The best I can do for now: M Jarve's system

The hk775 are real giant killers huh?

Are they mono blocks only or are they amps that are bridged?

I have one of those amps and never thought it to be a mono block. :scratch2:

Very nice setup!

Scott
 
The hk775 are real giant killers huh?

Are they mono blocks only or are they amps that are bridged?

I have one of those amps and never thought it to be a mono block. :scratch2:

Very nice setup!

Scott

Based on my experience, I'd have to lay hands on a Pass Labs x.250 to really better them. They're mono only. There is a stereo version, the hk 770, which has half the rated output power and maintains the same chassis size, though each channel still has its own toroid power transformer.
 
Well, here is a little update.

For the time, I have four of the hk775's slotted into the system. This was quite an achievement, some 8-months in the making, but well worth it. One set were dedicated to powering the Watkins Woofer, the other set everything else. If a single set of 775's seems effortless in their ability to drive these speakers, two sets really take things to another level.

There's been a couple other adjustments as well. I recently acquired a classic Denon CD player, the DCD-1520. Lately, I've not been actively seeking new gear, spending what little disposable money I have on more frivalous things like food and gas, but when I happened to stop in at the pawnshop in town here and saw a near-mint Denon CD player for $50, I could not get the credit card out fast enough.

Indeed, they seemed to have no idea of the gem they had. The exterior was flawless, clean, and with no signs of finger smudges or even dust. Inside, it was just as cherry, with apparently a new belt installed for the transport. Not a speck of dust on the (in)famous KSS-151A optical block, and, aside from needing a dab of oil on the linear-motor rod, the deck performs essentially as new. Whoever owned previously obviously took very good care of it, and indeed must have fallen on hard times to give it up for so little.

Finding the Denon deck was quite fortuitous as well, as only the day before I had received an RMA from Emotiva to send the ERC-1 in for repair (it would begin to skip quite badly after powered on for about 10-minutes), and I thought I would have to "suffer" with my ADC CD-2000E. The ADC is bullet-proof, and of the same vintage as the Denon (circa 1988), but it's not the most audiophile-approved CDP ever conceived.

So, I'll end this post with a link to a youtube video of the four hk775's in concert. As you might expect, it sounds quite different in real life, but a cheap camera can only get you so much. One thing that's sort of neat, if you can tollerate my musical selction and follow the video all the way through, is the change in timbre as the camera (and mic) moves from one driver to another.

Video link (presented in HD (yes, High Density) video for your pleasure):
http://youtu.be/ukOH-q3LHiQ
 
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Looking good, Mike! I didn't know that you had found yourself a second pair of 775's.



RC

I certainly do wish they were mine (especially after all the grief they've cause me), but they belong to another fellow who hails from Texas. I agreed to take them for restoration last spring, but then all the... um... unpleasentness happened, which really postponed things. Once things finally started to settle down, I started in on them again, but problem after problem kept coming up.

Fortunately the owner has been exceptionally patient and understanding. I'm putting them through their final bits of calibration this week, and hope to get them out before the end of the week.

They've received a complete recap (including the main filter caps) and a couple other odds and ends. Not quite hot-rodded like my own, but mine also don't have new main filter caps.

But, having had them in my system, I'm now determined to acquire another set. Having heard them all going at once was an experience I will not soon forget. The only thing that might be able to improve upon it, maybe, would be a couple sets of Citation XX's.
 
Good to see another set up with quad HK's in it (even of only temp- hope not) I've got 4 HK 22's in my set up, wonder how they compare to the 775's? Let me guess, most will say the 22's suck and you should have looked for the 775's!
 
I certainly do wish they were mine (especially after all the grief they've cause me), but they belong to another fellow who hails from Texas. I agreed to take them for restoration last spring, but then all the... um... unpleasentness happened, which really postponed things. Once things finally started to settle down, I started in on them again, but problem after problem kept coming up.

Fortunately the owner has been exceptionally patient and understanding. I'm putting them through their final bits of calibration this week, and hope to get them out before the end of the week.

They've received a complete recap (including the main filter caps) and a couple other odds and ends. Not quite hot-rodded like my own, but mine also don't have new main filter caps.

But, having had them in my system, I'm now determined to acquire another set. Having heard them all going at once was an experience I will not soon forget. The only thing that might be able to improve upon it, maybe, would be a couple sets of Citation XX's.


Very understandable, Mike. I'll keep my eyes open for another pair just in case something were to pop up around here:yes:

RC
 
Good to see another set up with quad HK's in it (even of only temp- hope not) I've got 4 HK 22's in my set up, wonder how they compare to the 775's? Let me guess, most will say the 22's suck and you should have looked for the 775's!

Well, the two amps are of the same lineage and share a common design philosophy. Where the amps differ, they do by degrees and capabilities, not necessarily sound quality. That said, although the 22 is more powerful into 8-ohms (200-WPC vs. 130), it's rated power is actually less into 4-ohms and below (200-WPC vs. 260).

Succinctly, where a pair of 775's will have the edge is in dealing with low-impedances or complex loads more competently, and with a bit more room to spare, whereas the 22 is providing a good amount more power into more typical speakers.

Aside from that, the only two differences of consequence are the fact that the 775's are full mono-blocks, with the theoretical advantages that such a design entails (if taken advantage of), and the combined power supplies for the 775's is about 1/3 larger than the combined power supplies of the 22 (440VA x2 + 4x 15,000uFd vs. 305VA x2 + 4x 10,000uFd). On the other side, the 22 is quite a bit more reliable and easier to fix if something does go wrong.

Sonically, there is not a dramatic difference between the amps. It's noticeable, but unless you had both amps at the same time for quick A/B'ing, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference or say what it is.

Very understandable, Mike. I'll keep my eyes open for another pair just in case something were to pop up around here:yes:

RC

I certainly appreciate that. I know that if anyone can conjure up another set, it's you. I came this close to asking Mark what he wanted for his set, but thought better of it in the end. I did sort of lead him on about the untold pleasures and capabilities of these amps, and he never even had a chance to hear them, at least not when properly tuned up.

If I'm not mistaken, I still have yet to set them up proper for you to listen to at least once. With my new job, and now working mortal hours, I might have a chance to do that before too long.
 
I certainly appreciate that. I know that if anyone can conjure up another set, it's you. I came this close to asking Mark what he wanted for his set, but thought better of it in the end. I did sort of lead him on about the untold pleasures and capabilities of these amps, and he never even had a chance to hear them, at least not when properly tuned up.

If I'm not mistaken, I still have yet to set them up proper for you to listen to at least once. With my new job, and now working mortal hours, I might have a chance to do that before too long.


That's great to hear, Mike. Congrats on the new job also!

Your right, I really haven't had much of a chance to listen to them set-up and running in a great listening situation. That time will come I'm sure. Hopefully things will settle down for all of us enough to have you down again. My wife asked again not long ago how you were and if I had heard from you lately. I'll have to pass along the news on the new job to her :yes:


RC
 
That's great to hear, Mike. Congrats on the new job also!

Your right, I really haven't had much of a chance to listen to them set-up and running in a great listening situation. That time will come I'm sure. Hopefully things will settle down for all of us enough to have you down again. My wife asked again not long ago how you were and if I had heard from you lately. I'll have to pass along the news on the new job to her :yes:


RC

Veering way off-topic here, but perhaps the mods will humor me. I'm leaving Target and actually will be more or less taking over for Bob's Dad at his store. I've already been there, on training, for a couple weeks, but will be starting in earnest next week. My last day of Red and Khaki will be this upcoming Wednesday. I'll then be donning the brown apron of the corner grocer. :D
 
Oh-kay. Dust is settling, I have a glass of very good, cheap Port, and it's time to get caught up where I'm at.

I think I'll cover things more or less chronologically.

Part 1: A reunion of sound.
When last we left off, I was enjoying my system with an additional set of the incomparable harman/kardon hk775s. Sadly, they moved on to their rightful owner, but he's better for it and I'm happy to have them off the workbench. I also had an event with my CD player, the Emotiva ERC-1. After nearly a year of solid, flawless service, it began skipping and not reading CD's. A quick trip back to Tennessee was the proscribed cure. In the meantime, I came across something of a familiar friend. At a pawnshop, here in town, sitting on the same shelf as the CD-player portion of an Awia shelf system and a Hello Kitty DVD player was a vintage jewel of a CD player, a Denon DCD-1520.

Some may recall that I consider my first "serious" CD player to be the Denon DCD-2560, donated to the cause by my good friend and gearhound doucanoe. The DCD-2560 was not the latest and greatest circa 2004-2006 when it was in regular use by me. There had been, purportedly, great advancements in digital technology to the point where it's four 20-bit DACs and 16x oversampling seemed a quaint anachronism. But, by-golly, it sure sounded right, and I've held Denon in high regard since then, at least as far as their CD players go. However, it was getting cranky, and while it worked most of the time, the times that it would act up were getting increasingly more numerous and it seemed sometimes that I was spending as much time changing between CD players as I was listening to music. In the meantime, a string of other very good CD players came along of various stripes and vintages (from older than the Denon to brand spanking new), but It really was the Denon they were being secretly judged against.

So, enter the DCD-1520. This was, at least in my book, a stupidly good deal. The unit, as it sat on the shelf, looked as though it had just then been removed from the box. It was completely free of any tell-tale fingerprints, dust, scratches or any other evidence that it had ever been used. Indeed, the only sign that it had not spent the last 24 years in a hermetically sealed box was the fact that it was missing a screw on the bottom cover and one on the back. Apparently, at some point quite recently, it had been brought in for service, most likely a new transport belt. Internally, it looked just as virgin, without a speck of dust on the optical lens and the grease still fresh on the sliding parts.

Slotting it into my system, I was immediately reminded of why I so loved the DCD-2560. The clarity and accuracy of the midrange. Strong, forceful, tuneful bass. Shimmering high-end with no sort of digital hash to either make things too edgy or, conversely, smooth things over too much. And this was from a unit that predated the DCD-2560 by some 6 years, and featured numerically inferior digital filters and DACs (though about equal build quality and strong analog section.

Part 2: The most analog digital amp I can imagine.
The day after Christmas, I had occasion to stop by MarkB's place. I wanted to drop-off (and share, perhaps?) a bottle of Bristol Cream and listen to some tunes, while baffling his girlfriend's little boys, if possible. As we sat sipping drinks with his co-worker Jerome, listening to various Bjork and The Doors CD's, I mentioned that, despite him living up here for a couple years, and despite his several offers, I still had not taken home his Yamaha MX-D1 amp to put through the crucible of audio that is my listening room. I took it home that night.

For those not in the know, the MX-D1 was Yamaha's flagship audiophile power amp circa 2002 or so. It was novel in that it was a class D "switching" amp that also used a SMPS (switch-mode power supply), resulting in a 500-WPC amp that was only about 2-inches thick and weighs not more than 25-lbs or so. That itself was not so novel, but the fact that it was not based on some Tripath or ICE chip was. The design was all proprietary and promised the possibility of superb analog performance.

I was, of course, skeptical of such a feat. Every class D amp I had heard regardless of lineage or cost more or less sounded the same to my ears and in my system. Admittedly, there had not been many, being limited to a JVC unit, a Bel Canto Design unit, and a couple other unmemorable "deck of cards" amps that were variations on the standard Tripath or ICE theme, some better looking, others better built, all with god-damned blue LED's.

I slotted the MX-D1 into my system and began listening critically immediately. I was not going to be nice to it. It was going to go through the wringer with the most devastating source material I had, and it was going to play into my near-dead-short speakers. I was astonished by what I heard. This was not a class-D amp as I knew them. This was, somehow or other a tube amp. Almost all of its sonic characteristics, at least in my system, mirrored those of a tube amp. Wonderfully fluid midrange, with a slightly out-of-focus quality. Solid, extended, but decidedly underdamped bass that laid down a warm and inviting foundation. The highend, while being very well extended, has a slight softness that bordered on the etherial. Imaging fell firmly into the "spooky good" category, with the ability to scale and layer the performance properly. Not as much depth as with the 775's, but better than most of what has passed through my system.

It also seemed to cope well with the challenging load presented by my speakers, with plenty of drive and clarity even at deafening levels, but, unlike the 775's which clip gracefully (if not a lot earlier), once the limits are reached, there is no more to be had and the amp does not seem to handle it well. I measured just shy of the stated 500-WPC into my speakers before there was audible (and visible) clipping. A tremendous amount of power, but, in uncanny fashion, I'm sure my speakers would have appreciated more.

So, as I hand back the amp tomorrow, I will be better for it. I still hold it as the exception among class D amps rather than the rule, but it is a damn fine amp, and for those who want the performance of tubes, but need the power of a really high-power solid-state amp, the MX-D1 seems to be the only game in town.

Part 3: See Part 1, plus one.. err, two!
Yesterday, while creating the Frankenstein monster of CD players, I was offered the opportunity to take home another CD player. I really was beginning to get the impression that I would become The Man with Two Brains, and was quite ready to say "no, thank you, really!" until I learned what the CD player was. Indeed, it was none other than the Denon DCD-3520, Denon's TOTL CD player contemporary to the DCD-1520 mentioned above. How could I say "no"?

In many ways, the DCD-3520 is the DCD-1520, just done on a grander scale. Separate audio and digital power supplies, cast and machined aluminum panels, fully balanced differential circuits, and copper-clad 40-lbs chassis complement the same 20-bit filters, BB PCM64P DACs (two of them), KSS-151A optical block, Sony processor and servo control, and so on. But, indeed, it is these very details that take an already very good CD player and take it to its ultimate realization. Despite possessing many of the same core components, the DCD-3520 provides noticeably better sound because those components now can operate without limits, without excuses, without compromise.

Sonically, as good as the DCD-1520 is, it was not good enough to displace the more confident sounding Emotiva ERC-1. The DCD-3520, on the other hand is good enough, and then some. I cannot recall, save for from LP/vinyl, such certainty of performance, such effortlessness and ease of sound from my system as with the DCD-3520. It's like being in the presence of a master electrician, who is weaving wire through the house and breaker box almost from muscle memory, someone who does not bother with the details of the execution because he already has the final outcome in sight. When music is played through this player, it simply leaves me with the impression that it could not have been performed any other way. The Emotiva would do it wrong. My old Cambridge Audio Azur 640c would do it wrong. By golly, even my old Denon DCD-2560 would do it wrong. How doesn't matter. Only the DCD-3520 can do it right, and now that I've heard it, why bother with the details. The final outcome is as it should be; there is nothing else to be said. Yes, it's that good! The only word that seems to work here is Confidence. This player possesses Confidence to a degree that I've only before heard in top-shelf vinyl setups.

Notes for the new year
And so, as the new year starts, I've taken a time warp back to the 1980's, as my whole setup, save for preamp and cart, now hail from some point in the 1980s. Really it makes me wonder about my long-standing bias against that decade. The decade that gave birth the the hk775's, the DCD-3520, and of course the real jewel of the era, me.
 
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Veering way off-topic here, but perhaps the mods will humor me. I'm leaving Target and actually will be more or less taking over for Bob's Dad at his store. I've already been there, on training, for a couple weeks, but will be starting in earnest next week. My last day of Red and Khaki will be this upcoming Wednesday. I'll then be donning the brown apron of the corner grocer. :D

Congratulations on the new job, Mike. How far is that commute going to be from your house to the store?? :D
 
Congratulations on the new job, Mike. How far is that commute going to be from your house to the store?? :D

For those who haven't yet made the trek up here, the store is right across the alleyway from my house; if I slip on the ice at my garage, I can skid right into the door to get to work. Worked out pretty well indeed.

So, veering back on topic, I've made an addition to the system that I thought was worthy of posting about. While I'll get a proper thread going elsewhere about the amp in particular, I have added a Yamaha P2350 power amp to the mix. As it is right now, it's fed my the "loop out" jacks I added to my 775's, and the amp itself drives the Watkins woofers in my speakers. No active or passive line-level crossovers; the whole setup still uses the internal crossovers in the speakers. But it does take a bit of a load off the 775's (and the P2350, if it comes to it) as they're now not playing full-bandwidth into a low-impedance load.

I'm pretty pleased with the results. There is definitely more headroom, and the whole setup can play at louder constant levels without breaking down. However, the P2350 does not seem to have the same level of control that the 775's do, resulting in slightly less tuneful bass. It's not a huge difference, but it is noticeable, especially since I am so familiar with the bass quality of the 775's. But, this will certainly hold me over some until I manage to get a second set of 775's for bass duty.
 
And so, at long last, I have (on their way, anyways) another set of hk775s. Talk about awesome! Further, these are 775's that I'm very familiar with, having completed recapping them only some 7 months ago. If you go back to mid-December of last year, I had 4 of these wonderful amps setup in my system, but only two of them were my own. The other set belonged to erstwhile AK'er Mark Bridges. When I returned them to him, I almost of-handedly suggested he knew where to send them if he ever wanted to part with them. Well, as fate would have it, he's moving half-way across the country for a new job, and partly to help lessen the moving burden, and partly to offset the cost of moving, he's sold pretty much all his audio gear, deciding to start fresh once he's settled in to his new life. So, as part of this, and remembering my fondness for the amps, he offered me first crack at buying them a couple months ago. However, financial uncertainty and some needed work on my car meant that I could not, at the time, afford them.

So then again, last week he offered me a last chance at them before they were sold though other outlets. Although my situation hadn't changed much, he was getting closer to moving day. We came to terms and they're on their way!

Oh! Nelly, I'm excited!
 
Nice Mike! I too love those HK amps. Should prove to be an awesome system when together.
 
And then there were four! Indeed, the second set of hk775s arrived and have been slotted into the system.

As I stated previously, if one pair were the bee's knees, doubling up is dream come true territory. When previously I had the second set installed, there was not much critical listening involved and it was more just an experiment to say that I could do it. Now with some time in I can better appreciate what the benefits are.

To set things up, I should note the arrangement of things a little, as it might provide a little better insight when it comes to my observations. Of course, both sources (the CD player and turntable) are connected to my Musical Fidelity A3cr preamp. The Denon DCD-3520 is patched through with a set of Monster Cable M1 850i 0.5m interconnects (the turntable makes due with its OEM cabling). From the MF, the first set of hk775s are connected with a set of 4-strand 99.99% pure silver wire (in a 4-way weave), terminated with Xhadow "small" RCA plugs. These are about 1.5m in length and are a DIY set, with materials provided by AK'er MarkB. The first set of hk775's are my original set, pilfered from AK'er doucanoe a couple years ago and since then more or less restored and slightly modified; installation of Cardas "Tiffany-style" RCA jacks, greatly upgraded speaker terminals, heavier power cord, and internal re-wire with four-9's pure silver solid-core wire (both 30ga (signal) and 18ga (power and output)). The second set of hk775's are the ones that just arrived and have not received much by way of mods, so far being limited to just upgraded speaker terminals. They are connected to the first set with a pair of IXOS 0.5m interconnects. I have my original units powering the "high" section of my speakers (mid-bass coupler on up) and connected with IXOS Gamma-Geometry 11ga 2m wire terminated on either end with WBT banana plugs and spades. The new amps drive just the Watkins woofer, and are connected with ZuAudio Geode cable (~2.5M) with their own locking banana terminations

While my original set of amps has been tweaked and calibrated to the point that they pass a null-test to my satisfaction, the second pair has not. This is not an entirely pressing matter, however; when I performed the null test between the first and second set, the difference was only just enough to be measured accurately, and the audible differences are imaginary to non-existent. Still, I plan, eventually, to calibrate them to a similarly obsessive degree, as well as perform mods on them akin to what I have done with the first set.

The two sets are from different production runs, however, with my original set apparently having been made earlier: my original set has consecutive serial numbers 01985 and 01986, whereas the new set have non-consecutive serial number of 02038 and 02100. The changes internally are subtle- the placement of caps across transformer secondaries is different, and the later set have an actual aluminum front piece instead of silver-painted plastic.

Now I do understand that in as far as bi-amping goes, many don't consider it true bi-amping if there's no external, line-level crossover involved. The simple fact of the matter is that I've never heard a line-level crossover I have liked (I've gone through a few of them). Besides, my arrangement is meant just to gain a little more headroom, and arrange things so that the amps don't have to work as hard playing into a full-bandwidth, low-impedance load.

As far as that's concerned, I have succeeded. I now can make use of the full dynamic range of the 775s, with all of their other positive attributes. While a single set is very competent at lower to moderately high levels, the addition of the second set extends that competency to very loud levels. As I have noted before, when playing music with exceptional dynamic range, I have taken to backing off the volume when approaching crescendos to keep the amps from audibly clipping. I can now leave things be as the program peaks without fear of having the sound stage collapse, or woofers bottoming out, or gaining a raspy quality to the highs and mids. That was the goal all along, as you might know.

The addition of the second set has not been without its hang-ups, however. I now have to modify my rack to accommodate more components (installing one of the amps bumped my turntable off the rack), and with a much larger power draw, I may have to reconsider my power conditioning setup, as I am now getting close to the rated capacity of my PowerVar (presuming the amps approach full power while listening). And, as a hot summer has called my attention to it, the thermal dissipation of four of these units is significant (external heatsinks run at about 110-F, with an internal temp >140-F). Really, it's like having a small space heater operating in my listening room, and the temperature is a solid 5-7 F higher than the rest of my basement after the amps have been idling for an hour or two. I'm sure this feature will be welcome come winter, however.

And so ends this installment- more sort of mechanical observations right now, but I'm sure some more subjective insights will follow.
 
Wow! No sooner do I get home than I have a new CD player. My Denon has, as of late, been acting up. Reading CD's just fine, but having a front panel on the blink, making the unit occasionally useless. I had been content to use my backup player, another Denon (DCD-1520), until I could give the DCD-3520 a good going over. Though it shares many attributes with its up-scale cousin, it just didn't sound as good.

Well MarkB would have none of that. He happened to have, just sitting around, a new-in-box TOTL Sony deck that he had never really found a use for. Indeed, the unit really had never been removed from the box, the box itself having been opened up enough to verify that it did indeed have a CD player. Opening the box and removing the unit was like opening a time capsule. There is, of course, mint (which is bandied about whether deserved or not) and then there is new, and the Sony was new.

25 years boxed up had been very kind indeed to the deck. The mechanicals certainly did not operate as though the last time they were used was the QC from the factory, and, if you can believe it, the batteries included for the remote were still fresh!

Seeing as he never listened to it, we hooked it up to his system and played some music. Possessing the same build quality (not to mention DAC's) as my Denon, I expected similarities, but the Sony was a dead-ringer, only the Sony still operates as it did on day one, and was not so tired sounding; more extended and ethereal highs with more solid bass, but the same confident midrange that endears the Denon to me.

The CDP-707ESD (CDP-557ESD elsewhere, I believe) was Sony's top effort circa 1988-1989, contemporary with the Denon DCD-3520. The two units share many design features: fully independent power supplies for the analog and digital/servo portions, copper clad chassis, BMC/Gibraltar transport bases, heavy-gauge steel bottoms, critical dampening of the panels, 8x oversampling filters, and dual BB PCM64 18-bit DACs. Indeed, many IC's in the Denon bare Sony hallmarks, and the Denon uses a popular Sony optical block. Where the Sony has the apparent advantage is in more careful selection of parts for the analog stages, and more audiophile-approved tweaking, such as ceramic dampeners on the DAC ICs, audiophile approved caps, hand-matched components in critical areas. Denon seemed to give more emphasis to technical aspects like suspension/isolation of the transport, balanced analog outputs (with a fully-balanced output stage), and more flexible digital outputs (two coaxial, one optical, switchable at the front panel). Both, of course, represent the state of the art in the late 1980's.

Mark himself was not content to merely loan me this unit, but offered to trade it up for some of my restoration services (when will people learn that I would gladly do it for free, given the opportunity to play a bit with the unit in question), and I was only too glad to accept.

I still intend to get the Denon to 100% again (the suspect IC is used in a few players, but, alas, none that I have that I could sacrifice to the cause). Even then, I think the DCD-3520 may end up playing second-fiddle/backup to the Sony. Indeed, given that these decks seem to live in excess of 25 years without major issue to begin with, I may be well into middle-age before I need to consider a replacement again.

Pictures of the Sony to follow later.
 
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