Why continue to use the Heresy's? I have always found them to be excessively bright, fatiguing and thin on bass. When I had the opportunity to buy a pair of Altec Madrid's I quickly sold my Heresy's! Since you like jazz on a lively upfront speaker the Altec Valencia's would be a much better choice than the Heresy's - and better than your other speakers, too!
Dynakit PAS-M & Stereo 120 NG vs Schiit Freya Plus, EVO400 and others
Gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/190302627@N04/
When I originally started out, I started with Yamaha S501 integrated amp which was reasonably priced at about $500 and eventually exchanged it for some other components like tube setups as time went on. I like solid state as well and wanted to share an experience that hopefully helps others. This isn't necessarily about a budget system even though it just so happens to be. It's more about the idea that I'm absolutely astonished at what can actually be achieved with today's upgrades on affordable vintage type gear with staggering results regardless of cost. I'm not an audio engineer or specialist in the technical specs of this stuff. I'm merely an enthusiast who enjoys listening to jazz and other genres of music but mostly jazz. I mainly play vinyl and CD's. It just so happens that I enjoy listening to different amps, integrated amps and preamps and have compared a pretty good number of them over the course of about 3 years now. I believe there are good and bad examples of everything. I've also listened to various speakers too.
First, it amazes me how much room acoustics, speaker position as well as your own seating position in a room can influence the sound one hears. I have reached a pretty comfortable setting with regard to this. Onto some components in question. I sat down and spent some time comparing some pretty reputable brands. Right now I mainly listen to four sets of speakers in no particular order.
Dynaco A10 (warm sounding)
Magnepan .7 (semi warm sounding)
Klipsch Heresy II (live sounding)
Betsy open baffle Lii Fast 8's (live sounding)
REL T5i dual subs
I was super curious about Primaluna's EVO series of integrated amps Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio talks about. BTW, I can't speak for others, but they were wonderful people to work with, at least for me. I visited their showroom and was pretty impressed. My friend ended up getting the EVO400 which I borrowed and listed to in three different rooms. With the Magnepan .7's it was an amazing match and perfect synergy IMO. What surprised us though is that it tended to have a bright and more brittle sound with the Heresy's which are already a pretty live sounding speaker as it is. What he does now instead is uses his McIntosh MHA150 as a preamp stage and the EVO400 as the amp stage. This produces a warmer, more rolled off sound. That's about $10,000 worth of amps! Not pocket change for most. If we took the MHA100 itself and the EVO400 itself, the EVO400 has a bigger soundstage while the MHA150 sounds more confined. In other words there seemed to be greater spatial separation with the EVO400. The only thing is the bright sound it produces on its own which in my opinion, doesn't quite seem to be the most fitting mix with Klipsch's Heritage line. Maybe some other tubes in the mix may help this with the EVO400's preamp stage and perhaps switching out its existing EL34's as well. After hearing the EVO, I didn't feel it was gonna be the right match for me. The fact that I like the way jazz sings with the Heresy's was crucial for me because ultimately I love that live band sound they produce. The EVO was just a bit too much ear fatiguing in the match.
One of the things that drew me into the old Stereo 120 transistor were its controversial reviews. I have this thing about nasty reviews where people simply parrott what others say over and over. Pretty soon, I begin to question if these people have really sat down and compared this stuff. I couldn't believe some of the harsh things others online said about this old original amp which made me even more curious. Is this really true? In the meantime I was in the process of wanting a Dynakit PAS-M. This is a newer generation PAS like my old PAS but all new and up to date. I compared all sorts of components pictured in the gallery in my rooms. I like them all for what they do well.
I then realized Kenny Russell at Funtastic Vintronics was selling these newer upgraded Stereo 120 solid state amps for a mere $600. This is not the original one you find on ebay for $50 to $200 with the older internal components. The chassis is vintage but modifications are made internally. This is a fully restored unit with many new components. Kenny told me I'd be happy with the Stereo 120 if I tried it. I figured with the PAS-M costing just $1000 and the Stereo 120 solid state coming at a mere $600, why not give it a try. In the meantime, I was experimenting with a Schiit Freya Plus. Everybody talks about this thing. IMO it's a pretty nice preamp. It's relatively affordable but another thing is that Schiit is basically popular because all the popular audiophiles on YouTube talk about it. So basically it's more of a popular thing but just because something isn't as currently popular doesn't mean it's inferior. There's also a thing called marketing and it has a huge impact on the way people purchase things and it also makes them believe it's a better thing. I actually liked the way the Freya Plus sounded in tube mode but what happened is that it was pretty bright and brittle sounding with my Bob Latino VTA ST-70 tube amp after I listened to it more. The Loki tone control added $150 to the $900 price plus the Mani phono stage which added an additional $130. That's $1180 plus cables needed to attach them and it's pretty cluttered.
I finally got the Dynakit PAS-M and Stereo 120 NG from Kenny Russell. When I first heard it all connected, I said WTF is this! The way it sounded with all my speakers astounded me regardless of cost. Out came this lush, warm, detailed sound I never heard before with anything I've had in this room. Even the phono stage blew me away. I decided to send back the Schiit Freya Plus and Loki and pay the 5% restock fee. Here's a guy by himself that hardly anybody knows about putting passion into an chassis at an extremely affordable price and knocking it out of the park! For me what determines how good a sound system is, is how it connects me emotionally to the music. I was emotional in ways I wasn't before. Kenny does world class work and I'm having a funtastic listening experience. :)
When I originally started out, I started with Yamaha S501 integrated amp which was reasonably priced at about $500 and eventually exchanged it for some other components like tube setups as time went on. I like solid state as well and wanted to share an experience that hopefully helps others. This isn't necessarily about a budget system even though it just so happens to be. It's more about the idea that I'm absolutely astonished at what can actually be achieved with today's upgrades on affordable vintage type gear with staggering results regardless of cost. I'm not an audio engineer or specialist in the technical specs of this stuff. I'm merely an enthusiast who enjoys listening to jazz and other genres of music but mostly jazz. I mainly play vinyl and CD's. It just so happens that I enjoy listening to different amps, integrated amps and preamps and have compared a pretty good number of them over the course of about 3 years now. I believe there are good and bad examples of everything. I've also listened to various speakers too.
First, it amazes me how much room acoustics, speaker position as well as your own seating position in a room can influence the sound one hears. I have reached a pretty comfortable setting with regard to this. Onto some components in question. I sat down and spent some time comparing some pretty reputable brands. Right now I mainly listen to four sets of speakers in no particular order.
Dynaco A10 (warm sounding)
Magnepan .7 (semi warm sounding)
Klipsch Heresy II (live sounding)
Betsy open baffle Lii Fast 8's (live sounding)
REL T5i dual subs
I was super curious about Primaluna's EVO series of integrated amps Kevin Deal at Upscale Audio talks about. BTW, I can't speak for others, but they were wonderful people to work with, at least for me. I visited their showroom and was pretty impressed. My friend ended up getting the EVO400 which I borrowed and listed to in three different rooms. With the Magnepan .7's it was an amazing match and perfect synergy IMO. What surprised us though is that it tended to have a bright and more brittle sound with the Heresy's which are already a pretty live sounding speaker as it is. What he does now instead is uses his McIntosh MHA150 as a preamp stage and the EVO400 as the amp stage. This produces a warmer, more rolled off sound. That's about $10,000 worth of amps! Not pocket change for most. If we took the MHA100 itself and the EVO400 itself, the EVO400 has a bigger soundstage while the MHA150 sounds more confined. In other words there seemed to be greater spatial separation with the EVO400. The only thing is the bright sound it produces on its own which in my opinion, doesn't quite seem to be the most fitting mix with Klipsch's Heritage line. Maybe some other tubes in the mix may help this with the EVO400's preamp stage and perhaps switching out its existing EL34's as well. After hearing the EVO, I didn't feel it was gonna be the right match for me. The fact that I like the way jazz sings with the Heresy's was crucial for me because ultimately I love that live band sound they produce. The EVO was just a bit too much ear fatiguing in the match.
One of the things that drew me into the old Stereo 120 transistor were its controversial reviews. I have this thing about nasty reviews where people simply parrott what others say over and over. Pretty soon, I begin to question if these people have really sat down and compared this stuff. I couldn't believe some of the harsh things others online said about this old original amp which made me even more curious. Is this really true? In the meantime I was in the process of wanting a Dynakit PAS-M. This is a newer generation PAS like my old PAS but all new and up to date. I compared all sorts of components pictured in the gallery in my rooms. I like them all for what they do well.
I then realized Kenny Russell at Funtastic Vintronics was selling these newer upgraded Stereo 120 solid state amps for a mere $600. This is not the original one you find on ebay for $50 to $200 with the older internal components. The chassis is vintage but modifications are made internally. This is a fully restored unit with many new components. Kenny told me I'd be happy with the Stereo 120 if I tried it. I figured with the PAS-M costing just $1000 and the Stereo 120 solid state coming at a mere $600, why not give it a try. In the meantime, I was experimenting with a Schiit Freya Plus. Everybody talks about this thing. IMO it's a pretty nice preamp. It's relatively affordable but another thing is that Schiit is basically popular because all the popular audiophiles on YouTube talk about it. So basically it's more of a popular thing but just because something isn't as currently popular doesn't mean it's inferior. There's also a thing called marketing and it has a huge impact on the way people purchase things and it also makes them believe it's a better thing. I actually liked the way the Freya Plus sounded in tube mode but what happened is that it was pretty bright and brittle sounding with my Bob Latino VTA ST-70 tube amp after I listened to it more. The Loki tone control added $150 to the $900 price plus the Mani phono stage which added an additional $130. That's $1180 plus cables needed to attach them and it's pretty cluttered.
I finally got the Dynakit PAS-M and Stereo 120 NG from Kenny Russell. When I first heard it all connected, I said WTF is this! The way it sounded with all my speakers astounded me regardless of cost. Out came this lush, warm, detailed sound I never heard before with anything I've had in this room. Even the phono stage blew me away. I decided to send back the Schiit Freya Plus and Loki and pay the 5% restock fee. Here's a guy by himself that hardly anybody knows about putting passion into an chassis at an extremely affordable price and knocking it out of the park! For me what determines how good a sound system is, is how it connects me emotionally to the music. I was emotional in ways I wasn't before. Kenny does world class work and I'm having a funtastic listening experience. :)
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- 6 posts total
- 6 posts total