I have recently gotten the Mcintosh bug, but a friend of my who does a LOT or reading on the net says power output is the answer not the name. I am looking for the best sound I can get in the 3k$ range for my Usher Be 718s. I have looked at many used Mcintosh units in the 200 watt plus output area, but my friend says a new 250 watt Emotiva would be a better value. The Emotiva is around $800. I would like some imput.. Thanks, Don
Kirkus - Tubes should be better then, for reducing power related hash. I'm getting interested in power cables and their effect on the sound. My Benchmark DAC has regulated linear supply while my Rowland 102 has a switcher. I have to find some testimonies on power cables - I'm not sure where to start - possibly with the same brand as my interconnect and speaker cable (Acoustic Zen). Is there any science behind power cables other than gauge, inductance and shielding?
Your DC coupling observation is very interesting one and suggest that good sound depends more on the quality of this cap than we think. Good low ESR low inductance caps are expensive (like slit foil type) and fixing cheap ones with Mylar cap in parallel can make it worst by adding lossless cap in parallel to inductive cap creating in effect resonant circuit that rings (and is in the signal path).
Kijanki, I'm definately with you on this one . . . an interesting comparison is the differnces between these conduction-angles and time-constants between tube and solid-state amps. Tube amps have lossier power transformers, (sometimes) tube rectifiers, C-L-C or L-C filtering (and more RC for the small-signal stages) . . . which all seems to have the effect of making the filtering time constants much longer than a typical SS amp - in both directions.
Then there's another little detail that is so often ignored - the fact that the vast majority of "DC coupled" solid-state amps are in fact capacitively coupled . . . Kirchhoff's law says the AC ground current from the speaker has to go somewhere, so it returns through the main filter capacitors. It's just that they're in the feedback loop all the way to DC that makes DC offset possible at the output, thus making it "DC coupled".
There is a lot of distortion in power supply transformers - AC power has all kinds of terrible harmonics to begin with and can often look more like a square wave than a sinusoid - but who cares - the idea is to prevent all this stuff from ever reaching the power supply rails or the audio signal by careful design.
Shadorne - I can make case for bad power supply being less affected by power cord than very good one. Here it comes:
Average value of current being drawn from power supply caps is taken from transformer in very sharp pulses. These pulses heat up transformer (higher harmonic content heats-up the core and much higher rms value than average value heats-up the copper) and appear on the power cord. Sharpness and amplitude of these pulses can be determined from diagrams: conduction angle that depends on ratio of transformer output impedance to ESR of capacitor.
Amplifier with poor capacitors (higher ESR) will have longer pulses of smaller amplitude and will possibly be less dependant on gauge of power cord (for voltage drops) or shielding (for polution).
Mentioned conduction angle is a Catch 22 for designers - in order to know how big transformer should be (to accomodate for bigger losses caused by sharp current pulses) conduction angle has to be found. It require value of transformer's output impedance - not known since transformer is not designed yet.
I made this a little bit technical to show that anything can be proved. Somebody can probably make equally valid case that proves just the opposite.
I wonder what explanation "experts" give for power cord differences - that will be fun.
I'm no expert on building or designing power supplies and nor do I work for a utility but one can't help thinking it might be a combination of;
1) Dirty Power (perhaps caused by other home appliances) 2) Inadequate power supply design 3) Ground loops
Since manufacturers are always looking to reduce cost to meet a competitive price point I suspect inadequate power supplies are quite often the culprit. After all a consumer is more likely to buy an item if it has an expensive face plate than if it looks cheap but has an expensive power supply.
Of course it requires that you believe that good equipment design should trump the need for non standard power cords. I have a power conditioner and it helps on one of my components - I still blame the component design however, and do not ascribe exceptional properties to the power conditioner or its power lead.
So we agree in one sense but disagree as to the cause. In the same way I would blame equipment design and compatibility in the case that the interconnects or speaker cables made huge improvements (again I blame the equipment or my poor choice of what to cobble together rather than ascribe amazing audio properties to mere wires)
All amps are NOT equal. I have tried quite a few, and they all sound different, even with the same speakers. Get you a good Audio Research amp, and you will forget all about McIntosh gear.
03-31-09: Keslerd ...I went over to Audio Advisor got some Black Mamba II, and spent even more. I no longer have just wire.
Good job. That Black Mamba II is worlds better than anything Bluejeans has to offer. Black Mamba rocks! And for your $100/meter pair you're going to get something that otherwise would run $150-200/pr. to achive.
As I said before, 6-nines copper plus monocrystal copper is the shiznit. Various architectures can help, but it's gotta start with the copper, and the Black Mamba gets that right.
If you dampen the volume knob with gum, you have then opened up a NEW gate to Audio my friend.... Everything will be more liquid and real. Hope this helps. Over and out,thats a big ten four,what it is. ILBT!!!
Keslerd, you'll be surprised at the wide range of price for interconnects, speaker/power cables and vibration isolators. Price to performance relationship tend to correspond much better for equipment than for these peripheral items. It might save you money to do a little internet research on how these peripheral performs (opinions from professional reviewers) before buying. When I began my venture into the expensive audiophile world, with equipment in the $1000-2000 range, peripherals at $50-100 seem to best serve the equipment. It works up in price as I slowly get better equipment. These peripherals are highly important to faithfully transport and protect the sound that your equipment is trying to give you, but you have to be careful on which one to pick so you don't loose that price edge advantage. Sorry if this comes a little late.
Well, after spending sometime on the order form I pushed the button to order those cables with the before mentioned company, I just be d.... PayPal poped up and didn't want my credit card... I did not ask for PayPal, will not do business with them, just want to put the order on my card. I called Jean explained the problem, they said they were about to close for the day. I don't have a lot patience, so I went over to Audio Advisor got some Black Mamba II, and spent even more. I no longer have just wire.
Al - that exactly what I said "if wire gauge is properly chosen".
There is a lot of hype, but also there is a lot of experts and each of them claim something similar about different aspects of the speaker cable construction. If you add their opinions you find out that lamp cord from Home Depot is as good as the best speaker wire. I had cable like that once - cheap very thick, stranded and sound was horrible.
I wonder what explanation "experts" give for power cord differences - that will be fun. I don't know why power cords sound different but I don't question that they do, and just maybe not being renown "expert" allows me to still learn.
Skin effect is another problem exaggerated by hype. As frequency increases, current flow in a wire tends to concentrate toward its outer surface, causing an increase in AC resistance. At 20 kHz, for example, skin depth is 0.018 inch (0.46 mm), where 63% of current flow is between the surface and this depth (see footnote 4 below). For line-level audio interconnects, the effect is absolutely inconsequential even if center conductor resistance doubles or triples, because it accounts for less than 0.01% of total circuit resistance anyway. For loudspeaker cable, there may be some measurable effects because total circuit impedance is lower, but we're still talking about increases in resistances that, if the wire gauge is properly chosen for reasonable losses, are negligible in the first place.
(footnote 4) Ralph Morrison, "Solving Interference Problems in Electronics," John Wiley & Sons, 1995, pp. 61-62.
Keslerd - bigger is not always better. People use very thick wire to get lower resistance (and slightly lower inductance as well) but choke in series with the woofer is probably in order of 0.1 ohm and fighting for ultra low cable resistance doesn't make a sense. Skin effect in copper starts at about gauge 18 (20kHz) and might start having some effect in very thick wires. Some people and web sites will tell you that it's non-audible but the same people/web sites claim that type of metal (copper, silver gold) is non-audible.
Stranding wires help but you have two problems here. Strands should be isolated - otherwise current tend to go to outside and jumps from strand to strand. Second problem is that even if surface area is increased by stranding they still sit in each-others magnetic field and skin effect still applies. Many manufacturers put isolated strands around hollow core reducing effectively strand to strand magnetic field.
12 gauge sound perhaps as low as I would go. Audioquest made for a while very successful speaker wire Type 4 that had single conductors and gauge 14.
I use acoustic Zen Satori (very thick!)that in single run configuration can be bought used for about $250. Analysis Plus speaker cables are also very good and cheaper than AZ. I had AQ before but I think that it is in general overpriced (you pay for a name).
The strange thing is that if you ask how important speaker cable is most of the people will say that it's much less important than IC, but if you ask which one should be shorter than most of people will recommend long IC and short speaker cable. At least that was my impression.
I have converted a few people to 'believe' in good wire after a simple demonstration. The last one was just a move up to AZ WOW ICs and the improvement was huge with a bigger soundstage and more information top to bottom. Neither of us could believe it frankly. I expected an improvement but not to this extent.
All this with a (relativly) inexpensive ($150) IC. My buddy is now sold on wire and I get blamed (by his wife) for the added expense. =8^)
BTW you are well on your way with the Blue Jean wire I am sure. I hope you enjoy the benefits...
Just to bring everyone up to date. I have placed an order for a McIntosh MC2250 from Audio Classics. After reading your response to "just wire" I have a shopping cart at Blue Jean for all my cables useing their "favorite" CABLES.
Still not clear on the speaker wire, their site said the bigger the better. I currently use 12 gauge with banannas, so I'm not clear on which direction to go on the speaker connections. Thanks for all the help...
03-30-09: Tvad Most of us start where Keslerd is presently, i.e. not wanting to spend $500/6 ft of wire.
I know I did.
Well, you're right, of course. For all the bluster in my previous post, I'm a bottom-feeder when it comes to cables. I firmly believe in the benefit of up-quality cables, but I also have trouble paying full pop. Depends on the cable and the availability. But then that's true of all my audio gear.
On the one hand I got the $1500 PS Audio XStream Bi-wire speaker cables on closeout from Audio Advisor for $350. On the other hand I paid full price ($160/pr at the time) for three pairs of Kimber Heroes and was glad to do it because they deliver great value for the asking price.
I may scour for bargains, but I use mostly multi-gauge (such as Kimber Varistrand--to minimize skin effect) single-crystal high purity copper in both the surround HT rig and the LP-driven 2-channel system. Once you've heard what monocrystal copper does to preserve the signal it's hard going back.
I'm a little late joining this thread. At any rate regarding comment on sacrificing clarity for a little more bass, perhaps getting speakers that have their own powered sub would help. Enough people would probably say why don't I crank up the sub and enjoy the thumping action. Yet too much lower frequencies, to me, can cloud clarity. However those really low frequencies, at their proper amount, do come in handy for a limited number of pop music songs (Enya's particularly), and definitely in classical music.
For what it's worth, people who strictly listen to standard rock music might not find it's worth the extra money to pay for top end speakers and amplifiers that can deliver that last ounce of lower frequencies. Say about 80% of the cases with rock music, I barely notice the difference when the sub for each speaker is on vs. when it's off.
I just have problems paying $500 for 6ft. piece of wire.
Get over it, or you'll *never* hear the potential in your Ushers.
Stop thinking of them as "wire." They are passive components, and like anything else, are subject to the same rules of design, quality control, quality of materials, copper purity, signal transfer efficiency, engineering, and ultimately, point of diminishing returns.
I never understood the mentality of buying top quality gear and then thinking that the cables that perform the signal transfer from one component to another are exempt from those basic laws of quality vs. economics.
The very least you should have for your system is Kimber Hero interconnects and 8TC or 12TC speaker cable, or an equivalent from AudioQuest, Cardas, or Analysis Plus. Of course there are many many other cable makers out there, but this would be a good start.
Also, think about adding a high quality outboard DAC to your digital front end. The Onkyo is a highly regarded CD player for the money (and I have their companion A-9555 integrated amp, which is great for the money). Still, if you spent your $2-3K on $250-300/pr interconnects, a $500-600 pair of biwire speaker cables, and a Benchmark DAC-1, Lavry A10, or PS Audio Digital Link III or their new PerfectWave DAC, you'd hear the music as you'd never heard it before. Not more boom and sizzle, but rather loads more of everything in between, where most of the music lives.
Being an Usher dealer, I know the BE-718's like power. But, you do have 150W into 8 ohms and 300 into 4 ohms, so that's not your weak point at all especially in your size of room which is similar to mine. Even more power would be better, but you're not close to realizing the potential of your system until you upgrade your cables. The cables are another component of your system and deserve proper attention just like anything else. I use fairly pricey cables in my system (with the BE718's) and feel they are very well worth it, but that's not to say you can't get decent cables without spending a pile of money if you're adverse to spending a large amount on wiring. But, you certainly need much better than what you are using. The cables are by far the weak point with your CD player possibly being next on the list.
I have a solution that would give you LOTS of high quality, good-sounding power to your Ushers and solve your crap-cable problem (your current cables will sabotage your upgrades and quest for higher resolution) and stay within your budget.
For the amp, get a pair of Musical Fidelity Mono 550K power amps. These were released at $5K/pair, but Audio Advisor (and I assume, other vendors) are closing them out at half price. That's 550watts per amp for $2500.
These have garnered many rave reviews and are said to be extremely neutral. They can accept either line level or speaker level inputs. Using the speaker level inputs, they retain the characteristics of the amp feeding them.
Secondly, you need to lose the zip cord. There are a couple of good speaker cable and interconnect deals I know of. One source is HCM Audio, who has AudioQuest GBC speaker cable at about $80/8-foot pair and good interconnects to go with them.
The other source is an eBay store called homenetworksupply. He has the Belkin PureAV Silver series cables at pretty low prices.
Belkin PureAV Silver Series is made of Ohno Continuous Cast monocrystal copper. This is usually pretty expensive, but he has the 4-ft. interconnects for about $18/pair and 8-foot speaker cable with very nice banana terminations for about $65/pair.
I managed to scoop up some 12-foot pairs of these speaker cables from parts-express.com for the ridiculously low $20/pair, down from $130/pair list. Unfortunately they are all gone now, but I have them on my hi-rez 2-channel (primarily analog) rig and they are REALLY good.
So there you have it--550 wpc from Musical Fidelity for $2500 and interconnects and speaker cables made of monocrystal copper for under $100.
As for Bluejeans cable, I haven't used that brand, but I've used interconects made from Canare star-quad, which is the wire stock they use to make their interconnects. I found them to be smooth and musical, but anybody who thinks they're hi-rez is kidding themselves. Those $18 Belkin PureAV Silver interconnects will eat them for lunch, as will just about any interconnect I have in my systems--AudioQuest Black Mamba and Blue Racer (exclusive from Audio Advisor), JPS SuperConductor, and Kimber Hero.
That is the LEAST you should be using with your Ushers.
I'm with you and don't believe in spending a lot for cables. That said, I have Kimber Hero interconnects, which are fairly well regarded and on the low end of the audiophile spending spectrum. I got my speaker wire at an estate sale for cheap. Don't know who made them, but they are extremely well made 10 or 12 gauge and nicely lugged.
If I was buying new interconnects today I'd probably go with http://www.bluejeanscable.com/. Very reasonable prices for low capacitance cable. Speaker wire? I prefer solid conductor, but not for any audio reason, just a thought that solid conductors transmit the signal more cleanly. As long as they don't get moved much, solid center conductor wire/cable is fine.
"I just have problems paying $500 for 6ft. piece of wire"
We all have that problem, but there is a reason that the vast majority of us ultimately do, and that reason has nothing to do with excessive wads of long green burning holes in our pockets.
Danmyers, I live ln a smoke, animal, children and wife free environment, but my adult children worry there wont be anything left. However Ajackson, my place is not Jack free, and I noitced as the evening progressed everybody begin to express themselves more freely. Bob, I don't know what to say about the connects, I guess that is something to look at in the future, I just have problems paying $500 for 6ft. piece of wire. Thanks
I say the $800 Emotiva would make an excellent subwoofer amplifier. Buy the Mac for your Ushers, and the Emotiva for your new passive. Now everyone except your wife is happy and you're broke... just the way it should be :)
Tvad - I found bass to be directional in spite of claims tha it is not and some LP recording that were mono below 150 Hz. It is probably in harmonics but wouldn't sub make it worse.
Also - don't you feel that speakers like Revel Saloon designed to go very low are better choice than smaller speakers + sub. Price wise second solution might be cheaper but very good subs are not cheap.
I've found over the years of going back and forth between full-range speakers and speakers that don't deliver the low end (sub 35hz), that, like Grant, I get more overall enjoyment from speakers that make basement deliveries. I do not lean towards specific musical tastes that take advantage of that. I find I've been spoiled by the expectations that it will be there. When the music does not require it I'm not sure whether or not it factors into my enjoyment, but I would guess that it comes more into play than one might think. I'd certainly also agree with Grant's premise that price does not always define quality or lack thereof and wold extend that to any component in a system. I've heard plenty of great monitor speakers that are fun, musical and engaging, but even the best of them leave me wanting of something more. It is a personal choice though, and I am sure there are those who are very satisfied with a more limited range.
the room is 12 by 15, short cut carpeted floor, and two 2 by 2 foot sound panels in each corner (total of eight) all furniture is fabric... with a french door size opening on the rear wall into a larger room.
as far as extension, definition and etc the sub adds, most of the time I prefer the Ushers alone... the sub is not very "tight" as I prefer, that may be definition. I don't understand everything I know...
I think the room you are using has a lot of input in the sound factor. What is the size of the room, flooring type,etc. I don't know any thing about Usher speakers, but this might help those who do give a better answer than what I've read so far.
I have Magnepan, Thiel,Meadowlark and Soliloquy speakers teamed with McIntosh,Bryston,Aragon, Classe , Rotel SS amps and pre's and a CJ tube system.
It takes a lot of playing around to get great sound, move it to a different room and it sounds like S**t.
I have a great wife that lets me set my up systems in four rooms, not to mention two Plasma tv's on separate systems Harman Kardon, Yamaha, Def Tech and several subs.
By the way, I think subs are the hardest to balance in a system for great music.
P.S. I think my wife has four boyfriends to make things even.
"Although they have a fairly flat impedance curve, their power requirements probably eliminate most tube amps as the best match"
Tvad, I thought speaker/tube compatibility was all about the impedance curve, and that low efficiency speakers, with benign impedance curves, simply required more power, regardless of whether the amp is tubed or solid state. I'm not saying that you're wrong, I just want to understand.
well, this is all very interesting and food for thought, and not that it matters in this discussion, but I do have an 8 inch Velodyne (130 watts). I sometimes use it with the Ushers, even though it only goes down 40 hz,it does add to the fullness of the sound. My room is about 12 by 15 so the combination fills the room very well.... Thanks for all the info....
Tvad - I'm just trying to understand what makes the difference. As for the lack of correlation between price and quality - are you saying there is none and everything is just random? Can one purchase $1k speaker as good as $50k speaker?
Tvad & Kijanki -- I think that you are both basically right, and the key to reconciling your points of view is that bass volume and bass distortion have to be factored in, as well as bass extension (which may be specified on a small signal basis, and may be specified without meaningful specs on distortion at high volume).
And I think you'll both agree that providing bass that is simultaneously clean, undistorted, deep, and high in volume, requires big drivers (at least 10-12 inches, or else equivalent multiple smaller drivers), which means bigger cabinets, and both the larger drivers and the larger cabinets tend to result in higher cost if quality is not sacrificed.
Tvad - you have much more experience with audio gear than I do, but it seems to me that there is some correlation between quality of the speaker and its price tag. Good transducers are expensive (tweeters included) and designer have certain constrains. Mentioned Lipinski's speakers (with "jaw dropping" imaging) would cost much more with extended bottom end.
I'm just saying that 30Hz doesn't come free and there might be better use for the money if music that you listen to doesn't require absolutely faithful reproduction of organs or double bassoon. I don't see how difference between 40 and 30Hz can change playback of bass guitar - I don't question it does, but just trying to understand it.
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