For Cayin TA-30:"The Horn" or Fostex/Voight Pipe?

Shirasagi,

I also own Paul's mod'd TA-30 and I think it is a great amp. Although I don't currently own any, I have heard several single-driver speakers and honestly, I couldn't live with them. I've heard the Hornshoppe, C&C Abby, Oris Horn and JPL Memorial Diatones. All of them left me thinking something was missing.

I think you could get away with the hornshoppes if you are prepared to use a sub (or two). I've met Ed and really like him and his speakers have a dedidcated following. But, they just don't work for me.

I really wanted to like the Abbys because they are so stunning to look at. Although they don't necessaryly require a sub, they sounded a bit too congested for my taste. Too bad as at $1500, they have a very small footprint and they are beautiful.

My personal opinion is that a good single drive speaker requires a huge cabinet. I don't have room for that, so I"m sticking to my two-way monitors.

Enjoy,

TIC

Shirasagi,

What difference did you notice with the Mullard over the stock tubes?

RW

The Mullards are great - all the usual adjectives apply like "liquid, smooth" and so forth. I think they're also more clear and give deeper bass. The thing I like best is that there's a greater difference between stock and Mullards when running the amp in SET mode than in P-P...the stockers sounded overly "tubey" to me in triode, with thick overblown bass, but the Mullards are just awesome in triode: clear with deep but nicely defined bass - really wonderful overall. Two caveats. One, I'm using Tesla ECC803S tubes in the 12AX7 positions (they are alleged to have been made with TFK tooling) that are very, very clear...so much so that at first I thought they were cool and hard-sounding in P-P. I'd have to guess they help give a kind of shimmering clarity in concert with the Mullards in triode. Second, as always, these results are speaker- and system-dependent and YMMV.