New H20 Signature S250

Wow! Nobody would argue the big Soundlabs are a challenge. I laud you for sticking with the H2O for the time being. It is evident a lot of systems are well evolved along the path to better solid state listening. All dissatisfied listening I've seen has been when the H2O is set in place of a well hued solid state system. Some items could very well be incompatable.

MIT, and similar cables don't work with the H2O. Come to think of it, I wonder of any tube lovers use MIT? The H2O excels in low level info, and network box cables mess with that. Some line conditioners choke the high current H2O. The amps can not reach their optimum without well shielded power cables, on all components. They are ultra sensitive to speaker cables, digital cables, and ICs.

There is nothing remaining in my H2O system that was in use during my system's solid state days. I have incrementally improved the H2O's success with carefully chosen changes. I have opted for a modified non-upsampling DAC. The preamp has to be extra clean. I have a custom class A. There is still more to do.

I have the H2O Sig, which is worth the extra dough. I don't experience any placement, size, or stage width abnormalities with my Scintilla system. I have an old Vollenweider disc, "Book of the Roses." People who have his discs know there are lots comings and goings of very deep images. It comes as something of a shock when Vollenweider lays into a foreground electric harp. The strings of that harp extend from speaker to speaker.

I guess what I am saying, you have not heard the H2O amp at it's best yet. For the Big Soundlab, I think you should go with the Signature.

But then, what do I know? I use Speltz Anti-Cable.

Oh yeah, I like piano too. My piano is what size it would be in the recording. Clara Monty in her Uberoth recording, is on stage, some distance away. Jim Brickman's "No Words," the piano is close-miced, and fills the room. I fool people all the time. It has all the bloom, and decay of the real thing.

Vince,
Are you using the Speltz anti cable speaker cables? Do you a biwire configuration and how does the anti cable work with the H2o's?
I don't agree with your statement that'network cables mess with low level detail.' My past set of MIT 750 shotgun was very resolving of low level info.
Thanks,
Bill

Mr. Bill,

I have no experience with the MIT & H2o together. However, in the past I had used the MIT 750 Series 2 biwire with Theil 3.6's and McCormack DNA-Deluxe. As you state, there was no loss of low level detail... It was there and fine. I ended up making and audiophile "adjustment" and ended up with Martin Logan SL3's, same amp, same MIT cabling. Still sounded alright. Looking to make a swap to tubes, friends came over with Sonic Frontiers SFS-80, Music Reference RM-9, as well as a Conrad Johnson model I can't recall. I can tell you after swapping all of them in and OUT, everyone was scratching their heads. Two friends *swore* it had to be those damn MIT boxes and one drove home and brought back a pair of Synergistic Research speaker cables (No. 2 or No. 3 if I recall) and it was amazing, every single ONE of the tube amps there sounded MUCH better than the big McCormack DNA-2 Deluxe with the MIT... actually we then tried the DNA-2 Deluxe with the Synergistic as well, and it was much better. All we could come up with is the box must have caps and such that "adjust" or "tune" the highs and lows to affect the sound for SS amps that may be bright in some systems. It was definately affecting the sonics in my system.

Disclaimer: This was well into the past... about 8 years or so ago, perhaps 7. However, after that weekend - I listed every MIT interconnect and speaker cable for sale, and will never consider another again.

Don't get me wrong, I have heard them sound quite decent on a Krell or Spectral / Avalon or Thiel / MIT system, however detailed, sterile, analytical doesn't appeal to my musical tastes... at least not anymore (that is what got me hooked initially).

All in all I guess I am just trying to relay almost all cables have strengths and weaknesses. Some more than others, I assume. In this case, I know there were "major" sonic landscape shifts with the comparison of the MIT cabling with tube gear compared to Synergistic Research.

Perhaps the MIT boxes adversely affect the H2o. Like I said, I don't know personally. I know the MIT boxes did adversely affect the SFS-80, Music Reference RM-9, and those Conrad Johnsons...

At the summit, it usually does depend on overall synergy of equipment to bring out the best in each component.

The sixth entry in this thread describes my problems with the 250sig and my Transparent ref speaker cables. Jafox put it so much better and I find most of his description about turning it up to try to get the mix better on MITs was exactly MY problem (and again, Henry Ho said his amp doesn't perform well with network boxed speakers.) I subsequently tried Anti-Cables and the harmonics and volumes felt much better, but I thought the Anti-Cables weren't up to the quality I had been used to in the Transparents on the end of my ARC VT100MKII. YMMV.

John

Two general comments:

1) I don't know how similar the Callisto is to the Calypso, but the July Stereophile reviewed the Calypso and discussed impendance behavior. The significant point for the H20 is that John Atkinson recommended that the amp have an input impedance of at least 30K ohms if used single ended. The H20 has an 8K ohm input impedance.

2) You do not mention if the XLR cables and XLR preamp outputs were thoroughly burned in. In my experience XLR connectors can take a long time to burn in - longer than RCAs. Adaptors and binding posts can take a long time as well. Until fully burned in, the treble suffers. There can be an issue of component burn-in if there are parts in the preamp that are only exercised through the balanced path.

Bob