Tekton Double Impacts

Only 24 different amps with the DI’s Kenny? Slacker! :)

I’m on amp #5 with the DI’s with #6 arriving Tuesday and #7 in a couple of weeks.....both SET amps. Fun, fun, fun!

As always it comes down to perspective and personal preference.

If dynamics and tighter, controlled bass is realism to you then high powered amps would probably be preferred. If tone, timbre and texture provides realism to you then SET amps are hard to beat in that regard. I’m not implying SS can’t do tone, timbre or texture well I’ve just never heard one do it as well as a SET. The same goes for tube amps with dynamic slam and bass, they can do it quite well but I’ve not heard one that could match a good high powered SS amp. Having said all of that, just because I haven’t heard something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

As Kenny stated.....no right or way way. It’s all good and it's all fun.

@kdude66:

my observations and thoughts were based on   "MY EARS"   and not what i heard  or anything posted about the DI's!

when i said higher current amp   (clean and quality)  both tubes and SS. the DI's  produce such   "Realism" and Faithful Sound  that i found lacking with the low watt amps, just keeping it real!

We all hear different and i understand that!

so i suppose there is  no right or wrong  when pairing with the DI's?









 

Totally agree with Kenny's opinion/position on what happens as you go up in power/watts on the DI's, and the Ulf's, slight changes in bass presentation, nothing radical regarding over "aliveness" dynamics and clear differences in tonality/color depending if you are using tubes or solid state amps.  Since both speakers are easy to drive conduits, I much prefer tubes in general and SET amps specifically because of what they have to offer in timbres/tonality, meaty 3D imaging, and spatial dimensions.

To be quite frank/honest, with no disrespect to anyone, I find that many so-called audiophiles and reviewers need to play their systems at very high volume levels because over the years they have really screwed up their ability to hear high frequencies at realistic volume levels because of the many years of setting in front of their system at unsafe/harmful dB levels.  Ever time I have gone to shows my first request virtually in ever room is could you please turn down the volume.  Because I'm spoiled reviewer, instead of copping an attitude they often oblige.  When I'm invited to other listener's home to hear the music through their system I also almost always am requesting to turn down the volume.

In all systems because of many factors their is going to be a "sweet spot" were all the dynamics are present, along with realistic sound-staging/layering, and finally the size of the individual players.  My major way of dialing in that sweet spot is the size of months of singers, and if a trumpet becomes four feet long its time to reduce the volume.  As a system reaches reference level performance the "sweet spot" becomes more precise with each recording and sometimes has to be reset on different selections on the same recording because the sound engineer did some changes from cut to cut.  So many times I have sat in front of systems that are playing at possible damaging dB levels with prefect clarity and dynamics but the snare drum sounds like it is the size of a bath tube!  Please turn it down is my quick request to the owner of the system.

The good news for all of us is the DI's most definitely give us a speaker that is a true "Conduit" and will respond to any changes made upstream of them but on the other hand we have a speaker that's fairly forgiving and does exceptionally well with all kinds of gear.

In my 36 yrs in this hobby,I haven't ever owned or heard a speaker quite like this one and I smile in amazement every day that I listen too them.

Simply no right way or wrong way in gear choices and what pleases the "Ears" of each individual audiophile/musiclover.

Kenny.

@kdude66- Totally agree the DI is a fantastic tool for an audiophile to learn what they like. I do agree with sprocket75 that putting some power behind the DI's does add some presence and "realism" and I listen at an average volume in the mid to upper 70db range with peaks in the mid 80's.
   This big SS vs SET amps brings up an important personal distinction and there aren't too many speakers out there that can sound good with  both big SS and SET. For many years I wondered what was wrong with me because I didn't feel so passionately about SET amps that people gushed over and I tried (845,211,300B, 2A3). I finally read a Nelson Pass article about distortion and found out that it's about an even split between people that prefer 3rd order harmonic distortion to 2nd order....Clearly my ears prefer the 3rd harmonic and that truly helped me make decisions about speaker choices and amplification. It was liberating to know that there wasn't something wrong with me for not loving SET.
   As far as the DI's go, they are the perfect way to find out what camp you fall in (2nd order, 3rd order, mixture of both). If you don't know which camp you fall in, pick a representative example of both topologies at the same time (if economically feasible) and find out what your ears prefer.