Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Apr 12, 2015 5:55:08 GMT
Well, a gold knob makes the sound smoother and rich sounding.
Silver knobs make it more treble laden.
Plastic makes it sound 'cuppy'.
Black knobs give a much better feeling of silence between tracks.
Silver knobs are bright.
So who knows what a gold body would do?
With a name like SeNNator, it should be wearing a suit.
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Post by ronzo56 on Apr 12, 2015 7:35:44 GMT
Ian, good morning and I hope you can have a nice breakfast on the deck today. What if you found a knob made of rhodium? What would that sound like? If you're lucky enough to get a SeNNator as it's one of a kind, pass it on to your daughter with the original knob. Being a prototype it may appear on Antiques Roadshow some day. I can see it now. "If it had the original Fran's G. knob on it it, as his work is highly collectible, it would be worth at least £100,000,000 at auction, but with the rhodium knob it would only fetch about £1000 to £1500. Do you have any idea what he did with the original knob? ....... I think he put it on a dimmer switch in the dining room."  Also, it's past Midnight here. That's just getting started for the evening in California. And BTW I was not grumpy today. I didn't get up until 10 am. What a treat. Jeff was up until past 6 AM your time today. Ian you must speak to him.  Got a new NAD integrated pre-amp yesterday evening. Been taking a journey back to affordable speakers and amps. There seems to be some great entry level gear out there and I think great value for money as well. "Good sound for a good price." Will post a thread soon about my experiences. Keep that knob in a safe place! Have a good Sunday, Ron |
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Apr 12, 2015 9:12:08 GMT
I just love Fran's amps for the versatility and excellent sound!! The Kameleon and Senn hd650 destroyed everything else that I was listening to easily.
I loved the old Nad amplifiers. I had a couple of 3020s and a 6120, I think it was called. I bridged two Nad amps at one time in mono and drove left and tight channels separately. That was with the bigger Nads. I used to call them GoNads. Very powerful with that soft clipping feature. Nice, warm sound too.
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solderdude
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measureutternutter
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Post by solderdude on Apr 12, 2015 9:23:13 GMT
Desktop Kameleons is the answer because when one has sold their headphone all it takes is another (cheap) module and you are good to go again.
If one only wants to use the amplifier they already own the G1217 add-on module may be the optimal solution
Both are in the works..... not available till at least 6 months though.
Not because it is difficult to design but because lack of spare time to do this in.
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Post by ronzo56 on Apr 12, 2015 9:25:38 GMT
I just love Fran's amps for the versatility and excellent sound!! The Kameleon and Senn hd650 destroyed everything else that I was listening to easily. I loved the old Nad amplifiers. I had a couple of 3020s and a 6120, I think it was called. I bridged two Nad amps at one time in mono and drove left and tight channels separately. That was with the bigger Nads. I used to call them GoNads. Very powerful with that soft clipping feature. Nice, warm sound too. This C316BEE is supposed to be based on the sound of the old 3020 integrated, only some more power. I think they got it right. A friend had the 3020 back then. Great sound. Still getting a feel for the sound. Very musical. I just enjoy the music instead of analyzing the equipment. More to follow. This thing is keeping me up late two nights in a row. |
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Apr 12, 2015 9:42:07 GMT
Oh yes, the newer C series are also extremely good. I loved the idea of bridging the two sides into a more powerful mono, so a good preamp feeding the signal into two bridged Nads was pretty powerful. That power plus the warmth as opposed to the Rotels which were relatively cool sounding, the Nads were as you say, very addictive.
I had the 3020's when they first appeared on the market as well as the bigger ones. I also had quite a weird amp ... The Cyrus 2 with preamp. A bit like two shoeboxes. I used to connect a big Sony reel to reel to the Nads running at 15 ips, which meant you didn't get so much music on a reel but the quality was good. It went so fast that I had to make a cupboard for it in order to not hear mechanical noises. Loved that old system and it stayed with me for a long time.
I hated stereo cassettes and detested Dolby B. Dolby A was ok (ish) and Dolby C was weird. That's why I resorted to fast reel to reel. Hated Dolby. It sucked the guts out of the music to me.
I also went through various old record decks. A Garard deck, Thorens, a. Rega, a Linn Sondek, and many others, changing arms and cartridges like underpants. Cost me a fortune. I also had an Oracle record deck which cost a lot, I remember. I had more money than sense.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2015 9:45:20 GMT
Back in the day when I sold hi-fi there was a battle royal between the NAD 3020 and the Mission Cyrus One. They were like chalk & cheese. Where the Mission was somewhat lean & analytical the NAD tended towards warmth & musicality (for want of a better word). The Mission was the biggest seller, no doubt because in a quick demonstration it had the detail front & centre. Curiously, if I remember correctly, younger people gravitated towards the Mission whereas older folks picked the NAD. The styling of the two couldn't have been more different either.
The first Cyrus had the distinctive shape but was built very poorly. The NAD was more traditional but had the most awful plastic knobs. Mind you, at least the knobs on the NAD had markings; the original Cyrus had none at all. Changing inputs & outputs was a lottery on those early models. Mission later addressed this with a MkII Cyrus One (and later, Two). It went totally over the top with a fully aluminium enclosure mounted on a cast magnesium base. Truly one of the most beautiful designs I've ever seen. Even then, they still made mistakes. The power switch was of the the push-push variety and notoriously failed within the first year. So they then addressed that with an up-down power switch (Up for On, note) that worked much better. Ironically it didn't actually matter. The pre-amp section was constantly powered as long as the mains cable was connected. Throwing the power switch only enabled the power section of the amp.
Sorry, I'm rambling.
Gordon.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2015 9:49:48 GMT
Oh yes, the newer C series are also extremely good. I loved the idea of bridging the two sides into a more powerful mono, so a good preamp feeding the signal into two bridged Nads was pretty powerful. That power plus the warmth as opposed to the Rotels which were relatively cool sounding, the Nads were as you say, very addictive. I had the 3020's when they first appeared on the market as well as the bigger ones. I also had quite a weird amp ... The Cyrus 2 with preamp. A bit like two shoeboxes. I used to connect a big Sony reel to reel to the Nads running at 15 ips, which meant you didn't get so much music on a reel but the quality was good. It went so fast that I had to make a cupboard for it in order to not hear mechanical noises. Loved that old system and it stayed with me for a long time. I hated stereo cassettes and detested Dolby B. Dolby A was ok (ish) and Dolby C was weird. That's why I resorted to fast reel to reel. Hated Dolby. It sucked the guts out of the music to me. I also went through various old record decks. A Garard deck, Thorens, a. Rega, a Linn Sondek, and many others, changing arms and cartridges like underpants. Cost me a fortune. I also had an Oracle record deck which cost a lot, I remember. I had more money than sense. Was that pre-amp not the PSX? Those two units together looked stunning. They still do actually. Hmm... |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2015 9:53:55 GMT
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Apr 12, 2015 9:56:42 GMT
Not at all Gordon. I never realised that you sold hifi. I had amps all over the place in those days.
Yes, the Cyrus was more up front. At one time, I set up a total Mission sound. Big Mission floorstanders with bi wired Mission cable coming from a Cyrus 2. The biggest problem I had was with turntables. End of side distortion was an issue for me. I could never really crack that one; especially on loud tracks, even with good gear and cartridges that were just ridiculous. Ultimately, it was that that pushed me to CD on their release.
Never liked the sound though, which was partially the machines and also the nasty mixes by so called experts. I went through Philips, Sony and all of the Marantz players and really didn't like many of them.
At one time, I also had these MF poer amps that you connected to speaker wires and then fed to speakers, that had an enormous amount of power in order to supply loads of headroom.
I spent a packet on gear and records.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Apr 12, 2015 9:58:21 GMT
Oh yes, the newer C series are also extremely good. I loved the idea of bridging the two sides into a more powerful mono, so a good preamp feeding the signal into two bridged Nads was pretty powerful. That power plus the warmth as opposed to the Rotels which were relatively cool sounding, the Nads were as you say, very addictive. I had the 3020's when they first appeared on the market as well as the bigger ones. I also had quite a weird amp ... The Cyrus 2 with preamp. A bit like two shoeboxes. I used to connect a big Sony reel to reel to the Nads running at 15 ips, which meant you didn't get so much music on a reel but the quality was good. It went so fast that I had to make a cupboard for it in order to not hear mechanical noises. Loved that old system and it stayed with me for a long time. I hated stereo cassettes and detested Dolby B. Dolby A was ok (ish) and Dolby C was weird. That's why I resorted to fast reel to reel. Hated Dolby. It sucked the guts out of the music to me. I also went through various old record decks. A Garard deck, Thorens, a. Rega, a Linn Sondek, and many others, changing arms and cartridges like underpants. Cost me a fortune. I also had an Oracle record deck which cost a lot, I remember. I had more money than sense. Was that pre-amp not the PSX? Those two units together looked stunning. They still do actually. Hmm... Yes, that's it ... The PSX. I forget all the numbers 'coz I had so much gear!! Even forget what they did!!!! I also had a lovely old Sony tuner with an aerial that I turned on the roof. Boy, that was a nice sound too. Hiss could be there but such a vast array of free music to tape!! |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2015 10:09:53 GMT
You should've came to my shop. We'd have sold you the Mission amp but paired it with Tannoy E11's or the bigger Monitor Audio's. That worked a treat. That was what was so weird about Mission. All their components worked very well seperately but were just awful together. Far too bright & shouty.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Apr 12, 2015 10:16:26 GMT
Yes, it was bright!
I also had some Tannoys, but can't remember which one. Were they the ones with a tweeter in the middle of the bass driver?
I also had some big Celestions which were nice.
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Javier
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Digital bytes
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Post by Javier on Apr 12, 2015 10:28:39 GMT
I still have the Cyrus 2 + PSX stored somewhere in the attic along with some Mission 763i speakers. Wonder if it'll work again or it'll blow up after unused so long.
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Post by ronzo56 on Apr 12, 2015 10:29:47 GMT
Wish I could have visited your shop Gordon. Might have saved me a lot if time and a lot of money as well. But what we are probably close to 9,000 Km apart?
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