hate in the states. Lampizator have worked tirelessly for the last 10 years developing their circuits. They don't need to 'buy off ebay'. Pure BS. It is you who seems to enjoy buying of ebay while we are on this subject, fair enough to try stuff out. But don't accuse a manufacturer of that without the proof.

Going back to you designing a tweaked up T2, didn't you try to build one before but it turned out to be a cluster fuck of a mess, and you bailed out?

Next, why is your Carbon CC got a half size PS in it, seems like a big empty box with a big pre ice tag - opps.

And many of your KGSShvs being mini style also have scaled done PS's. Bringing that up as you insist on talking about power supplies.

Anything I missed?

 

Apparently, everything so far. Tubes work ok for some things.

A DAC is a horrid place for a tube. You want the tube sound, do it somewhere that doesn't 

cause issues. And DAC electronics are pretty sensitive to HV.

[spritzer]

The GG psu is actually off ebay or aliexpress, the one that feeds the dac.  At least in the one I was sent pics off.  Too late now to bother finding the pics but I'll see about doing so tomorrow. 

The Amanero being from Italy is just precious.  It's a cheap USB board from China, seriously...go on ebay. 

My T2 worked just fine once I completely redid the amplifier board.  That is the curse of being the first to do something as you would know...ohhh wait, you haven't done anything, have you? 

As for my PSU's, I make them tiny, it's what I do.  They also have this thing called regulation, you should look into it. 

[gepardcv]

10 hours ago, mainlythemusic said:

damb good

A favorite misspelled catchphrase of astrostar, burned into my retinas from back when I paid attention to the Stax thread on HF. As I recall, he extolled the virtues of tube DACs, and sported an Audio Note build. This might be him, trolling here with a sock puppet account.