4Pi Pro vs Bottlehead Straight 8 (or Wayne is right again!)

I had the opportunity last night to try my 4Pi pros on an Audio Electronics Supply SE-1 amplifier. Thru the miracle of the internet a fellow builder and tweaker from the bottlehead forum looked me up and told me about his Straight 8/set amp project and asked if I was interested in giving our gear a comparison. What a golden opportunity I thought, I had long been wanting to check out the tube deal and finally here was a chance, so I packed up my Pi's my old Crown amp, some cable and my Luxman preamp and off to Blackstrap I went (30 miles south of here.) (That's right, forgot the digital camera....grrrrrr)
After unpacking everything, Ed and me fire up his combo. I must say his "budget" speakers sounded great. Way more bass than I would have ever thought a 5" (ok 16 of them) speaker could have ever mustered, nice top end and they looked FANTASTIC, guess building furniture for a living paid off for ED!
My turn, same tunes on the Pi SS system. Also sound great, but different. Pi's were much more forward, midrange wasn't as good as the 16 5" woofers(no real surprise there when you think about it) but the bass was much more visaral, and the highs were kind of crunchy at times (think my choices of crossover components is largely responsible for that, Solen caps and cement resistors).
Now for the test I've waiting for, 4Pi Pro and 3 watt SET amp. This one had me going for a while. Same tunes, different again, mids and top much nicer, smoother and more detailed. Plenty of volume but the bass was GONE. However, even with the bottom end seriously attenuated compared to much more powerful SS amp, the music was very enjoyable. I played a R.L. Burnside CD that while being great material was barely listenable at times, abrasive and in your face, with the tube amp it was a different cd, much more detailed, still old time bluesy (even thought it's only 2 years old) but much improved over the SS version.
Final test. Ed wanted to check out my cables on his system. Being somewhat skeptical of the whole wire debate, he wanted to check this out. So, unhooked the 2 strands of 4VS Kimber Kable from my gear and hook it to his. (HEHEHEHEHEEH) Third time I've done this, third time same results, noticably tighter sound, cleaned up the mids and top, punchier bass. Another convert....that's all I'm goin' say about it....gotta love AB tests.
So now where....oh ya...another buddie is waiting for a 40 watt Tube amp to show up.....stay tOOned.
Kelly



Follow Ups: