Hypex ή Truepath ?

[gnatsis]

Tα έχει ακούσει κανείς και τα δύο και μπορεί να πεί δυό λόγια για τις διαφορές τους ηχητικά?

Ενδιαφέρεται κάποιος υλοποιητής να φέρει το κουτάκι του να το δοκιμάσουμε με τα Zingali ? (Παγκράτι)

 

[Κώστας Φ.]

Είναι πολύ κοντά ηχητικά.

Αν έπρεπε να βρω διαφορές θα έλεγα ότι οι Hypex είναι αναλυτικότεροι, κάτι που γίνεται ακούγεται σαφέστερα στις υψηλές συχνότητες, αλλά στις χαμηλές συχνότητες ο Truepath με πείθει περισσότερο.

Συνολικά πάντως οι Hypex είναι καλύτεροι ενισχυτές, πιο απροβλημάτιστοι (βλ. θέματα EMI/RFI, matching με speaker impedance κ.α.) και πολύ πιο εύκολοι στην κατασκευή εφόσον στην ουσία μιλάμε για έτοιμο προϊόν και δεν υπάρχουν περιθώρια λάθους από τη μεριά του χρήστη. Για τον ίδιο λόγο είναι και αρκετά ακριβότεροι..

 

[Tidal__]

Λάμπα, τάξη Α, 5% απόδοση και τα μυαλά στα κάγκελα. :116:

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

Λάμπα, τάξη Α, 5% απόδοση και τα μυαλά στα κάγκελα

:615: :619: :622:

 

[Κώστας Φ.]

Re: Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

:615: :619: :622:

Nα σε δω να οδηγείς τα Analysis με τέτοιους ενισχυτές και τι στον κόσμο! STAX θα τα κάνεις... :136:

 

[deleted user 10898]

τι χρειαζεται δηλαδη για να φτιαξεις ενα hypex ενισχυτη?
παιρνεις 2 400αρια και το διακοπτικο τροφοδοτικο τους τα συνδεεις και παιζουν?

 

[back]

Απάντηση: Re: Hypex ή Truepath ?

τι χρειαζεται δηλαδη για να φτιαξεις ενα hypex ενισχυτη?
παιρνεις 2 400αρια και το διακοπτικο τροφοδοτικο τους τα συνδεεις και παιζουν?

ναι.

βαζης και βυσματα και κουτι βεβαια.

 

[Κώστας Φ.]

Ή δύο τροφοδοτικά αν θέλεις να φτιάξεις monoblocks.

 

[Tidal__]

Βάλε και κανά purifier καλού κακού. Αυτά τα ψηφιακά είναι και ευαίσθητα.

 

[back]

Απάντηση: Re: Hypex ή Truepath ?

Βάλε και κανά purifier καλού κακού. Αυτά τα ψηφιακά είναι και ευαίσθητα.

μπα τα Hypex ειναι Plug and play.

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

Nα σε δω να οδηγείς τα Analysis με τέτοιους ενισχυτές και τι στον κόσμο! STAX θα τα κάνεις...

... και ομως, ποτε μην λες ποτε.

Απο εντασεις αστα, απο ποιοτητα ηχου ομως ...

 

[back]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

... και ομως, ποτε μην λες ποτε.

Απο εντασεις αστα, απο ποιοτητα ηχου ομως ...

ηθελα να ηξερα ποτε θα το καταλαβουμε οτι αυτα πανε μαζι.

αμα ο ενισχυτης βαραη στην ανατολη και το ηχειο στη δυση

δεν εχουμε ποιοτητα αλλα παραμυθι με ωραιο περιοχομενο.

τιποτα το κακο σ`αυτο αλλα να ξεουμε τι ακουμε.

 

[PeterMeni]

Δηλαδή για να καταλάβω...
Παίρνουμε έναν επαγγελματικό τελικό κανά κιλοβάτ (στο κανάλι) και έχουμε καλό ήχο?:140:

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

παω να ξεβουλωσω τα αυτια μου απο τα παραμυθια και να ακουω την κλασσικη κιθαρα σαν ακουστικη γιατι ετσι θεωρουν μερικοι σημερα οτι ειναι ο σωστος ηχος.

Η ανατολη και η δυση δεν συναντιονται αλλα οι συγκεκριμενοι εςνισχυτες με τα συγκεκριμενα ηχεια σε καποιες σταθμες ναι - εστω χαμηλες -τωρα που ειναι το παραμυθι θα εχει πραγματικα ενδιαφερον να το αναλυσουμε και να το δουμε.

 

[Κώστας Φ.]

Re: Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

τωρα που ειναι το παραμυθι θα εχει πραγματικα ενδιαφερον να το αναλυσουμε και να το δουμε.

Nα το αναλύσουμε φιλολογικά ή τεχνικά, Θανάση; Έχει μεγάλη διαφορά...

Επίσης κανείς δεν είπε "ισχύς να είναι κι ό,τι θέλει ας είναι".
Μην καταλαβαίνουμε ότι μας βολεύει (ή μάλλον ότι δεν μας ξε-βολεύει)..

Αυτό που ισχύει (γιατί δεν πρόκειται περί "άποψης" όπως συνηθίζεται στο χώρο) είναι ότι αυτός ο αγαπημένος σας ενισχυτής με τα 3, 5, 10 ή 20 ψωρο-wattάκια θα οδηγούσε πολύ καλύτερα τα (οποιαδήποτε) ηχεία σας και θα έπαιζε πολύ σωστότερα και τελικά θα έφτανε πολύ καλύτερος ήχος στα χρυσά, εκπαιδευμένα στον αναλογικό και φυσικό ήχο και γενικώς ευαίσθητα αυτιά σας αν έβγαζε 100, 200 ή ακόμα καλύτερα 500 watt.
Το ότι δεν μπορεί να αποδώσει αυτά τα watt είναι θέμα συμβιβασμών (κάθε είδους) ή/και marketing.

Για την ποιότητα του ήχου των Hypex ας μιλήσουν όσοι τους έχουν ακούσει...
Μέχρι τότε οι απόψεις σας είναι πολύ προβλέψιμες:

- Αν τους φτιάξουμε με 1500 ή 2000 ευρώ, δεν παίζουν καλά και είναι "ψηφιακοί".
- Αν τους χρυσοπληρώσουμε στην Kharma, τη Bryston, τη Meridian και τους λοιπούς μάγκες, είναι απλά HiEnd ενισχυτές.

Bonus: Να διαβάσουμε κανένα λογοτεχνικό review αλά Πάρις Κώτσης οπότε μπορεί να τον δούμε και στον ύπνο μας το βράδυ και να λερώσουμε και το βρακάκι μας..

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

α. οι μπρυστον οι κρελ κ.λπ δεν μου αρεσουν - εκτος απο εναν παλιο κρελ που εχει ενας φιλος. καιβ

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

Archive Review Index

Sam Tellig Listens to Tubes
A REPRINT FROM STEREOPHILE, ,
by Sam Tellig

Again. Tubes, tubes, tubes. The amps (and preamps) keep coming. McIntosh Laboratories is back in the act with a limited-edition revival of the MC275 tube amplifier, the original of which was produced from May 1961 through July 1973 – one of the longest model runs in hi-fi history.

New companies devoted to tube gear keep cropping up – in recent years, America's VAC and Cary and Canada's Sonic Frontiers. The same thing appears to be going on in the UK. The pages of British magazines are filled with new tube gear.

I was talking with a few dealer friends. It's not the old farts – or, as Aunt Corey would say, the Old Goats – like me who buy most of the tube gear. It's younger 'philes, who may be more open-minded toward tubes than we old fogies.

"You still buy records?"

This was my ex-wife's incredulous uncle a few years back – a man then in his 70s. Like a lot of old folks I know, he always had to have the latest. Leisure suits. Digital watches. You know – it kept him young.

Me... I like almost everything old.

"Yeah," I replied matter-of-factly. "LPs usually sound better than CDs."

"You say you use a belt-drive turntable?" I raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Of course." "Isn't that like the ol' horse and buggy? You live in the past, my boy. You wouldn't turn back to tubes, would you?"

AH-HA – I had him!

"I already have. Tubed preamp, tubed power amp. Even kids listen to tubed gear."

And that conversation took place before tubes really took off. Irony of ironies: The Digital Age appears to have fired up the demand for tube gear. Maybe audiophiles have decided that they can live with one evil – digital – if they have to, but not two evils: digital and solid-state. Tube gear helps take the edge off all those sharp bits and pieces, seems to connect the dots, makes the music more musical, more human. Maybe it's because tubes distort and we need distortion, particularly if it's even-order.

Why tubes? For me, it comes down to two catchphrases: "truth of timbre" and "palpable presence."

By truth of timbre I mean harmonic accuracy, or something which can pass for harmonic accuracy. Lars thinks this is important, too, only he calls it "tonality." (Ironically, Lars, a solid-state man, started out with tubes.)

Tube amps may produce more distortion than their solid-state counterparts, but that may be one reason that so many of us love them. Bob Harley, Bob Deutsch, Dick Olsher, Guy Lemcoe, Corey Greenears – they all love tube amps.

We had "perfect sound forever" with the introduction of the Sony CDP-101 a decade ago. Maybe what we crave is imperfect sound – especially sound that's rich in second-order harmonic distortion. It's the overtones, or even-order harmonics, that give a musical instrument – or a voice – its tonal color. So if a tube amp (or preamp) adds a bit more even-order distortion, it matters very little. It won't scrape against the ear.

Solid-state amps, on the other hand, tend to produce odd-order harmonic distortion, which, even in scarcely quantifiable quantities, will scrape against the ear – even more than the jagged bits and pieces of digital sound.

Most solid-state amps are like frozen food – the texture is destroyed. Remember Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, and how the teleportation device ruined the steak by processing it? That's digital. Remember Invasion of the Body Snatchers (either version), with the Pod People from outer space? The Pod People brought us solid-state.

True, truth of timbre is something that many audiophiles appear hot to give a damn about – particularly Linnies (members of the Linn church), who've kept prattling on about pace and rhythm and tunes. (Funny how few of them seem to like classical music.)

About 20% of my listening is jazz, and here, just as with classical, truth of timbre counts. Listen to a tenor or an alto sax in particular. Does it sound reedy?Can it pass for real?. It probably will, with tubes. Try Billie Holiday or Louis Armstrong with tubes. They're alive.

With good tube gear, there is usually more space or air around instrumentalists, their instruments, and vocalists. With solid-state you tend to get less air, and instruments tend to congeal or glom up on one another like so much sonic oatmeal.1

There's yet another reason that tube amps tend to sound so good: Simple circuits.

Tube amps are usually designed with little or no negative feedback. Feedback is that brilliant idea (like the servo-controlled direct-drive turntable) by which some of the amp's output is sent back to the amp's input in opposite phase to cancel out distortion and thus muck up the sound.

Simple circuits, by the way, are one reason that certain solid-state equipment sounds the way it does – the B&K ST-140 again.

Are tubes for everyone?

Not for Larsik. Not for Mario.

Mario says he loves the sound of tubes. He has a Conrad-Johnson tube preamp. But he also owns a pair of B&W 801 speakers, and a tube amp isn't the best choice for driving them. The big woofers, especially, seem to need solid-state amps, which he has. They are a pair of monoblocks, no longer made, with a very obscure name. Veekh-tor Goldstein sold them to him four or five years ago – I think only three or four pairs were actually sold.

Cary CAD 300B power amplifier

I can't resist. "What kind of amps did you say those are, Mario?"

"Oh, shut up."

Lars likes tubes, too. Or did at one time. Now, however, he owns a politically correct (in audiophile circles) pair of Wilson WATTs/Puppies, and these speakers, too, aren't particularly well-suited to tubes.2

"I used to own a McIntosh tube amp many years ago in Sweden," Lars said.

"It must have been this model," I offered, showing him my recently arrived McIntosh 275 Commemorative Edition, named in honor of Gordon Gow, the late president of McIntosh Laboratories.

"That's the one."

"Best amp you ever owned," I said. "Thirty years of hi-fi, Larsik, and I'm afraid it's all been downhill since your Mac 275."

Lars erupted with one of his strange Scandinavian snorts.

"I didn't know you spoke Danish, Lars," I continued innocently. "Well, here it is – a new Mac 275, with updated components and a few changes in circuitry. Balanced as well as single-ended inputs. But basically the same design. Same transformers."

Lars looked at the amp.

"The chickens have come home to roast," he mumbled.

"What?"

"The chickens have come home to roast."

"I think you mean, 'The chickens have come home to roost,' but I'm not sure we'll have the chance to find out.3 The Mac 275 is probably not up to driving your WATTs/ Puppies. Besides, I'm not moving it. It stays here. Forever."

"Forever? You own it?"

"Absolutely. I bought it, sound unheard, when I heard they were going to make them again. So now I have to like it. Actually, I like it very much. I ordered a second one for The Child."

"Amy "

Yes, when she returns home from diplomatic service in Prague, she will have her own McIntosh 275. You should have kept yours."

But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself. There are some other tube amps in the mix this month – the Cary CAD 300B stereo amp and 300SE Monoblocks.

For starters, I want to commend Cary for not producing a raft of "me-too" ho-hummers. One reason that some audiophiles appear bummed and/or burned out with the hobby these days is the sheer number of ho-hum products. Nothing ho-hum about the Cary products I've auditioned.

Dennis Had of Cary is crazy about the 300B triode output tube, first developed as the 300A in 1931 by Western Electric.4 The 300B tube may be yust the thing for yaded ears – oops! I mean, of course, just the thing for jaded ears. (Gad – so much time spent with Lars. Did I tell you about the days when he used to own a pair of Yadis amps?)

Remember when I told you about the McIntosh MC275 amp a moment ago? (I'll go into more detail later.) That was a case of not much progress having been made since 1961. Well, listen to one of the Cary amps using the 300B tube and you might think there's been precious little progress since 1931. No, I am not going to tell you that a Cary amp is for everyone. But I urge you to audition one – or, better yet, several. Make an appointment with a Cary dealer, preferably at an off-hour where you won't be whisked out of the listening room.

I think you'll find it a very interesting experience.

Of course, you have to find a speaker that these amplifiers will drive. Unfortunately, that's not so easy. Most speaker manufacturers insist on building insensitive, low-impedance speakers which are devils to drive.

First up was the stereo Cary CAD 300B, listing for $2995, using two 300B output tubes per side, and rated at 30Wpc. It's a triode amp, push-pull. I used it with a pair of ProAc Response 1s speakers. (The Martin-Logan Aerius speakers needed more power.)

Obviously, some magic was going on here – smooth, sweet, liquid, with a wonderful sense of spaciousness, and especially of air around the instruments. Here was a glimpse of hi-fi heaven. True, the CAD 300B is not the most dynamic amp around, and the bass is not quite as powerful as it is with most solid-state amps – 30Wpc is, after all, 30Wpc. But the bass isn't bad. At least it's not soggy, the way it is with some tube amps rated at much higher power. Bass was tight, tuneful, well-defined.

The amp itself, built on a chrome-plated chassis, is an object of beauty. No wonder they love this equipment in the Orient. You can turn off the lights and venerate it. If you have a pair of reasonably sensitive speakers – say, a pair of Epos ES14s or Mo Iqbal's Monitor Audio Studio 20s – this may be your ticket to hi-fi paradise.

The best, however, was yet to come.

Most manufacturers would quit while they were ahead – Adcom, for instance, never sent me another product after I favorably reviewed the original GFA-535. Dennis Had, on the other hand, seemed eager to send me more. He shipped me a pair of single-ended 300SE mono amps, rated at a powerhouse 9Wpc or 12Wpc, depending on when you talk with Dennis.

That's right – 30W not enough? All right, says Dennis... try 9Wpc! Okay, 12Wpc. I think it's officially 12. Suggested retail is $3495/pair. We're getting up there.

I am not the one to take you through a technical discussion, but with a push-pull amp, the current is pushed and pulled through the speakers by a pair of output devices. More power, less distortion. With a single-ended amp, there's just one device to do the pushing and the pulling. Single-ended is supposed to be a wildly impractical way to do things because you can't get much power from the output tubes this way, and the 300Bs are not the most powerful tubes to begin with. Incidentally, all amps using the 300B tube are direct-heated triode. That's the way the 300B tube works.

Forget the 9W or 12W for a moment. (I know that's hanging you up. Doesn't sound very macho.) What do the 300SE amps sound like?

In a word... glorious. Palpable presence in spades.

These amps are not up to driving Lars's WATTs/Puppies or, say, a pair of Martin-Logan CLS IIs. For that matter, they're not up to driving a pair of Martin-Logan Aeriuses. Even the ProAc Response 1s loudspeaker could have used a little more dynamic drive – more get-up-and-go. More oomph. But get these amps on the right speakers – maybe a horn-loaded speaker or one of Mohammed Iqbal's more efficient babies – and watch out. The sound can be devastatingly good. (I mean that literally – devastating to other amplifiers, tube or solid-state.)

First of all, there's truth of timbre. This is the first amplifier I've had in my system with which I can actually enjoy listening to string quartets on CDs for more than a half hour – or 15 minutes. I experienced no listener fatigue. No digititis. Quite the contrary – the only problem I had with the 300SE amps is that I didn't want to turn them off and go to bed. Marina was not pleased.

When I tell you that the 300SE amps were sweet, I don't mean sticky-sweet – I mean musically sweet, naturally sweet. Instrumental and vocal timbres seemed exactly and startlingly right. What's more, the amps were extended on top without going over the top. The 300SEs never sounded hard or strident.

Resolution was extraordinary, which only enhanced the sense of palpable presence – the illusion of "live" in my listening room. My daughter's boyfriend sat transfixed as I raised Willie Dixon, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong from the dead. (Yes, that's the kind of amp it is – miraculous!)

Downside? Not much in the way of dynamic drive, as I said. However, once again, as with the CAD 300B, the bass with the 300SEs is reasonably tight and never soggy. So while there was nothing about the bass to stand up and applaud, there was also nothing to actively irritate. What I missed, not surprisingly, was balls. But truth of timbre, palpable presence, and extraordinary resolution of fine detail more than compensated.

I should also tell you that in the two months or so I had the CAD 300B and the CAD 300SEs I had not a moment's problem. No noises, no buzzes, no excessive transformer hum, no tube problems. Nothing but glorious music.

Then Dennis had (small "h") something else for me: a CAD 300SEE stereo amp, another single-ended job, this time a stereo unit putting out 20Wpc. Give or take, I suppose. It supplies a little more yuice than the 300SEs, as Larsik would say. Not that I'm complaining about the sound of the 12Wpc 300SEs. I have also yust received another pair of Quad ESL-63s, which might be the perfect match with the CAD 300SEE. Stay tuned.

Which Cary is to be Had, assuming you get Caryed away? (Heh-heh.) Fine as the push-pull CAD 300B was, the single-ended 300SE monoblocks were even better. More sweetness. More liquidity. More freedom from listening fatigue. Don't get the idea that the CAD 300B isn't liquid or that it produces fatigue. It's just that the single-ended amps give you a little more magic. Who knows – maybe you should hold out for the more expensive CAD 300SEE.

Meanwhile, you must go hear these 300B amps. The sound might make even Larsik think about trading in his WATTs/Puppies, or Mario might think about selling his B&W 801s.

Be warned. Dennis Had is right: These amps can seriously mess with your head, particularly the single-ended jobs. These amps sound so right and so different from other amps, tube or solid-state, that you have to scratch your head and wonder. You also have to ask yourself some very serious questions about whether the hi-fi industry, such as it was, took a very wrong turn – oh, let's say, some time around 1938.

Why do speaker manufacturers produce such insensitive speakers, requiring muscle amps that don't sound nearly as good as one of these tube amps with a 300B? Why can't more manufacturers consider high sensitivity to be a key element in the design? Why all those complicated crossovers – found in most high-end speakers – that suck up such power?

You say 9 watts? Okay, Dennis, 12. Who's counting? Yeah. Heh-heh-heh.(I laugh my evil laugh.)

Now back to the McIntosh MC275 – Commemorative Edition.

Sorry. (Another evil laugh.)5

Here's a great tube amp, and by the time you read this, you probably can't have it.

McIntosh took 3000 or so orders for this special $3995 limited edition amp in 1992, including my order. Throughout 1993, the company has been producing the amps and filling the orders. No more will be made. (A few amps have become available, but only to the extent that any of last year's orders are canceled.)

So why write about the MC275? (JA hates it when a writer teases you about what may be an unobtainable product.)

The reason is simply this.

The McIntosh MC275 is a startling amplifier. From the moment I turned it on, I understood why it stayed in production for a dozen years, and why mint-condition used MC275s often fetch up to eight times their original purchase price This is a classic. Long after most other amplifiers, tube or solid-state, are forgotten, the MC275 will still be a classic.

What's so special?

The history, for starters. This is one of the most famous high-end amplifiers ever made. It's also, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful amps ever made. The Mac 275 reminds me of a late 1950s or early '60s Cadillac. I'd have to own one of those on looks alone.

At $4000, the MC275 isn't cheap. The price is high partly because of the US-made Richardson KT88 output tubes. (The tubes are no longer made by Richardson in the US, but I understand that Richardson will be producing KT88s in France.) The tubes cost McIntosh more than $115 a pop – that's over $500 per MC275. Of course, McIntosh has to pass along the cost, but I'm told they haven't marked them up. They make their margin on the amp itself, not the tubes.

Actually, cheapskate – or former cheap-skate – that I am, I found that a quartet of Shuguang Golden Dragon KT88 Super tubes worked just splendidly in my McIntosh MC275, so the original Richardson tubes are preserved for posterity. (You can also use 6550s, though I wouldn't. I tried some and greatly preferred the sound quality obtained with either brand of the KT88s. Time will tell about the reliability of the Golden Dragon KT88s, but I think they're fine-sounding tubes.)

What's really special about this amp is exactly the quality that I missed in the 9Wpc Cary 300SEs – namely, the quality of dynamic drive. These amps have an amazing amount of forward thrust. They punch out the music in a lively, exciting way – lots of push/pull going on!

And not just on jazz or rock. Classical music, too, benefits from this added power or thrust. There's more of a foundation on symphonic pieces. Cellos sound more exciting on string quartets. Even most solid-state amps sound weak or wimpy compared to the Mac. It's big, beefy, ballsy. It's like a 1960s Cadillac.

All of this dynamic drive is fine. The good news is that it's not at the expense of midrange and treble sweetness or overall transparency. The amps are smooth, sweet, maybe just a tad rolled off on top, with superior resolution and detail. Compared with some amps, however, the sound is, in soundstaging terms, a little forward rather than pushed back. This may be a characteristic of the KT88 output tubes.

Caution, though: This dynamic drive, this balls-out quality, which can be fine with speakers such as the ProAc Response 1s, may not be so wonderful with other speakers. A friend who knows the original MC275 very well warns me, for instance, that it's perhaps not the ideal amp for driving the Vandersteen 2Ci, which is already endowed with a very dynamic and generous bottom end.

How does the Mac 275 compare with the Cary amps? The Mac 275, in case you didn't get the point, is much more dynamic. Its sound is forward while the Carys are more laid-back. (The soundstage itself comes forward with the Mac; goes back with the Carys.) For sweetness and hquidity, the Carys are unsurpassed, but the Mac is very, very fine. Resolution of fine detail is superb with the Mac and the Carys.

The Mac 275 also offers a way out of the audiophile rat race that requires you to update your amp every two years. This is one of those rare audio products that transcends time. A cynic may say it's already obsolete.

Me? I may wind up with the Mac in the living room and a Cary amp in my main listening room.6

The Mac is yust a yoy to look at. But it's not yust a museum piece – it's a great-sounding amp that can hold its own against any of today's top tube amps. (Its sound reminds me most of the KT88- equipped Air Tight ATM-2, which retails for $5950.)

The MC275 is not without its drawbacks. There is no ON/OFF switch. (AC power was switched on and off by an accompanying preamp.) So you may have to do as I did and use an external power-switching box. The binding strip, while secure, takes only the smallest of spades – or bare wire. You may have to file down the sides of your spade lugs so they fit.

Like the original, the new MC275 can be user-bridged to run in mono, where it delivers 150Wpc instead of 75Wpc stereo. By the way, the input sensitivity is adjustable, and these adjustments can function as volume controls. You can run a CD player or processor straight in.

So what to do?

You might try to find one of these amps. Some dealers might have one or two.7 If you can't find a Mac 275, you're out of luck, because, according to McIntosh President Ron Fone, his company has no plans to go into regular production again with a tube amp (though they are reviewing the possibility of reintroducing the C22 tube preamplifier, again on a limited basis).

The Mac 275 is a classic. Actually, its sound quality – not to mention its build quality – embarrasses many of today's tube amplifiers. And it shows you how much overpriced junk there is around today.

Imagine if General Motors reissued the 1960 Cadillac Eldorado... or if Leica brought back the M-2...

©Stereophile

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 A few solid-state amps do surprisingly well in the palpable presence department, among them the B&K ST-140, which now sports snazzy new cosmetics.

2 Ah, Sam, that's because you haven't heard the WATT/Puppies driven by Audio Research Classic 120s or 150s. – JA

3 Perhaps Lars has been watching too many Wendy's commercials.

4 The tube became the 300B in 1935. The number of the tube in Europe was the ST-4300.

Cary 300SE monoblock power amplifier.

5 Larry is thinking about flying me out to Santa Fe so I can record the evil laugh for Stereophile's Test CD 3!

6 Some audiophiles have purchased this amp as an "investment." I phoned one of them, who advertised in Stereophile's "Audio Mart." He was trying to bag a quick $500 profit on his purchase. His daughter needed the money for her wedding, or some such story. I can't predict how well this amp will hold its value, but I'm certain it will do so far better than most audiophile products. I can think of a certain solid-state muscle amp that retailed for $4000 a few years ago. Now you'd be lucky to fetch $1500 for it. I don't advise purchasing any audio gear as an investment. On the other hand, I'm reasonably sure that if you're lucky enough to find a Mac 275, it won't lose 62.5% of its value over four years. (If you buy an amp for $4000 and sell it four years later for $1500, it will have cost you $625 a year in depreciation. That's $1.71 a day – 7¢ an hour.)

7 On the other hand, I have a brand-new B&K ST-140 coming in for review. Inexpensive though it is, this amp has proven in the past to be a superb combination with the costly Quads: one of those combinations that shouldn't work well, but does.

καπου εχω και ενα πιο αναλυτικο αρθρο του περι της υπεροχης των λαμπων, που δι@ολο το εβαλα

 

[Κώστας Φ.]

Re: Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

α. οι μπρυστον οι κρελ κ.λπ δεν μου αρεσουν - εκτος απο εναν παλιο κρελ που εχει ενας φιλος.

Κι εγώ το σνίτσελ μου το τρώω καμμένο.

Αυτό τι σχέση έχει με τον σωστό τρόπο ψησίματος του συγκεκριμένου φαγητού;

Προφανώς κανείς δεν μπορεί να μου πει πως θα τρώω εγώ το σνίτσελ μου, ούτε θα αλλάξω συνήθειες για να καταλήξω να τρώω κάτι που δε μου αρέσει (ή δε μου αρέσει το ίδιο) απλά επειδή είναι σωστό, αλλά αν ισχυριστώ ότι εγώ γνωρίζω καλύτερα τον σωστό τρόπο ψησίματος, βασιζόμενος καθαρά και μόνο στο προσωπικό μου γούστο, τότε ο οποιοσδήποτε θα έχει μία καλή δικαιλογία να με πάρει με τις ντομάτες.

καπου εχω και ενα πιο αναλυτικο αρθρο του περι της υπεροχης των λαμπων, που δι@ολο το εβαλα

Πότε το thread "Hypex ή Truepath" έγινε Λάμπα VS. The Rest, για να καταλάβω;
Μήπως δεν υπάρχουν λαμπάτοι τελικοί που βγάζουν 200 Watt? Φυσικά και υπάρχουν.
Μήπως δεν υπάρχουν λαμπάτοι ενισχυτές που παίζουν καθαρά και απαραμόρφωτα; Φυσικά και υπάρχουν.
Το πόσο θα κοστίζει ένας λαμπάτος τελικός με 400W στα 4Ω (όπως ο μεσαίος Hypex) με τη διαφάνεια του Hypex και πόσο χώρο θα καταλαμβάνει, τι κόστος συντήρησης θα έχει, τι κατανάλωση θα έχει, πόσο θα ανεβάζει τη θερμοκρασία στο δωμάτιο που θα παίζει και, τελικά, τι κόστος αγοράς και χρήσης θα έχει, μπορείς να υπολογίσεις;

 

[thanasis k.]

Απάντηση: Hypex ή Truepath ?

γ η 805 την οποια χρησιμοποιουν οι τελικοι μου δινει 40 βατ - οχι οτι ειναι ισχυς αλλα ε.