@jzzmn88 thank you for sharing your thoughts.
It's encouraging to hear that Rich upgraded your Merlins to Black Magic Edition. Beyond the help he often lends in the forums, he attended the shows Bobby, and always came across as a really good person. How do you find them, and what improvements do you hear after the modifications?
Every product has weaknesses, that's true. So it's easy to understand the Ars Sonum Filarmonia doesn't tick all of the boxes for you. If I may, what about the amp misses the mark?
I think you would actually have a lot of fun tube rolling with the Filarmonia. I met the builder at one of the aforementioned shows (I think in NYC), and there and in print, he's mentioned the Dynaco ST70 serving as the inspiration and starting point for this amplifier. My experience with the Dynaco and other similar products shows a simplistic circuit quite reflective of the tubes used in it. Given the Filarmonia uses EL34, 12AU7, and 6922, that provides a lot of opportunity for tuning sonically, and keeping you busy for a while. As the included JJ E34L tubes already sit among my most favorite, though I often start with output tubes, I'd begin with the small signal tubes in this case. And as the E34L tilts more to the (glorious in the right amplifier) midrange and less toward the low-end, if you felt you needed a different balance, the JJ EL34 or Shuguang EL34B give that, at the same great value pricing
It's encouraging to hear that Rich upgraded your Merlins to Black Magic Edition. Beyond the help he often lends in the forums, he attended the shows Bobby, and always came across as a really good person. How do you find them, and what improvements do you hear after the modifications?
Every product has weaknesses, that's true. So it's easy to understand the Ars Sonum Filarmonia doesn't tick all of the boxes for you. If I may, what about the amp misses the mark?
I think you would actually have a lot of fun tube rolling with the Filarmonia. I met the builder at one of the aforementioned shows (I think in NYC), and there and in print, he's mentioned the Dynaco ST70 serving as the inspiration and starting point for this amplifier. My experience with the Dynaco and other similar products shows a simplistic circuit quite reflective of the tubes used in it. Given the Filarmonia uses EL34, 12AU7, and 6922, that provides a lot of opportunity for tuning sonically, and keeping you busy for a while. As the included JJ E34L tubes already sit among my most favorite, though I often start with output tubes, I'd begin with the small signal tubes in this case. And as the E34L tilts more to the (glorious in the right amplifier) midrange and less toward the low-end, if you felt you needed a different balance, the JJ EL34 or Shuguang EL34B give that, at the same great value pricing