Emerald Physics CS-2, Opinions Please

Almost too much to bear, eh Todd? Dont forget Kck ( happy CS-2 owner!)

Thanks for affirming your thoughts on the CS-2. Im very happy, but with an eye on Claytons new Mid priced DCX due out next month or so...but honestly, even if that were not in the picture.Id be perfectly happy with my sound.

George,

Great job with your set up. Knowing you have ( and have had ) a few nice set ups over the years..The Cs-2's are so very impressive indeed. 38 tubes!! WOW! Nice! I recounted in my own set up and tabbed closer to 23 tubes.....good tube amps do make a nice difference from some other nice SS amps Ive tried. I bet the Atma's and Bella's are excellent together. Happy listening ;-)

Gmood1 and Macrojack

Wonderful of you to say so...thanks for posting your thoughts...I do hope the OP will be able to try these out before too long.

Johnk, Totally agree with you... My opinion S.E.T. is totally wasted running a Tweeter alone with a fraction of a watt.. Way too much money, and capable amplification for such a task. The best Deepest beyond subwoofer type bass, mid-bass punch and magical mids I ever heard where driven by pure Low power S.E.T thru a Full range speaker, no bi-wire, no bi-amping.

I agree as well John. But, that said to get that 1000Hz down from the SET (IMHO) always required a horn bass. Which was big as a refrigerator and not very practical. Plus, the fact that a two way design with a passive crossover will suck up some watts. That's why anybody who have owned Altecs, older Klipsch, etc. found that they needed more power that they would have thought. I do wish the CS 2 would crossover at a lower point,say, 500Hz. Clayton's new reference he is designing will have a lower crossover I'm told. So, that will get some of that lower Hz magic from the SET amp. I would like to hear what you can build that would play the full range from the SET amp and have no compression, full resolution, and linear. I know the SET amp can do this and agree with you that it's the speaker needs to be up to it. I have no doubt that it can be done (by you or others) but, at what price tag? BTW, guys I'm not a speaker builder, designer. I'm just someone who has played with a lot of speakers trying to get the best out of a SET amp.I think we're on the same page but, just getting to the end result in a different manner.

Philefreak,
There is no doubt you need fairly efficient, and well designed bass drivers in a cabinet capable of air movement to get the magic of S.E.T. bass down as far as 10 hz. Some of the old' horns and klipsch with low excursion, not low tuned cabinets like most klipsch heritage series will not get you sub atomic bass, however I have heard 20 watt S.E.T do it on the right speaker, and totally kill 1000 watt subwoofers even, and the integration was so good that you laugh at using all the extra amps in the end..

I have done it all different ways, and found doing it right really requires one tube mono per channel, and you can get it all with some care and matching.. This is not always conventional or cheap however, so these Emerald physics can fill that void for those not blessed to use these options with full S.E.T power, and you can always force more low end response using DSP's and equalization to correct things in the design of the speaker or your room, win win, but takes more equimpment and more power switches to turn on and off!

Philefreak

While, I'm a SET advocate, I agree completely that sticking a 3 W amp on even a 100 dB speaker may not always yield the best results. This depends somewhat on the speaker,amp, room combination.

However, I do disagree about your comment that SET amps having problems below 1000 Hz. I realize the 1000 Hz number comes from the crossover point of the CS2 so it was a number that was thrown out in discussion.

The modern pitch standard for music is 440 Hz, which is A4 (the A note above middle C) and the 49th key on a piano. This is right in the middle of the piano and hardly in the bass region nor difficult for a SET amp to reproduce. The normal frequency range for the average human voice in normal conversation is about 80 Hz to 1100 Hz. Obviously, talented individuals can go much higher or lower. However, the normal vocal range is below 1000 Hz. One traditional strength of SET amps is their presentation of human voice. A soprano is expected to cover from C4 (261.626 Hz) to C6 (1046.50 Hz). So saying SETs can't handle music below 1000 Hz is a bit off. Now, getting below 40-60 Hz becomes tricky. Certainly getting to 20 Hz is downright difficult without a gigantic bass horn.

A 500 Hz lower cutoff for a compression driver is a pretty severe requirement on both the driver and the horn/waveguide if you want the driver to cover 500 Hz to 20 kHz. 800 Hz is a more reasonable and achievable goal. There are compression drivers rated down to 500 Hz and go up to 20 kHz (usually a larger 2" driver). But, you do want some head room (say 1/2 octave) below the crossover point. 500 Hz is pretty hard to do and it is debatable whether there are any advantages. At that point, going to a three-way design may be a better option.