Tekton Double Impacts

Bill,
I sent you a pm about your question.

mazikrav,

Al does bring up some solid concerns with your pairings but I remember you mentioning before the add on to your preamp.

I personally never have liked any of the different passive preamps that I have tried and much prefer a lwr gain active preamp.

I found the J2 to have more clarity than the F3 in my system and my ears.

If you are wanting to stay in the pass family of amps you might look at the X30.8.It's big,heavy and runs hot but also sounds very good.
I sold mine locally and I never heard it with my DI's though,I'ts a very good sounding amp I just went in a Diff. direction at the time.

What phono preamp do you use from Sound smith?

Best,
Kenny.

Mazikrav, if the Guy Hammel preamp/buffer stage you referred to is this model, or is something similar in its impedance characteristics, it would certainly provide excellent impedance compatibility with just about any amplifier in existence. As well as with most source components, aside for certain tube-based models.

But if it provides just a tiny bit of gain as you mentioned you still would not be able to drive many amps to their maximum power capability when listening to LPs. If you were to go to a significantly more powerful amp than the F3, though, the amp itself would **probably** provide enough additional gain for that to not matter, as it would probably put out enough power anyway. Generally speaking there is a **loose** correlation between the gains of various amplifiers and their maximum power capabilities.

The F7 and many of the other higher powered First Watt models may be exceptions to that, however, because a downside of their minimalist signal paths is unusually low gain relative to their power ratings. For example, the F7 has a specified gain of only 14 db, while like most Pass Labs amps the XA30.8 which Kenny mentioned has a gain of 26 db. That means the F7 would require four times as much input voltage as the XA30.8 to provide a given amount of output power. That can be a significant issue in many cases involving the combination of a vinyl source and a passive preamp, or a passive preamp plus a buffer stage providing minimal gain. And the fact that the sensitivity of the Brilliance is about 5 db less than that of the DI just adds to the potential significance of that issue.

When you develop a short list of potential amplifier candidates, let us know and this issue can be looked at more specifically.

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks so very much to Al, Kenny, and all the rest who are responding so promptly to my posts about the Brilliance, various First Watt amps, and Placette audios preamp and amp.

fyi: Guy Hammel  told me that the preamp  section he made for me is the audio equivilant of his preamp minus the various inputs and controls. So perhaps I misspoke when I described the gain as "slight." To control the preamp, I use his Placette passive line stage. 

I compared the F-3  with the J-2 feeding my Tekton Design  Brilliance speakers and honestly found an improvement in clarity usng the F-3's. The j-2' currently feeds a pair of d'Appolito MTM's that Eric built for me many years ago.  It's less efficient than my Brilliance and suits that design well.

As you may have noticed, I've recently started a separate thread for the Brilliance speakers and I bet my posts belong on that thread rather on one devoted to the DI's.

Thanks for the amp recommendations.  I'll keep them on my computer and try them out at some future date. 

Meanwhile, I'll be describing my experience with the Brilliance at some later date. Thanks again to all who a music fanatic with idiosyncratic musical tastes.  Tekton design fits my needs to a T I'm sure you move up the quality scale as you increase price. I'd love to discuss the way in which all of you have your Tekon speakers set up.  Near field? Small or large rooms? toe in? etc.

Again, thank all of you for your help. Please forgive any posts I may have ignored. This thread is coming up fast and furious on my laptop. 

P.S, Kenny: My phono stage is Sound-Smith MM3 built only for MM cartridges. ( I saved a little money by excluding the low output MC option. Peter Lederman was so nice.