Beta's, QLS1's , Ren 90's

[Nikkoholic]

Gota love those amps and equipment you have, not to mention those Beta's. I don't know how you can part with your QLS-1's.

Believe me it isn't easy. I just don't have the space and by the time I will they will be another 3-4 years old.:tears:

...planning on purchasing a pair of Mcintosh XRT's, as I see them occasionally come up with a decent price. For the most part I don't care for Mcintosh's early speakers but when they came out with the XRT series I think are good speakers I like the XRT 18, 20 and 22 models. Their is one other I like better but they really expensive I think its the XRT290 ....

Yes the McIntosh XRT28's are on my short list trying to find a dealer within 200 miles that has them on the floor.

...Those amps you got pictured there they are Nikko?

Yes they are. Everything in the photo is Nikko except the Servo and an old CD player. There is more to the Nikko collection but, they are not in use at this time. Can't decide on a rack brand, but I was going to do as you suggested (with using rack mounted shelves) to avoid marring the mounting tabs. That does restrict air flow though.

 

[Nikkoholic]

...How does the Nikko equip compare to say the Pioneer Spec amps and preamps. I have kind of thought of building a Pioneer Spec rack up nothing real big but I would like to have a Reel to Reel, never had one before and just thought it might be fun..

Don't know how they compare, never heard the Pioneer. Bought my original Nikko stuff in late 70's early 80's and have just stayed with it. I've expanded it considerably in the last few years. Back them most of my decision revolved around features and budget. For me it is hard to tell the difference from SS amp to SS amp, especially if they aren't side by side with the ability to switch back and forth instantaneously. But to listen to system A and then a few days later listen to system B with another amp, ...too many variable for my ears. To me all my Nikko's sound the same, just different power levels.

..You need a big Mid Alantic amp rack, for all that gear. What I have done for my gear is not use the rack mounts but rather the shelves. I like to be able to pull out the amps and gear rather then use the screws on the face plate. It is hard to hold a heavy amp and try and get all the screws in. If you do want to use the screws it is best to lay the rack down on its back and then place the gear in. But you need some help standing the rack up with all the weight. They are great racks and I use them all the time. Great castor set up, you can't even see the wheels because the skirt hides them even when full of gear they roll very well. Smoked glass doors or vented doors, cooling fans full lenght power strips running the whole way down the side, and wire trays to organize all the wiring are all options you can get. I find a small florescent lite strip in the back makes it very easy to see when wiring them up. You should check them out, the are industrial looking but they are tough, and you can get any thing from a wall mount swinging open rack to a full 8 foot rack on castors. I have four, a pair of four foot high racks, one 5 foot tall and a 6 foot tall one. You can get a piece of granite cut for the top of the smaller ones and it works well for a turntable and looks pretty good.

Agreed, thanks for the advice, they are also on my list.

 

[Nikkoholic]

:tears:QLS1's are gone. They will be missed. Feel like I just dropped out of a very special club.

 

[SuperKris]

You better get a IRS V so you can feel a bit better.

 

[Nikkoholic]

You better get a IRS V so you can feel a bit better.

Actually it wasn't that bad, the guy seemed very excited about them, which helped. And should since they are in extraordinary condition. He gave the Betas a listen for kicks and then was back on his 12 hour journey home....IRS V hmmm, gotta get the bigger house first.

 

[MrLegit]

Just out of curiosity how much did it cost to bring the Gamma speakers into Australia ??

regards

Enough.

 

[Ken Boyd]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Boyd
...Those amps you got pictured there they are Nikko?

Yes they are. Everything in the photo is Nikko except the Servo and an old CD player. There is more to the Nikko collection but, they are not in use at this time. Can't decide on a rack brand, but I was going to do as you suggested (with using rack mounted shelves) to avoid marring the mounting tabs. That does restrict air flow though.

For the most part I have never seen SS preamps, CD, turntable, EQ, Active Crossover, or any other source device put out much heat. In my experince the only thing that I have seen that puts out much heat are Main Power amps and I am talking SS. I orginally had my power amps on the top of my amp rack, which also has cooling fans, but my amps never got anything but slightly warm. I unpluged the fans because even though they are pretty quite when listening to classical music on very quite passages I could hear the fans and since my amps were not putting out any real heat to speak of I got tired of the external noises. After a few weeks I relocated everything and now have the power amps at the bottom as they never get hot anyway and their is no way I would ever drive them that hard to create the heat that would be a problem even with the shelves. I preferred them on the bottom for several reasons, all the weight is better on the bottom (don't want it top heavy) the amps don't have many user controls, and on the bottom it lessens the length needed for the main speaker wires. I was also concerned about the main speaker wires not being shielded might create some kind of interference if located near a interconnet cable. I used to use shielded interconnects for all my sources but now I use pure silver interconnects and they are not shielded so I was not sure if some main speaker wires in the bundle might be a bad thing. I run all the power cables on one side and all the interconnects on the other side to help eliminate the possiblities of any 60 cycle hum.

Maybe someday when I get some real good amps, I will put them right next to the speakers on stands, and use the balanced inputs. I put that question to a few friends of mine what is the best way, longer runs out of a preamp with the amp close to the speaker or having the longer runs for the main speaker wire, I really didn't find a educated answer. In the commercial industry when I have long runs of the lower power source feeds we use RDL small stick on amps to boost the signal. Many times we use a digital processor or a Rane unit which has multiple inputs and outputs to provide signals to other areas in a building, and when you have a source in one part of a building and another amp rack in a different part we use those RDL devices to boost the signal over a long run. I am not sure that are of audiophile grade, but I could never hear much difference.

Maybe I will start a thread on that as I do want to have a way of provided a source from one room of my house and jump it to mulitple amp racks in other rooms in case I want to have the same music playing on all systems thoughout the house, and I want it very clean.

 

[Nikkoholic]

This post is to share some personal findings in comparing these 3 speakers. ......

The Beta's produce with out a doubt the deepest bass I have ever heard, the depth and power is amazing. I love bass but find that I listen with the low freq. cut back -6 db in the servo controller. I did find the mids to be lacking on these speakers and through PM with another Beta owner came to the conclusion it was the room, thus I added an eq and simply addressed the frequency range that was weak to my ears. This solved the problem and really made the speaker complete.

The QLS-1 on the other hand, seemed to always have tremendous bass until hearing the Betas. But other than the ultra deep bass, the QLS1 has and still is a very complete speaker for my taste. The mids and highs are strong and well balanced and while the bass is not nearly as powerful as the Beta's, the QLS1 has what seems to be a tighter bass, perhaps that impression stems from the bass not being as dominant. I did do a lot of A/B comparing with just the low freq. drivers with the QLS1 Watkin woofer seeming to be just a little tigher. ..........

So since originally posting this comparison a surprising discover has been made with regard to my Beta low frequency towers and servo unit. Simply put I had owned them about a year and discovered the servo cables were replaced and wired incorrectly prior to my purchasing them. Details on this discover can be read about in this post http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=299425

But to clear up this comparison...The bass on the Beta's is no longer overwhelming but nicely balanced and VERY under control, much tighter and even deeper than before. Tremendous sound.

So my only complaint with my Beta's is a dip in the mid frequency which I typical fill in with my Ren 90's (and run them together). The dip could be room size / placement. I do need more low frequency power. When the servo was not working I had to run the servo gain at -6 to -9 db and now I run it at about +4. I won't rehash all the details; they are in the thread link above.