Brian
An Old Geezer
As some my know I've ended up with a few Philips pieces at first more by accident than anything else and then by design. I currently have 3 of the following receivers 785, 796 and 797. Tne 797 was their TOTL of the series and is 60 watts rms into 8 ohms per side. My long time main system is McIntosh and for about 5 years have had a set pf Bozak Symphonys on them. More recently I've also pairs my Philips 6731, 572 and 578 tuner, preamp and amp with them and the set could easily be a main system.
During the past week I finally set everything aside to do some listening longer term with the 797 receiver on the Bozaks. Previously I had used it on the Advents. When I do hookups to the Bozaks, the receiver is shooting against the separates rather than other receivers. I start with an expectation that it will not come anywhere near sonically as satisfying and usually when I do this I'm right. I've done it with each brand I have including Sony, JVC, Pioneer, Sherwood, Marantz and H-K and while each receiver that I've kept is strong standalone in a system, it does not come near either set of separates. Well, until now. To start with, the Philips bears a strong family sonic resemblence to the separates. Not equal to in any way but comparing them and you can tell. Switching between the tuners (using the 6731 through the tape-inputs of the receiver) showed how strong the receiver's tuner is in storng stations in comparison to the 6731. The 6731 has better resolution, separation, better into the bass and high end but not by a large amount. Surprisingly on a folded dipole, the 6731 faired not better than the 797 in picking up distant stations but does have a faster quieting slope.
The weak piont on the H-K 630 seems ot be the preamp. THis is easily noticed when you use the power amp in the receiver with a decent preamp. The amp is excellent. In listening the the H-K after some time it seems as if something is slightly amiss. Almost there but not quite. I've heard this on every H-K x30 I've listened to. With the Philips the amp sounds as if it has its act together. Nothing seems out of place. Sibelence is not missing nore too strong. Bass easily comes forward when needed but does not overpower, very similar to my ARC D76a amps I had form some years as well as my Mc MC250 and MC2105. There is no lower midrange empahsis that I find on may units that seems to make the high end rolled off. Resolving power on strings is not as good as either the Mc not the Philips separates since it does not seem to deliver say the resonance of the violin or the sound of the sweep of the bow over the strings as well. Also on massed violin it walks a line between separating them into individual instruments playing together or a single massed set of violins. Triangle is the same on both Philips systems and slightly more glassy than through the Mc. Piano on all three does well but the Mc is the best of the 3 espacially the grand piano. The receiver in some ways actually does a bit better than the Philips separates in delivering the hammer strikes.
The phono section of the receiver is quiet and mates well with my ADC XLM MKII on my Thorens TD125. No sens of shrillness overload or anything bad in anyway. The noise level of the preamp is very very low.
When I got my Bozaks, my MC250 did not seem to have the juice to open them up so I got the MC2105. The 60 watts of the receiver did a really good job in getting the speakers to perform well. One issue I have with the Bozaks is the soundstage. These are big speakers and just deliver a wall of sound. I've had to live with an 8' high piano. The receiver lowered the soundstage to the top of the speakers which is about right for the piano. It does not have the depth of either set of components or the width and here the H-K is clearly better in delivering depth on these speakers but it too has an 8' piano. The soundstage loss took some getting used to.
I've left the unit on for the week running alternatively a minimum volume, at normal listien levels with the speakers off and at high levels with speaker off. The ambient temperature never varied and is only slightly above room temperature after a week, withing about 5 degrees on the case above the poer transformer while the heatsinks are not the slightest bit warm. This unit will nover have to worry about frying components from heat. The build is very neat and clean. Almost all wiring is below the chassis so when opened it looks so neat and tidy. The 3 boards are mounted from below the chassis and can be dropped without unscrewing anything so it looks very easy to repair unlike the amp which Echowars says is a horror.
I was brought up on tubes and separates. Most SS equipment is fatiguing after only a few hours of listening. The exception has been my Mc. Another has been the Philips components. As for receivers, save for the Mc receivers almost all are good for only a few hours at best. Even my Sonys fatigue me after some time. The 797 has not been. I've been listening for up to 8 hours continious (wife even brought food to me) and not a thing. I previously noted this on my Advents and Kipsch Heresys with the 785 and 796 receivers. The little 785 did nicely with the Heresys in this regard and those Herseys fatigue me with almost everything I've ever connected.
The power limit protection circuit is a voltage limited down to 4 ohms and then switches to 4 ohms. THe service manual states that wioth this design the output into 4 ohms will not be less than at 8 ohms but there may be some compression on high level peaks. This may be 1 reason why I heard some differnece in sound betwen my Advents (8 ohms) and the Smaller Advents (4 ohms) which were designed to sound the smae and my examples do hooked up to my tube systems and Mc systems as well as a receiver that is rock stable into 2 ohms. The differences are minor but if using Advents, at least stay with the original Advents and not the Smaller Advents since the 3db less efficiency of the Smaller will not be compensated for by having more power.
The 797 and 796 in earlier testing sound very very close. The 796 is 45 watts and the specs other specs are almost identical. One reason for this is that they use the same boards and mostly the same circuits. There is a smaller PS though the transformer is the same. I will be keeping them as long term units.
During the past week I finally set everything aside to do some listening longer term with the 797 receiver on the Bozaks. Previously I had used it on the Advents. When I do hookups to the Bozaks, the receiver is shooting against the separates rather than other receivers. I start with an expectation that it will not come anywhere near sonically as satisfying and usually when I do this I'm right. I've done it with each brand I have including Sony, JVC, Pioneer, Sherwood, Marantz and H-K and while each receiver that I've kept is strong standalone in a system, it does not come near either set of separates. Well, until now. To start with, the Philips bears a strong family sonic resemblence to the separates. Not equal to in any way but comparing them and you can tell. Switching between the tuners (using the 6731 through the tape-inputs of the receiver) showed how strong the receiver's tuner is in storng stations in comparison to the 6731. The 6731 has better resolution, separation, better into the bass and high end but not by a large amount. Surprisingly on a folded dipole, the 6731 faired not better than the 797 in picking up distant stations but does have a faster quieting slope.
The weak piont on the H-K 630 seems ot be the preamp. THis is easily noticed when you use the power amp in the receiver with a decent preamp. The amp is excellent. In listening the the H-K after some time it seems as if something is slightly amiss. Almost there but not quite. I've heard this on every H-K x30 I've listened to. With the Philips the amp sounds as if it has its act together. Nothing seems out of place. Sibelence is not missing nore too strong. Bass easily comes forward when needed but does not overpower, very similar to my ARC D76a amps I had form some years as well as my Mc MC250 and MC2105. There is no lower midrange empahsis that I find on may units that seems to make the high end rolled off. Resolving power on strings is not as good as either the Mc not the Philips separates since it does not seem to deliver say the resonance of the violin or the sound of the sweep of the bow over the strings as well. Also on massed violin it walks a line between separating them into individual instruments playing together or a single massed set of violins. Triangle is the same on both Philips systems and slightly more glassy than through the Mc. Piano on all three does well but the Mc is the best of the 3 espacially the grand piano. The receiver in some ways actually does a bit better than the Philips separates in delivering the hammer strikes.
The phono section of the receiver is quiet and mates well with my ADC XLM MKII on my Thorens TD125. No sens of shrillness overload or anything bad in anyway. The noise level of the preamp is very very low.
When I got my Bozaks, my MC250 did not seem to have the juice to open them up so I got the MC2105. The 60 watts of the receiver did a really good job in getting the speakers to perform well. One issue I have with the Bozaks is the soundstage. These are big speakers and just deliver a wall of sound. I've had to live with an 8' high piano. The receiver lowered the soundstage to the top of the speakers which is about right for the piano. It does not have the depth of either set of components or the width and here the H-K is clearly better in delivering depth on these speakers but it too has an 8' piano. The soundstage loss took some getting used to.
I've left the unit on for the week running alternatively a minimum volume, at normal listien levels with the speakers off and at high levels with speaker off. The ambient temperature never varied and is only slightly above room temperature after a week, withing about 5 degrees on the case above the poer transformer while the heatsinks are not the slightest bit warm. This unit will nover have to worry about frying components from heat. The build is very neat and clean. Almost all wiring is below the chassis so when opened it looks so neat and tidy. The 3 boards are mounted from below the chassis and can be dropped without unscrewing anything so it looks very easy to repair unlike the amp which Echowars says is a horror.
I was brought up on tubes and separates. Most SS equipment is fatiguing after only a few hours of listening. The exception has been my Mc. Another has been the Philips components. As for receivers, save for the Mc receivers almost all are good for only a few hours at best. Even my Sonys fatigue me after some time. The 797 has not been. I've been listening for up to 8 hours continious (wife even brought food to me) and not a thing. I previously noted this on my Advents and Kipsch Heresys with the 785 and 796 receivers. The little 785 did nicely with the Heresys in this regard and those Herseys fatigue me with almost everything I've ever connected.
The power limit protection circuit is a voltage limited down to 4 ohms and then switches to 4 ohms. THe service manual states that wioth this design the output into 4 ohms will not be less than at 8 ohms but there may be some compression on high level peaks. This may be 1 reason why I heard some differnece in sound betwen my Advents (8 ohms) and the Smaller Advents (4 ohms) which were designed to sound the smae and my examples do hooked up to my tube systems and Mc systems as well as a receiver that is rock stable into 2 ohms. The differences are minor but if using Advents, at least stay with the original Advents and not the Smaller Advents since the 3db less efficiency of the Smaller will not be compensated for by having more power.
The 797 and 796 in earlier testing sound very very close. The 796 is 45 watts and the specs other specs are almost identical. One reason for this is that they use the same boards and mostly the same circuits. There is a smaller PS though the transformer is the same. I will be keeping them as long term units.
