Pass Aleph-3 questions

David, all i can tell you is that if you think 200 wpc is overkill with reasonably efficient speakers for doing "metal" volume levels, you better never come to my house for a "jam session". Just "shows to go ya" that everybody has different ideas about what is loud, quiet, smooth, bright, warm, dark, clean, etc... Keep in mind that a power rating means nothing if the speakers are reactive at all. Some amps, even though rated for "brute strength" in terms of rms power, just don't deal well with anything but an easy load. The Bryston 4B that i had was like that along with a few other "respectable" amps. Gutless wonders when it came to low impedance / low sensitivity loads. While none of Nelson's amps fall into that category (in my opinion & experience), they are by no means "earth shaking" by any stretch of the imagination. Sean
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I have to disagree re the drive potential of the Aleph 2 vs the 3. The 2 monos EASILY pump 200w into 4 ohms (a typical impedence seen in many speakers in the upper bass), and will play MUCH louder than the Aleph 3 in the lower octaves.
I also recommend investigation of the preamp match. Alephs' low input impedence can be problemmatic. I chased a used Aleph P to ensure full driveability.
I'm grateful for the comment re cables, as I too am using a lean transparent cable (Nordost Red Dawn), yet I find the overall system balance slightly lean at ALL SPLs. There's no change with loudness (outside Fletcher-Munson effects).
C'mon, Sean...200w/ch into 92dB/w yields what...115dB??!!
This is truly dangerous, no? I'll defer to your experience, but phew...can you hear me?
On third thought I wonder if the Aleph 3 is truly saturating, given the 92 db/w sens of your speakers. Does the impedence drop to 2-3 ohms in the bass? Is your pre not fully driving the amp?
I too will chase a warmer, yet detailed interconnect to flatten the upper mid bump a bit. (Note that I attribute this mild tonal anomoly to the use of a 5" midrange in my system. 6.5 or 7" midranges generally are a little flatter
between 400 and 1200 Hz, in my experience, though they may have more problems crossing to the tweeter than a 4-5" mid.)
So I'd look at the preamp first, the IC second, and if you're still running out of steam on peaks, chase some used Aleph 2s like I did. Good Luck. Ernie

the thing that took the high frequency hardness out of my system was changing the preamp. also i'd suggest putting yout tt inside a sound proof booth at 115dB haha. back to smooth sailing, woohoo!

Something has come up in this thread that i want to discuss, but it is of another subject matter. As such, i'm going to follow my own advice and start a new thread so that we can stay "on topic" here. Sean
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david, as we've prewiously discussed, both here and *off* a-gon, i tink perhaps rogue's claim of 100 ohms output impedence for their 99 preamp is a bit optomistic. and, yer speeks' efficiency of 92db means that the aleph-3, which should be able to handle lo-impedence loads, will be able to drive *sustained* 107db levels w/o clipping. pretty loud, imho - especially in a real-world-sized room, where it may be even 3-6db louder. as we discussed off-list, assuming the pre's output impedence *isn't* the problem, perhaps yer speeks are hardening/compressing at these loud levels...

doug s.