• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Moving up the stream

I'm surprised that the Vincent Audio SV-236MKII hasn't been recommended yet. Perhaps it isn't available in your area? I'm a fan of the tube pre / solid state amp hybrid approach. If you're able to demo one, I'd be willing to say it may just wow you :D
 
Spektre said:
Couldn't agree more with you about Naim, I really don't like their house sound and your definitions are spot on. I find them relentless in their musical presentation and without much nuance or subtlety, particularly annoying and very inaccurate was the abruptly cut decays you mention. Impressive for about five minutes but with extended listening its truly awful.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I actually got offended that they would consciously go for this kind of sound. And the reviews! Now I just read them for amusement. Granted, I haven't heard the Naim separates, but I think you are allow to judge the whole lineup by the budget offerings, because it's an introduction to the house sound for many people.

Naim Nait XS-2 review coming up.
 
newworld said:
Save your money

My encounter with Musical Fidelity left me incredibly upbeat. I couldn't wait to make another discovery and there's still many left to audition at the price point. I thought, let's see how cheap I can get without sacrificing sound quality.

.. At $1000 or under, you can definitely do better than this. Cambridge Audio and NAD both offer cleaner sound and more power. Next, please.
Click to expand...

m3i and M1PWR added to the audition list. Class D simply makes more sense than MF's fullsize amps in the tropics, but I'd be silly not to hear the 3i anyway. Note also that CA have released their 200WPC 'Class XD' power amp, the 851W@~2500 USD. Expensive for CA, but it really looks the part :D

10265.jpg
 
livestrong said:
I'm surprised that the Vincent Audio SV-236MKII hasn't been recommended yet. Perhaps it isn't available in your area? I'm a fan of the tube pre / solid state amp hybrid approach. If you're able to demo one, I'd be willing to say it may just wow you :D
Click to expand...

That amplifier has been recommended to me along with other Vincent products. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of hybrids. Placing a tube preamp before a solid state amp always sounded like coloration to me. A good example was listening to a Pathos Integrated. Warm sound, but beyond that it misses the point of having an all tube system. Same feeling when I listen to the Coffman Labs preamp with a solid state power I can't remember. It's a beautiful preamp, for sure, but I had to ask to take it out of the system for better evaluation of the speakers. Either I go all tube or all solid, but I certainly will not pass up an opportunity to audition some. :D
 
Last edited:
estreeter said:
m3i and M1PWR added to the audition list. Class D simply makes more sense than MF's fullsize amps in the tropics, but I'd be silly not to hear the 3i anyway. Note also that CA have released their 200WPC 'Class XD' power amp, the 851W@~2500 USD. Expensive for CA, but it really looks the part :D
Click to expand...

Yeah, especially at the size you posted this thing. :D

This looks amazing. Hopefully I will get to hear this soon just for fun.
 
ROFLMAO - apologies to those viewing the site on 11" laptops and cellphones - I do strive to find images which evoke some sense of the *scale* of a component ! :D
 
newworld said:
That amplifier has been recommended to me along with other Vincent products. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of hybrids. Placing a tube preamp before a solid state amp always sounded like coloration to me. A good example was listening to a Pathos Integrated. Warm sound, but beyond that it misses the point of having an all tube system. Same feeling when I listen to the Coffman Labs preamp with a solid state power I can't remember. It's a beautiful preamp, for sure, but I had to ask to take it out of the system for better evaluation of the speakers. Either I go all tube or all solid, but I certainly will not pass up an opportunity to audition some. :D
Click to expand...
I would tend to agree with you about tube hybrid amps with some exceptions. My Unico is a wonderful sounding amp with no tube"coloration" but more what I guess people call warmth. It excels at music that has singing, like Norah Jones, Krall, Beverly Kenney etc. It also holds its own with classical and classic rock.

So the reason I said that is because the Vincent stuff is supposed to be pretty good, so I would not dismiss it out of hand. I however have never heard one. But they could be an exception to the rule.
 
newworld said:
That amplifier has been recommended to me along with other Vincent products. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of hybrids. Placing a tube preamp before a solid state amp always sounded like coloration to me. A good example was listening to a Pathos Integrated. Warm sound, but beyond that it misses the point of having an all tube system. Same feeling when I listen to the Coffman Labs preamp with a solid state power I can't remember. It's a beautiful preamp, for sure, but I had to ask to take it out of the system for better evaluation of the speakers. Either I go all tube or all solid, but I certainly will not pass up an opportunity to audition some. :D
Click to expand...

Ok....Kindly break that down and unpack that statement abit please? And which true hybrids did you hear other than Pathos? You can't make that statement all inclusive because its not fair to the hobby. I also would like to hear your idea of the point of having all tubes. But at the same time not wanting to hash out an argument as we all have our preferences. I happen to think tubes/hybrids sound more natural and is more satisfying than SS

IF by color you are talking about a amp that has timbres that are not true to life, then I agree. But all amps with color aren't like that. Color isn't necessarily a bad thing.

To be honest/fair, you can get degrees of coloration with SS as well as with all tube designs as well. You every heard a classic tube sound? What about a nice Nelson Pass rig? You get MOSFIT, has a little coloration as to keep it from going sterile, so what you have is an amp, sounding warm to give it a little texture....and if your ear isnt trained, you'd think it was tubes. You ever hear a $12k Levinson? Youd better mate it right...introduce a little color through the sources or it can be cold.

About 3 weeks ago I was at my buds house around the corner from me. SS mono amps are CODA....DAC is a Lampizator level 5, preamp was the "DUDE" tube..point to point.$6k. Not actually sterile...best sounding all tube preamp I ever heard in my life. Nice color added not classic tube color, but enough to keep it from being sterile while and adding life and texture to every thing. Another guy built a system free of any color...he loves it......in my opinion that thing is a cold as the winters this year in ST. Louis. Color doesn't mean bad.....oh and btw, I've never heard a Musical Fidelity that didn't add color....its not stirile. You ever heard of Tenor Audio? Best Hybrids I ever heard. I will only be able toafford such hybrids if I every win the lotto. Dont know about you but I wont own a system that's sterile. You say you like Cary audio? believe me....they aren't sterile. Simaudio? Dry/Sterile.
 
slippers-on said:
Ok....Kindly break that down and unpack that statement abit please? And which true hybrids did you hear other than Pathos? You can't make that statement all inclusive because its not fair to the hobby. I also would like to hear your idea of the point of having all tubes. But at the same time not wanting to hash out an argument as we all have our preferences. I happen to think tubes/hybrids sound more natural and is more satisfying than SS

IF by color you are talking about a amp that has timbres that are not true to life, then I agree. But all amps with color aren't like that. Color isn't necessarily a bad thing.

To be honest/fair, you can get degrees of coloration with SS as well as with all tube designs as well. You every heard a classic tube sound? What about a nice Nelson Pass rig? You get MOSFIT, has a little coloration as to keep it from going sterile, so what you have is an amp, sounding warm to give it a little texture....and if your ear isnt trained, you'd think it was tubes. You ever hear a $12k Levinson? Youd better mate it right...introduce a little color through the sources or it can be cold.

About 3 weeks ago I was at my buds house around the corner from me. SS mono amps are CODA....DAC is a Lampizator level 5, preamp was the "DUDE" tube..point to point.$6k. Not actually sterile...best sounding all tube preamp I ever heard in my life. Nice color added not classic tube color, but enough to keep it from being sterile while and adding life and texture to every thing. Another guy built a system free of any color...he loves it......in my opinion that thing is a cold as the winters this year in ST. Louis. Color doesn't mean bad.....oh and btw, I've never heard a Musical Fidelity that didn't add color....its not stirile. You ever heard of Tenor Audio? Best Hybrids I ever heard. I will only be able toafford such hybrids if I every win the lotto. Dont know about you but I wont own a system that's sterile. You say you like Cary audio? believe me....they aren't sterile. Simaudio? Dry/Sterile.
Click to expand...

I certainly agree with what you are saying but I can also see newworld's point. Many tube hybrid integrated quite frankly suck, and that is probably where the opinion comes from. I think a lot of designers force a tube into the circuit just to have a marketing point. If it was not for my Unico I would probably have a similar opinion. I would be willing to wager there arm more crappy hybrids out there than well designed ones but I am just guessing.
 
slippers-on said:
Ok....Kindly break that down and unpack that statement abit please? And which true hybrids did you hear other than Pathos? You can't make that statement all inclusive because its not fair to the hobby. I also would like to hear your idea of the point of having all tubes. But at the same time not wanting to hash out an argument as we all have our preferences. I happen to think tubes/hybrids sound more natural and is more satisfying than SS

IF by color you are talking about a amp that has timbres that are not true to life, then I agree. But all amps with color aren't like that. Color isn't necessarily a bad thing.

To be honest/fair, you can get degrees of coloration with SS as well as with all tube designs as well. You every heard a classic tube sound? What about a nice Nelson Pass rig? You get MOSFIT, has a little coloration as to keep it from going sterile, so what you have is an amp, sounding warm to give it a little texture....and if your ear isnt trained, you'd think it was tubes. You ever hear a $12k Levinson? Youd better mate it right...introduce a little color through the sources or it can be cold.

About 3 weeks ago I was at my buds house around the corner from me. SS mono amps are CODA....DAC is a Lampizator level 5, preamp was the "DUDE" tube..point to point.$6k. Not actually sterile...best sounding all tube preamp I ever heard in my life. Nice color added not classic tube color, but enough to keep it from being sterile while and adding life and texture to every thing. Another guy built a system free of any color...he loves it......in my opinion that thing is a cold as the winters this year in ST. Louis. Color doesn't mean bad.....oh and btw, I've never heard a Musical Fidelity that didn't add color....its not stirile. You ever heard of Tenor Audio? Best Hybrids I ever heard. I will only be able toafford such hybrids if I every win the lotto. Dont know about you but I wont own a system that's sterile. You say you like Cary audio? believe me....they aren't sterile. Simaudio? Dry/Sterile.
Click to expand...

What Art said. :D

I think I was pretty clear enough about what did not work for me. Coloration for me means something that detracts from my enjoyment. Pathos didn't do it for me. Coffman with a SS didn't, either. These are the most recent examples. They both had the same kind of coloration, which some people might call warmth, that was distracting rather than catalytic. I don't have a technically term for it. I don't care to look for it.

With some of the equipment I'd heard, such as an all-tube Cary/AES from about a decade ago, this kind of distraction was not there. At the time they didn't strike me as colored. It just sounded like the kind of music I'm used to hearing. That's my idea of the benefit of having a great all-tube. SS probably has more difficult time achieving this, but the MF M3i did this better than Naim or Simaudio for me, at the price I'm limited to.

I've done mosfet as well. They didn't work for me. Were they the best of what mosfet had to offer? Probably not, but I heard a certain characteristic that was once again, distracting.

I really don't care what goes inside the unit. That is way over my head. I can only say that among the ones I've listened to, only a couple of SS has worked for me, even less hybrids has, and one all-tube remains as my reference. Like I said, however, I don't hesitate to listen to anything that comes in my way.
 
Last edited:
BeerCan said:
I certainly agree with what you are saying but I can also see newworld's point. Many tube hybrid integrated quite frankly suck, and that is probably where the opinion comes from. I think a lot of designers force a tube into the circuit just to have a marketing point. If it was not for my Unico I would probably have a similar opinion. I would be willing to wager there arm more crappy hybrids out there than well designed ones but I am just guessing.
Click to expand...

Yep. Maybe I got tired of dealers pushing Peachtree stuff any chance they get.
 
Last edited:
BeerCan said:
I certainly agree with what you are saying but I can also see newworld's point. Many tube hybrid integrated quite frankly suck, and that is probably where the opinion comes from. I think a lot of designers force a tube into the circuit just to have a marketing point. If it was not for my Unico I would probably have a similar opinion. I would be willing to wager there arm more crappy hybrids out there than well designed ones but I am just guessing.
Click to expand...

Some hybrids sound more like Solid State rather than tubes...I get that. Then some people have a SS amp and a tube pre...perfectly matched...synergy! But we all have different sounds we like thus different gear. That don't make the sound of the gear bad...just different. We may not like the sound, just move on from it until we find what We like. To keep it real, Beercan..I've heard hybrids that I didn't care for...just like all tubes I don't care for...just like other gear and speakers I don't care for. But some one else loves it...the stuff I didn't. It's not trash, but treasure to others. I've learned the gear in it self is not bad unless mechanical breakdown....but if not, the sound is just different from what I prefer. We all hear different. Some people like a syrupy, sleepy time amp with lots of color. I don't. Some people like a sterile system I don't....and some people only want to stir the pot. Some people buy gear because it's doing this well and doing that well only to find it's too bright or to boomy down the road....and then you got some people who don't have a clue.
 
Newworld, how far down the valley do you get for auditions. There is a Rogue dealer in Eugene. The owners are nice fellas and they run a very reputable business.
 
Art K. said:
Newworld, how far down the valley do you get for auditions. There is a Rogue dealer in Eugene. The owners are nice fellas and they run a very reputable business.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I saw that. I'm looking for an excuse to get down there. Nice selection of gears!
 
Keep the personal insults out of this thread fellas, next person gets a time out. I went ahead and skimmed off the garbage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom