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CJ PV-2ar or PV-7 or ARC SP-6 for Klipsch Heresy?

I putting together an old school tube-based system to drive an unmodified pair of Klipsch Heresy 1 speakers I picked up on eBay.To give the "old school" a fair shake, I'll be using the best ancillary equipment and tweeks, Transparent Ultra signal cables, and MIT power cables and filtration, etc. Seems to make sense to me to pair them with one of the classic tube preamps of that era such as a PV-2ar, certainly might tame the brightness and "shout". Thoughts?
elunkenheimer
elunkenheimer OP
31 posts
 
Thanks so much guys, hooked up a near mint, unmolested Heathkit AA 151 integrated. I set the tone controls strictly by ear. I'm a musician so my sense was that was the only way. With null at 12:00 o'clock, Treble ended up at 9:30 (!) and Bass at 2:00 o'clock. Sounds great on jazz vocals like Diana Krall and Steve Tyrell. One woofer seems to pull back (recede) a bit on deep plucked bass notes. Sounds fine, but looks odd vs other woofer's behavior. Flipping the AA 151 Invert Phase switch, the sucking motion continued. Flipping Stereo Reverse made no difference either. Is it the 40 year old crossover?
electroid
283 posts
 
What power amp? I had a 2AR and liked its sound but if you have a sensitive high input impedance power amp with a lot of gain say 27db then you'll hear a big noise floor with the cathode follower circuit of the 2AR and seldom get the volume past 9 or 10 o'clock.

ET
elunkenheimer OP
31 posts
 
For now I intend to use my custom 7591/6sn7, fixed-bias, push-pull amp which uses a Pilot 410 input and phase inverter circuit built on a stripped Heathkit AA100 chassis retaining the great transformers. With this venture into high-efficiency horn speakers, at some point I tempted to try a 2A3 or 300b triode amp. The ALK Engineering site though highlights the seriously flawed crossover impedance curves of vintage Klipsch designs and my sense is that would not make a mini-watt triode amp happy. Should I get serious, an investment in the brilliant, but not-so-inexpensive ALK crossovers would be the next step.
lrsky
1,118 posts
 
I once paired a pair of horns to cj and it didn't work. The noise floor of tubes, in general was too high for speakers with about 100db sensitivity.
Just something to think about.
Larry
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,784 posts
 
A cj might have too much gain to use with high efficiency loudspeakers.

But to say that the noise floor of tubes in general is too high for speakers of 100 db or more is untrue. The proof of this of course is that most horn speakers are used with tube amps, not solid state. My speakers are 98 db and I have to put my head in the mouth of the horns to hear the noise floor.
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