Sol came over yesterday to bring the final prototype of his I-60 integrated amp. While he was here we listened to a lot of stuff.
Spectron Musician - on loan from hometheaterdoc. This has great power, extreme clarity, exciting. True clear highs, awesome powerful bass. Impact is Godalmighty. Strong life presence in the music. It will play very loud with no distortion. The clarity takes a bit getting used to, and the amp is best left ON. It sounds a bit too detailed when cold. Lightning storms make continuous ON impossible this time of year. Very revealling. Tape hiss, radio swish, recording details. The detail is strong but not distracting, unless it's cold. I think it mellows a little when warm. It's a fun ride. I can see why people absolutely love this amp. Our own Black Sands Audio is the Canadian distributor. Thanks Shane, I think you're gonna like this one, I will warm it up overnight for your bat ears. Carl this amp will make you pee on yourself so bring extra Depends. It is a sit down and listen amp, very captivating. Usually something so intense would make me tired of it after a week. It wants to play loudly, and my room without treatment can't handle it. Lots of treatments coming, hopefully in time for the G2G. I find that I really like big watts if the delicacy remains. The Spectron can do it.
Samet i60 - Sol's final version of his 60W integrated. It is very nice. Clear clean sound with lots of power and control in the bass. More "normal" sounding than the Spectron, which is a bit of a relief, and I find myself listening to the i60 more often. It is centered, wholesome, honest, no real sound of its own. But not Godalmighty. Designing PCBs for it next.
Exposure 2010S - Sol read the Stereophile review of this integrated and was curious how it would compare with his i60. It has a warm musical certain something like Dudley said in stereophile, but also an edgy slightly metallic distortion in the mid treble. Phono stage sucks. Inside some decent parts alongside some obvious cost cutting measures. Interesting little amp. Good for the money at used prices, but definitely NOT "Stereophile Class A"... Already sold it.
Marantz 1180DC vintage stereo integrated amp, circa 1978. My neighbor's amp, he is the original owner (he also has a 8 track recorder!) It wouldn't turn on, so I recommended Sol fix it. A couple PS caps and a good cleaning of switches and it works like new. Wow, it sounds beautiful. A little compressed and smaller soundstage than modern amps, but the presentation and overall listening experience was superb. It's about 100W, so it had plenty of juice for the Ushers. It has spring terminals with small wire holes so the noted soundstaging deficiencies could well be from the zip cord speaker wire we had to use. A great amp!
PassDIY B1 preamp. I built this one my dammself. Using Pass PCB and their well matched actives, I added Vishay MKT 1822 coupling caps, 7824 regulator, Triad 24VDC wallwart, Alps Blue, Dale resistors, and made the case from plywood which took forever. No electrical mistakes this time, miracle! It is still breaking in the caps, but sounds good, if a little stuffy. There is extension and fantastic bass power and control, a little short on air and microdetails, kinda like a $10k Levinson 326S preamp I once heard. You can hear everything, but removing the pre reveals more in the signal. Time will tell. Sol says that stuffiness is JFET sound and suggests replacing buffer jfets with bipolar darlington... maybe later after it is all burned in. Super easy build with the Pass PCB. Even a caveman could do it.
We stuck the Transcendent Grounded Grid preamp into the mix a couple times. It was nice to have it back in the house after a major workout at Carl's while his C220 got new boobs. In front of the i60 it was fat and dancy, a great combo.
stereofool's AR vt100 is here too, needs biasing, but time got too late to play with 400VDC, so next time... Thanks to the the "loaners," Sol, Shane, Steve. Hopefully some of these will still be here for G2G.
