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Altec 604C's : What the heck am I going to do with these!

I'd say it's a sin to have a pair of 604Cs sitting in the basement -- but, given that I have a pair of 604Bs in my basement, I think I probably shouldn't go there.

Do I need to put a SET amp in a box & send it to the OP? :-P
 
^^^

I probably need better 300B tubes for my SET monos. $$$:tears:$$$

Or maybe try 2A3's or something else.

Hey, with 604's they're all on the table! :yes: $$$$$:tears:$$$$$$$
 
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Dammit...got me to thinkin' about unloading the 300B monos now. :scratch2:

Those 2a3's...generally less expensive, more plentiful and a wider variety to choose from compared to 300B's, correct?
 
tomlinmgt said:
Dammit...got me to thinkin' about unloading the 300B monos now. :scratch2:

Those 2a3's...generally less expensive, more plentiful and a wider variety to choose from compared to 300B's, correct?
Click to expand...

There is a difference, but it's not night and day. 2A3 is more "accurate" imo, 300b has more "soul" but again, we aren't talking about a huge difference in sonic character.
 
Interestingly (and FWIW) my experience is exactly the reverse. IME, the SE 300B amps I've heard have a somewhat sterile "hifi" sound -- sort of like a top-quality solid state amplifier like the "real" Mark Levinson amps. Sounds good but doesn't quite suck me in like even a very modest SE 2A3 amp like the old BH Paramour.
 
Sometimes I wonder if 45s and 2A3s are more "soulful" because they are being driven into distortion much sooner and people love themselves some soft clipping.
 
If you want your tweeters at ear height say 42 inches that means the box will have 52 inches tall. The speaker is 15 inches wide so lets say the cabinet is 17 inches wide inside. 604's are pretty deep so I would say 17 inches deep. So the interior dimensions would be 17 X 17 X 48 /1728= cu ft or 8.05 cu ft. Make the box a few inches wider and a couple inches deeper and your at 9 cu ft. That's not a very big box. And there is room to add a 416 below the 604 if you want to extend the bass without placing them in a corner and to increase the power handling below 80 hz for instance. I would think a MAC MC7200 would be the ideal amp, and all you would need is a big coil to roll off the 416 above 70 hz or so. Then you would not have to port the system. Line the cabinet with fiber glass, and hang a curtain to absorb standing waves and you should be able to reach below 30 hz with great authority. The amp wouldn't mind the load of 16 ohms down to 90 hz or so and would deliver full power at 8 ohms down to 20 hz. With the high damping factor the system should sound very precise with the over hang so common with ported or reflex systems. So you loose a few db of efficiency, The system will easily produce over 118 db, what more do you need?
 
dnewma04 said:
Sometimes I wonder if 45s and 2A3s are more "soulful" because they are being driven into distortion much sooner and people love themselves some soft clipping.
Click to expand...

I don't think so -- I actually don't much care for the "autocompression" sound of these DHTs as they approach nonlinearity -- they get hard and glassy sounding (to me). With ca. 104 dB/watt @ 1 meter sensitivity loudspeakers and my preferences in music and listening SPLs -- I think I am typically at output power levels on the order of 100 mW.

I also don't think it is the euphonious second order HD; that's a factor in gee-tar amps, but shouldn't be in hifi.

I do think it's because vacuum tube triodes, within their capabilities, are phenomenally linear amplifications. Transistors and tetrodes and pentodes... are not, and it takes a fair amount of EE skulduggery to make them behave linearly. My own opinion is it's those very tricks that tend to suck the life out of many (all but the best) amplifiers using those gizmos for power amplification.

Frankly (and, again, to be really explicit, IMO), for a given, relatively modest price point -- e.g., ca. $1000 -- it is going to be easier to find a great sounding, truly "musical" little stereo 2A3 power amp than a great sounding, truly "musical" amp using any of those other power amplifier components (SE or PP). Obviously, the comparison is never going to be apples to apples; the choice of optimal loudspeaker in either broad class of amplifiers is going to be quite different. Quite different.

All I can offer are my quasi-fact-based opinions; I don't have spectral data on harmonic content of a signal as a function of output power for the JE Labs "simple 2A3", to say nothing of having any such data for the slightly modified version thereof that I have playing NPR as I type this.
 
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The reason I mentioned it is on a handful of occassions, I was around while some woefully underpowered amp was put on speakers totally inappropriate for them. Similar higher powered amps, swapped out for lower power amps. I heard lots of distortion and soft clipping and thought it sounded muddy. Others were very excited by the change, saying it gave the midrange more body, more warmth, etc. It's just a hunch that some out there like it.
 
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