Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms vintage versus modern hifi

One more word on the pleasurable amazement about a hifi system vs. many years of satisfaction and undisturbed habit.

As I get older, my greatest expectation of my hifi is this kind of satisfaction and undisturbed habit.
The times are long gone where I changed a hifi component with a lot of promises and hopes. But this phase was part of it in younger years. You should also believe the marketing that everything is getting better and better. I can confirm this for digital sources, also that they actually became more inexpensive. But also here it is so that in a certain overall system the satisfaction plays a role. 15 years ago I bought a Meridian G08 CD player. It still runs today. But now I listen to digital sources, mostly tidal mqa and hifi through my Bluesound node 2i. It costs only a fraction of the G08 but I am satisfied. I'm sure there are better devices but nothing bothers me on node 2i. There is nothing missing...I know that there are devices where nothing interferes but they mask a lot and give only a part of the musical information. But this is good enough for me here. The digital device can't reach the sound of my turntable Oracle Delphy Mk5 with SME V and Ear-step-up anyway.

Hearing is a special and very natural sense. Much of what we (want to) hear through our hifi is really in a field of tension between great impression and so "natural" that it is taken for granted. If a voice is reproduced excellently by an LS3/5, for example, we are amazed. When my wife says something at breakfast...not always. But which voice has the more natural sound, that of the speaker or that of my wife? I tell you, it is that of my wife:)

This is how it works with many examples. Our youngest daughter now plays the violin very beautifully and she has a good instrument and an elaborate tone. What I hear there the loudspeaker will never be able to reproduce anyway. But nevertheless I like to listen to violin music of great players through my hifi.

This brings me to a topic that is very related to the above. My personal definition in the meantime is this: The hifi should be so good that nothing disturbs, hurts or tires me, and that it "reminds me" of the sound of an instrument, a band or a large classical orchestra.
I believe that psychoacoustically "memory" is the most important factor for me. This factor grows with maturity and life experience and sound experience. I claim that I am more and better "remembered" when I hear something, when I play an instrument all my life, when I have attended many concerts and when I have been rehearsing with bands for 45 years.

If I could not develop a relationship to this reality of natural sound, but I like to listen to music, then I am much more dependent on how my hifi sounds, because it has to replace the missing experience of my own. A lot of people may only go to big rock concerts, and what do they hear: speakers...

All this implies another aspect of the hifi device. One example. I searched for a long time and tried out which power tubes best fit my amplifier. I didn't have NOS RCA or Genelec KT88 when I made my choice. They were just newer and cheaper brands. What was my criterion: undisturbed sound. With imitated Russian Gold Lion, a product lie in my ears, I had a strained metallic overtone, this tube was somehow trimmed for "hifi". Very good were the original Svetlana winged C, which unfortunately no longer exists. Besides a number of other tubes, the cheapest one won in the end, and to my astonishment, the JJ KT88 from Slovakia. At least in combination with my Mk4 MC 275 from Mcintosh. I still have a MC 2102 power amplifier and the JJ didn't sound so good. So much for synergy...The MC2012 also has a completely different circuit with cascades.

But only now my point comes: So I'm satisfied as it is...but the good fairy comes along and gives me four original NOS grey plated RCA KT88 or some from GEC. Probably I would be very impressed. But in the best case, so if nothing remains disturbing, I'll get used to the sound, just like I'm used to the sound of the cheap but very good JJ now.

The hearing can adapt, normalize and form routines. Over the years I have become more and more a music listener, less and less an equipment listener...even though I am very interested in the subject. I am no longer its prisoner.
But there are things that fascinate me. And they are such beautiful experiments like these "Duelund" cables. I love it when a superior principle outwits a clever marketing of neurotically expensive cables.

I have noticed that as I get older, my preferred speakers change. My Stirling Broadcast LS 3/6 follow more the principle "you are there" which fits well with my theory of memory of sounds. ESL do that in a very supreme way but I have to admit that I personally lack something physically at ESL, like a tenor saxophone in low register. It's where the BBC monitors come alive.

Before, my beloved Klipsch Jubilee are among the (very good) representatives of the philosophy "they are here". But there I was hotter in younger years. Such a full horn two-way system has something similar to a Tannoy Westminster in terms of the large area of air molecules that are excited. In a sense, it's the V8 sound with lots of torque under the speakers.

But it's the subtleties that sometimes get a little lost. I have seen so many photos where people have a Westminster...and in front of it is a LS3/5. I always have to smile and I know why these people have both.

Heinz
You are obviously a born audiophile even if you are not strictly a practicing one. Not many people would make the connection between the Klipsch sound and the Tannoy Westminster as they couldn't be more apparently different when compared.
However looks can be deceiving and in fact the sound character is similar, although the Westminsters do bass much better. But transparency, soundstage and realism are pretty much on a par.
I currently use Klipsch Heresy 3s. The reason I don't use Heresy 4s is because unlike the 3s they are ported. This gives more lower bass than the 3s but the bass is smeared and a lot less articulate and this is true of all the Klipsch right up the range until you get to the La Scalas.
There is no doubt the Heresy 3s lack a bit of lower bass but they are brilliant at everything else. Because they are an infinite baffle design, an additional subwoofer can be successfully integrated. Ime ported speakers and subwoofers can never be successfully integrated as the smearing effects of ports cannot be overcome successfully. This is worse than not using a subwoofer at all. I designed and built an infinite baffle subwoofer as the Heresys are very fast and a. slow sub would not do at all. I then spent a couple of weeks tweaking until the crossover point was inaudible. I now have a speaker setup that sounds very similar to the Westminsters but do not take over the whole room.
PS
I know I could make your Oracle sound better by changing the SME V for a Rega RB300 (original RB300 with tungsten counterweight). Perhaps details may emerge later in the thread.

Barry, I'm sure your Heresy sounds very good. You say a bass reflex is louder, yes, but your closed version goes deeper into the bass, below the Helmholz resonance that makes the cut on the bass reflex. Your efforts to find a suitable subwoofer were certainly a great challenge that you mastered. It is not so easy to harmonize the speakers...
We can also talk about the SME. So many exciting and interesting topics

I'm not sure, you know the Klipsch Jubilee? I was under the impression you thought I was comparing Westminster to a "Klipschorn"?
The Jubilee is a two-way system for the home, or three-way in the cinemas. The high-mid horn starts at 500Hz, it's a combination of conical and Tractrix. The horn is a CD principle (constant directivity). From about 6000 Hz the phase plug of the driver takes over the wave guidance. At the crossover frequency, the radiation of the bass cabinet and the mid-high horn has approximately the same pattern.

The bass is the legacy of Paul Klipsch. It delivers much less distortion than the old Klipschorn and the impulse is very fast because it works with 2 x 12 inch drivers. It opens to the front like the Westminster does. If I can find it, there was an AES paper when the Jubilee was introduced about 20 years ago. Because of the large area of the mid-high horn the Jubilee sounds even more like a Westminster than the old corner horn. And the bass is incredibly dry, airy and physical down to 40 Hz. Here is a picture when I had the pair in my living room. And...all of you who don't know speakers of this size, we're not talking about a rock music club (yes, it would work as well with this speakers) but about mimosa-like nuances, if you connect a 300B for example.

A photo when they were in our living room. Paul personally introduced the speaker to CES in 2000. He was well over 90 years old then. Roy Delgado developed the Tractrix/conical horn for it.

Well done Heinz, you have shown me a speaker I had no knowledge of! But I am very familiar with many Klipsch and I bet they do sound like Westminsters.
You won't need a subwoofer with those! I'd love to hear them.
Is that a Macintosh preamp?
I knew you were an audiophile! :-)

It is a C22 CE from the 1990s. Not anymore point to point soldered like the original but still very good. I used to have an Ear 864 which I was actually very happy with. The C22CE was a chance purchase. When I bought the MC275 MK4 slightly used in Switzerland in 2004 at a very good price from a dealer he said that he still had an original packed C22CE. I bought it for 1900€ and thought, if it is not good, I can sell it on. I plugged it in and I was completely overwhelmed. I had never heard such an articulated speech intelligibility before. It stayed until today and it will stay. Tube rolling regarding this preamp is also a topic of further post...:)

I know that some Americans have built subwoofers for the Jubilee anyway. It is super great but at 40 Hz the cut. But that is a psychologically important frequency, because it is the low E string of the double bass. I used to have a LS 5/9 from Rogers. It was great, but at 60 Hz the cut was over. And I don't like that when the keynote is missing. (Only the LS 3/5 is allowed to do that)

When Corona is over you are very welcome for a listening session.

Just re-read Heinz' post and on the subject of valves, I have a source for GEC (exact mil spec copies) 6550 which should be a direct replacement for your KT88. They are sonically excellent and I use them in my Audio Research.

I would like to encourage everyone who wears glasses to take a little test.

6 years ago I happened not to have my glasses on and I was listening to my hifi. It had struck me. In my perception it is a fine subtle but actually emotionally clear difference.

I experience it is in a way that the music becomes more spatial and brighter, clearer. The depth is different. The music is lighter on the ear.
I have two attempts at explanation. On the one hand, the glasses cover a part of the face surface. And the temples press, albeit slightly, on the ear and the bones. With increasing age I hear high frequencies less with the eardrum but still very well over the skull.

On the other hand, I could suspect, as my personal hypothesis, that the glasses can cause unfortunate wave reflections.

For decades engineers have been discussing the influence of sharp edges on loudspeaker cabinets. This is because the unsightly reflections are so close to the tweeter that timesmear is created. The brain cannot differentiate this short Delta T. That's why it sounds like an unsightly discoloration in some loudspeakers.

Now imagine the glasses. Only a few centimetres away from the ear a reflection is created at the edges of the glasses.

Whether it's true or not, I don't know. But whoever listens with glasses, take them off and listen again. In my case, it's a difference in spatial perception.

I'll try it tomorrow.

My sub is flat to 25hz by the way.

Wow, your can listen to real church organ music stuff. That is very cool!

It does indeed Barry. Made in 1957 and completely original, just like me.