A little background:
I've been running my AN-9 speaker wires for the past couple of days . I notice a little cleaner presentation with these wires. Thought it might be wishful thinking...they were a busload of $$ all those years ago. I had Sherry listen. She told me what she heard as I switched back and forth between wires. We concluded a small but noticeable sharpening in resolution and a bit of increased depth(separation front to rear)in the soundfield.
IIRC George said he shortened some speaker wires and heard noticeable improvements. George?
Sovtek EL84/6BQ5s used in both amps. After the testing I tried the Hammonds out on the girls. ALL OF THEM could pick out which amp was running the Hammonds. EVERY TIME!!!
Something I was considering after looking at Jesse's recent sale and talking to Eddie yesterday...
I found a guy who suggested a DIY Silver Interconnect cable that he runs with his 1950s Silvertone EL84 amp. He claims much better resolution of micro details and 'air'. I have some wire from another project I might call into use to make the ICs. What's it hurt to try?
Preliminary results after the 1st and second rounds of listening.
Testing was blind. The girls had no idea which amp was running(and didn't seem to care)
Taylor/one of Vosh's friends....She said she heard no difference but liked amp No2(my modded amp) best. She couldn't say why...'I just do'
Vosh/one of my daughters....Dad I like amp No1(in her demonstration) better. I can pick out where all of the instruments and voices come from. She also commented everything is more clear/sharper. Puts me in mind of that pic of the Silver 7s on one of the CF DVD/CDs Mark gave us a couple of years ago. Fuzzy/notFuzzy pic
Sherry/my better half...She found the modded amp much better. Music is much more like music, lively and real. She found the instruments much easier to pick out and their placement was stable.
Jessica/one of my TerrorTwinz(tm) says the music is clearer and the instruments are easier to identify. She thought the drums had more 'life'
Me/myself and I....found when I switched from the lightlymodded amp back to the modded amp the differences were most striking. You can hear all of the inner detail, rise and decay of each note that make up the music. I was listening to Kiss unplugged on the Ariston, the strumming of the guitars and the space around and between each instrument was really believable. You can hear the tapping of feet and hands clapping in the crowd all around you. It took me there. Kewl!
In the lightlymodded amp I did notice the bass extension and impact(slam) were there too. The dynamic presentation equaled the modded amp. Kick drum and snare hits were particularly good, but that's one gauge I use in this kind of testing. My other gauges are male voices and guitar picking. I play alot of Burl Ives, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Chet Adkins to decide. I would hazard a guess that a good portion of what I was hoping for as an end result occurred making the power supply mods alone. Pretty damn good. The imaging was a bit blurred, the soundstaging wasn't quite as good and finer details weren't nearly as nicely presented but on the whole not too bad.
Some of this I attribute to the fact my speakers are near-field monitors. Recordings of a more intimate setting help this particular rig shine.
I still have a bit of rewiring to do in the modded amp.
Stay tuned..more to come
Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel
ray
Al, I'll be bringing them to CarverFest.
Looking for 3 more Hammond tubes.
