Palomino
|
Right now, the meeting is tentatively scheduled for December 16th at my house at 1:00PM. Sorry for the short notice but that's the best date we've been able to come up with so far.
Our agenda will include Bad Wolf's anniversary amp, my new baffles and Raven's modified ZMA. If we have time and he sorts out his volume issue, we'll also listen to the latest firmware update on Raven's Direct Stream DAC. Given our past history, this is a packed agenda.
Over the weekend, Raven and I could not resist so we jumped in our cars and went to BadWolf's house for a quick session with his new 25th anniversary amp. He just got it last week.
Of course it was not broken in and BW was having an issue with it biasing too high. Turns out it was his preferred 4U4GB rectifier. We used a type 80 that Raven brought along and all was good.
Also Raven brought a grocery bag of tubes with him (I'm kidding but it was enough to fill a small grocery bag). We tried BW EL84s and Ravens Svetlana SV83s. I think we mostly used an OC3 105 for the input regulator. I can't recall the input tube.
Anyway, we started out listening to BW's bedroom system. MacBook Air, Gunier Miltibit DAC, Zibit, 25th Amp, El Caminos. Source was Tidal. BW has a large bedroom, but has a nearfield setup for intimate listening. The 25th easily filled the room though. I wanted to just flop on the bed and crank it up, but I restrained myself.
The amp was extremely smooth and musical. My biggest takeaway was the lack of that leading edge grain on things like female vocals. Very liquid. I have always liked the El Caminos and they did not disappoint, even as a nearfield speaker.
We then took the 25th to his living room setup with a Linux based PC, a Bifrost Multibit, and BW's DIY Tang Band 1808s in open baffles and some separate woofer OB baffles and dual subs.
They have made some changes to their living room which help the sonics. Heavy curtains on the windows, some diffusion and absorption. A tip for you younger Decware fans - if your significant other builds QRD diffusers for you, they are a keeper.
We had some technical difficulties but after sorting it out, settled in to listening to some familiar tunes. As the 25th warmed up, the sound got bigger and better.
Again, this is a new amp with fairly new tubes so its hard to give it a fair review, but it was liquid and engaging. I was plied with a couple of microbrews with alcohol content above 5%, but I remember getting same feeling as I do with the OTL. That is my high bar right now.
I cannot wait to hear this amp in my room. I brought my new baffles/speakers but we spent 3 hours listening to the 25th and didn't bother to do much else other than the shift to the living room.
|
Back to top
|
Mac Mini with LPSU/SSD running Audirvana Studio, Uptone Audio Regen on LPSU, Mytek Brooklyn DAC+, Ven Haus DIY Silver ICs, 25th Ann. Zen, PS Audio P5 Power Supply, PS Audio/DIY Power Cords, GR Research Speaker Wire, Lii Audio P10 based OB speakers
IP Logged
|