Posted by manualblock [ 24.191.167.32 ] on February 08, 2004 at 04:53:03:
In Reply to: Re: Korneff 45 posted by akhilesh on February 07, 2004 at 14:39:32:
Akhilesh; boutique parts don't really seem to add unless the circuit is properly designed in the first place. I personally and this is only one mans opinion believe that many are stuck in a rut with circuit design, 20db neg feedbak,cathode follower, large coupling caps etc. I think you only really have a hand full of realisable designs being promoted and as such the defining factor becomes transformer quality tube type, good execution so within those paremeters there really isn't huge differences between amps. When designers who have a different vision, run tubes outside the established safe zones, change plate loads run them hot, transformer coupling, I am not an engineer so leave it up to the talented ones but I do remmember an article in sound practices written by Frank Reps where he builds a copy of the Audio Note Ongaku using all silver wound transformers, That is the only difference with the design yet he claims without it the amp sounds just like every other SE amp using 300b's. I have extensively modded a stereo 70 over the years and to be truthful the original sounds as good in many ways as the modded version. So I think unless you are willing to try 211's or other radical tubes and new topologies, you probably won't be impressed. As far as the Korneff I don't know much about the circuit but it really does sound different than the norm. There is something there because the Pi4's became a different sounding speaker. And my E.A.R is no slouch. . What I hear between the E.A.R. and Paramours is a depth and authority in the music and with the paras, what I can only term "artifacts" which is a term I made up but it seems to describe what I hear. The big amp seems uncluttered compared to the Paramours and remmember this is an unfair comparison since the E.A.R. runs 3700$ to 500$ for Paras. The output trannies on the E are huge maybe that is it. The quality is there;Yoshino custom wound, I have never heard Decs but assume they are detailed but that type of detail seems etched and doesn't flow. Hope this helps at all. I do know that when I get around to building I am convinced to spend most of the budget on trannies and use average decent caps,resistors etc.