Raul,
Taking shots at Albert, based on one nights listening, is pointless. That you still harbor ill-will after taking offense at someone's honest opinion, does you a disservice. You've turned this into a pointless argument that Albert tried to avoid. However, you keep bringing it up.
Albert correctly points out that the crossover had only a few hours on it, that the signal caps are teflon, and teflon caps take hundreds, if not several thousand hours to completely break in. It's my understanding that Dan at RTI has empirical evidence that caps break in. He can watch a cap break in over hours with an oscilloscope. The 'scope doesn't lie. Further, Dan states that teflon caps take much longer to break in than polypropylene caps. There are physical and chemical changes that occur in ALL capacitors.
The root of the problem here is that you swoop in with a transistor preamp, try to warm it up in a couple hours (after it's been in a jet, cold, moved around, etc..), insert it into a completely foreign system, and expect it to perform to its potential. A better approach is forwarding the preamp some days/weeks earlier, allowing the unit to be run continuously for enough time that the unit settles in/warms up, and giving the host enough time to make system tweaks that will maximize the combination. As an aside, I've never had ANY solid state piece that didn't sound slightly hard/aggressive/sterile for the first several hours (usually four hours, with more gradual improvement the following day). I would imagine, based on my experience, that your preamp is no different. Also, moving around interconnects seems to somehow disturb them. I know that will sound like audiophile nonsense to some, but I've heard it. The act of plugging in your preamp disturbs the cable geometry/crystal structure, etc.. of the cables.
Nobody there disrespected you, jumped up and down screaming that the Aesthetix was better or even offered an opinion. Let's face facts here: Albert's entire system is based around the Aesthetix. Everything from tube choices in the power amps, to speaker positioning, to turntable tuning, to isolation, to tweaks, to cable choices were based on the Aesthetix being in the system. Even without the preamp switch, the system was not its usual self. The aforementioned new crossover was already causing problems in the system, not to mention that Albert was using 12sn7 instead of the 12sx7 which is what he usually uses (he was using the 12sn7 as a break-in tube to save the hard to find 12sx7). Now, I'm not saying the system sounded bad, but that it now sounds a good bit better after the crossover had a chance to break in.
It is my understanding that your preamp was rather new, with only a couple hundred hours. I've always heard major improvements with transistor equipment after many hundreds of hours--from cheap CD players to extremely expensive transistor pieces.
Those of us who were there didn't like the changes after swapping in your preamp. Why does that disturb you? It was a preamp with a few hundred hours on it, that had been on a freakin' jet earlier in the day, put into a system optimized around a totally different sounding preamp, with a brand new crossover with teflon caps, and all of it done with no chance to allow any tweaking/adjustments. It's no wonder that it didn't sound as good to us. It had no real chance, and that is your problem. It's possible that the thing was damaged because it wasn't working when it showed up at Louis' house, or at least that's my understanding of the night's events. When you asked Albert's honest opinion, and the opinion's of those others of us who were gathered there that night, the opinions were given without malice, disrespect or ill-will. YOU never gave YOUR PREAMP a fighting chance under the conditions.
Another thing I find improbable is your assertion that you know how a system sounds after just a few hours. It took 3 or 4 listening sessions at Albert's house to appreciate what is special about his system. Even though the system didn't sound as good as it usually did that night, it still beats the hell out of my system and 99.5 percent of the other systems I've heard. You're making a snap judgment based on 3-4 hours of listening. I don't know of ANY reviewer or audiophile who claims that he knows what a system or component sounds like after such a short period. You usually need to go through dozens of recordings to hear everything a system can and can't do. Albert's system is better than mine. Listening to it has made me a better reviewer/listener, and allowed me to better hear changes in my system. I've only heard three other systems that are as good as, or maybe better, than Albert's current system. Two had huge full range 'stats and the other had huge full range ribbons.
Raul, none of us have said that your preamp sucked. We just didn't like it as much as the Aesthetix, a design that's been perfected over several years, and happens to cost even more than your preamp. Your preamp did beat a more expensive tube design that was briefly in that system some time back, so this has nothing to do with tubes versus transistors.
I wish you peace. Please let the episode drop and learn from it. Criticism, when honest, is the only way to objectively improve the performance of a design. The designer/builder/owner is usually too involved to see possible flaws that would be apparent to a non-involved party.
By the way, hearing the AirTight and the Koetsu in the same system on the same night was eye opening. The PC1 is the absolute cleanest cartridge I've heard. It makes most records sound more like tape than a piece of plastic with a groove in it. The frequency response is super extended and very flat. Dynamics are superb. On the other hand, it is VERY demanding of the matching tonearm (the 312S is maybe even more spectacular, in an unspectacular way, than the PC1). Further, the high output with low impedance is a challenge to properly load. Some phono stages won't have the necessary flexibility to take advantage of the PC1.
With deepest respect,
Phillip Holmes
www.dagogo.com
Taking shots at Albert, based on one nights listening, is pointless. That you still harbor ill-will after taking offense at someone's honest opinion, does you a disservice. You've turned this into a pointless argument that Albert tried to avoid. However, you keep bringing it up.
Albert correctly points out that the crossover had only a few hours on it, that the signal caps are teflon, and teflon caps take hundreds, if not several thousand hours to completely break in. It's my understanding that Dan at RTI has empirical evidence that caps break in. He can watch a cap break in over hours with an oscilloscope. The 'scope doesn't lie. Further, Dan states that teflon caps take much longer to break in than polypropylene caps. There are physical and chemical changes that occur in ALL capacitors.
The root of the problem here is that you swoop in with a transistor preamp, try to warm it up in a couple hours (after it's been in a jet, cold, moved around, etc..), insert it into a completely foreign system, and expect it to perform to its potential. A better approach is forwarding the preamp some days/weeks earlier, allowing the unit to be run continuously for enough time that the unit settles in/warms up, and giving the host enough time to make system tweaks that will maximize the combination. As an aside, I've never had ANY solid state piece that didn't sound slightly hard/aggressive/sterile for the first several hours (usually four hours, with more gradual improvement the following day). I would imagine, based on my experience, that your preamp is no different. Also, moving around interconnects seems to somehow disturb them. I know that will sound like audiophile nonsense to some, but I've heard it. The act of plugging in your preamp disturbs the cable geometry/crystal structure, etc.. of the cables.
Nobody there disrespected you, jumped up and down screaming that the Aesthetix was better or even offered an opinion. Let's face facts here: Albert's entire system is based around the Aesthetix. Everything from tube choices in the power amps, to speaker positioning, to turntable tuning, to isolation, to tweaks, to cable choices were based on the Aesthetix being in the system. Even without the preamp switch, the system was not its usual self. The aforementioned new crossover was already causing problems in the system, not to mention that Albert was using 12sn7 instead of the 12sx7 which is what he usually uses (he was using the 12sn7 as a break-in tube to save the hard to find 12sx7). Now, I'm not saying the system sounded bad, but that it now sounds a good bit better after the crossover had a chance to break in.
It is my understanding that your preamp was rather new, with only a couple hundred hours. I've always heard major improvements with transistor equipment after many hundreds of hours--from cheap CD players to extremely expensive transistor pieces.
Those of us who were there didn't like the changes after swapping in your preamp. Why does that disturb you? It was a preamp with a few hundred hours on it, that had been on a freakin' jet earlier in the day, put into a system optimized around a totally different sounding preamp, with a brand new crossover with teflon caps, and all of it done with no chance to allow any tweaking/adjustments. It's no wonder that it didn't sound as good to us. It had no real chance, and that is your problem. It's possible that the thing was damaged because it wasn't working when it showed up at Louis' house, or at least that's my understanding of the night's events. When you asked Albert's honest opinion, and the opinion's of those others of us who were gathered there that night, the opinions were given without malice, disrespect or ill-will. YOU never gave YOUR PREAMP a fighting chance under the conditions.
Another thing I find improbable is your assertion that you know how a system sounds after just a few hours. It took 3 or 4 listening sessions at Albert's house to appreciate what is special about his system. Even though the system didn't sound as good as it usually did that night, it still beats the hell out of my system and 99.5 percent of the other systems I've heard. You're making a snap judgment based on 3-4 hours of listening. I don't know of ANY reviewer or audiophile who claims that he knows what a system or component sounds like after such a short period. You usually need to go through dozens of recordings to hear everything a system can and can't do. Albert's system is better than mine. Listening to it has made me a better reviewer/listener, and allowed me to better hear changes in my system. I've only heard three other systems that are as good as, or maybe better, than Albert's current system. Two had huge full range 'stats and the other had huge full range ribbons.
Raul, none of us have said that your preamp sucked. We just didn't like it as much as the Aesthetix, a design that's been perfected over several years, and happens to cost even more than your preamp. Your preamp did beat a more expensive tube design that was briefly in that system some time back, so this has nothing to do with tubes versus transistors.
I wish you peace. Please let the episode drop and learn from it. Criticism, when honest, is the only way to objectively improve the performance of a design. The designer/builder/owner is usually too involved to see possible flaws that would be apparent to a non-involved party.
By the way, hearing the AirTight and the Koetsu in the same system on the same night was eye opening. The PC1 is the absolute cleanest cartridge I've heard. It makes most records sound more like tape than a piece of plastic with a groove in it. The frequency response is super extended and very flat. Dynamics are superb. On the other hand, it is VERY demanding of the matching tonearm (the 312S is maybe even more spectacular, in an unspectacular way, than the PC1). Further, the high output with low impedance is a challenge to properly load. Some phono stages won't have the necessary flexibility to take advantage of the PC1.
With deepest respect,
Phillip Holmes
www.dagogo.com