will
|
Hey Burgermeester,
I guess you will have to hear it to fully believe it or not, but I suspect you will be impressed with the speed, body and clarity of your Torii Jr2.... And with only that single amp, you can make many sonic adjustments by playing with a bunch of different inputs, rectifiers, voltage regulators, and power tubes, offering many, many variations in potentials for synergistic beauty.... not to mention how much it will let you hear cables, feet, etc.
Powered speakers are foreign to me, so I have not looked into it. But I am glad you are getting a handle on Decware pre stage choices with your current speakers.
For holding onto the kidney, not to confuse things, but another option other than a modded Zstage or CSP3-25, might be a ZRock2, though as you have gathered, in my system, I personally would not get one without full modifications. With mine, I had to go further than Steve's mods in order to get it to match the rest of my system. Replacing the primary signal wires with UP-OCC silver and copper, and upgrading to high grade KLE RCAs and a gold plated Furutech IEC inlet, this combo produced a powerful shift in transparency, solidity, and speed.... I guess at least as much overall improvement as the bypass and signal tube modifications I did. I ended up so far with Miflex copper .1 and .022s, and .1 Audyn True Coppers for power supply bypasses, and Miflex Copper/Oil .1s and .022s for signal. But having to go this far is because I had done similar with my other gear, so for matching resolution, transparency and speed I had to go more-or-less full on.
Which brings me to a thought that if one's modifications were all Steve's mods, in amp and pre stages, then these components will very likely match quite nicely while being a real upgrade set compared to stock, which is already good.
Anyway, with my ZRock2, there is an area from unity gain and up a little, (variable levels on the pot based on using 12AU7s, 12AT7s, and a bunch of tubes in between) where you get a nice range of more everything relatively evenly... not just bass, but lucidity, clarity, midrange richness, and dynamic hit. So if your objective is sonics rather than a gain stage for adjusting volume, it can be used for sound tuning and balancing similarly as with the variable voltage out between other pre stages and your amp.
A ZBIT is also a nice lower key tool if you have balanced outs from your DAC, the higher voltage out (compared to RCAs on the same DAC), being max output voltage of the ZBIT, a passive transformer setup that you can tune to max or lower to tastes.... With my system complex, I tend to run mine ± 3/4 and gain tune between components to help better balance different recording qualities from there. And it too adjusts clarity, dynamics, and liquidity but in a pretty pristine transformer sort of way... no tubes. So it can work similarly to a Zstage for tuning between amp and pre.
If you stay with a Zstage, you will likely want to explore tubes. With mine I ended up using 12AT7s most of the time rather than stock 12AU7s, making it more clarifying and dynamic. And like the ZRock2, there are lots of various choices you can get from different single tubes in and between these tube types.
So I think for the lower cost range, you have a number of nice Decware choices, and probably would like all of them. And some folks probably prefer a ZBIT or ZStage for a little more purist sense of transparency. But to me, if I was just getting into it, was looking for one pre stage, and could come up with the money without too much trauma, I would imagine the CSP3-25 would be my choice (or the fully modded standard version if headphones are wanted).... offering a huge voltage range, OTL tube outputs for an amazing range of lucidity, body and dynamics, and lots of tube flexibility for tuning to tastes.
That is me though, and I suspect any way you go, it will be exciting.
|