Synergistic Red Fuse ...

"...If you take the time to talk with Ray, you'll find him to be a perfect gentleman with a ton of patients."

I'm not sure it's fair to refer to his customers as his patients, on the other hand....

;-)

charles1dad

It was in the very early 1980s that I heard the LINN. I was not involved in our lovely hobby during the years 1986 through 2000 due to work and going back to school.I did not return to the hobby until 2001 when I began assembling  a modest multi channel  receiver based system. I was not able to enjoy listening to music on this system so in 2003 I decided to build a modest, but musical, two channel system, which morphed into the system I now have.

During this long period of inactivity I gave away all my LPs (about 300) and equipment (Quad Electrostatic loudspeakers, home built mono-block  power amps, home built pre-amp etc). It was a fantastic system.Each  mono-block consisted of 4 items : Left power amp, right power amp, left power supply and right power supply. The amp was rated at 50 watts per channel into 8 ohms, 100 watts per channel into 4 ohms, 200 watts per channel into 2 ohms AND 400 watts per channel into 1 ohm. It was in fact a 400 watt per channel amplifier that produced its maximum power into one ohm. It was developed to power the Quads which could not handle high voltage. The electrostatics panels would arc if exposed to more that about 45 volts. For best fidelity no protection of any kind was used. I used a thin wire to short its outputs and it simply burnt the wire. Each amp used eight 
250 watt bipolar transistors per channel in the output stage. It outperformed every amplifier it was compared to, including the Krell.

The pre-amp was built the same way. Left preamp, left power supply, right preamp, right power supply. It used FETs in the input stage and each power supply was what one would expect to find in a small power amp.

I gave away all my equipment to friends. I could not bear to sell them. They were too precious to sell.

Hi Frank,
Just out of pure curiosity what is the metallurgy of your Von Gaylord cables and are they shielded? I’ll acknowledge that many factors determine the final sound character of audio cables. We share very similar priorities I’ve come to discover from reading your posts over the past months. As you commented and I agree, for me it all begins with the demand for natural tone as the crucial necessity. Other important sonic factors follow once this mandatory criteria has been satisfied.

I use the Ocellia Silver Reference cables (unshielded and with a paper dielectric)as they have fulfilled this role admirably. No question however that there are numerous excellent audio cables to choose amongst. I imagine that your Von Gaylord cables are wonderful.
Charles,

Nyame,
I would have loved to hear that system you've described. 
Charles, 

I knew Lars and his wife for a while before knowing he was THAT Lars  (we lived in Redding, CT), and also met Tom Gillette at a neighbor's party. Tom's cool...One thing Lars and I joked about regarding the Mpingo things was the fact that because I had a lot of guitars around, the ebony or rosewood components of those should theoretically have the same effect as Sun Mook's imaginary and expensive magic tweaks, and the discs cost about the same as a good guitar (!)…I keep my guitars in humidified cases generally so I never tested that theory, and it's clear I'm not prone to waste time on silly or useless nonsense like Mpingos...