kevin gilmore

200 members with brains (except for billy of course) are better than 41215 members with no clue.

I'm well aware of the new krell evolution stuff as i have one on order. I too know many people at the factory. The KAV stuff was always supposed to be entry level mass market krell. Whether or not that has actually happened is hard to tell. Compared to other stuff in that category especially some of the japanese stuff it is hard to tell which is better and by how much. Some companies like parasound design in the usa and manufacture overseas to get the cost down. Krell's attempt at that failed pretty bad. Clearly what happened to levinson is an example of how the high end is disappearing and how quickly. Without harmann international to swoop in and buy levinson, they would be out of business. All their new stuff is less than half the price of the old stuff. The number of baby boomers willing to spend $100k on an audio system or $200k on a home theater system is pretty slim. For those people with huge wads of cash laying around, it is still hard to get them to spend on systems like that because the music business is dying. When its all about how many hours of noise you can cram into your ipod who is going to be interested in krell. I'll continue to buy krell. And I'll continue to buy Wilson. I'm in the minority i'm sure.

Billy as usual you don't have a clue. ABT sells krell locally only, and has only a single store front. They are the only master reference krell dealer within about 100 miles. They also sell the entire line of JMLab speakers including the Grand Utopia (about $85k). They also sell the qualia projector. Basically they sell lots and lots of very expensive and exclusive products. None of which are advertised on their website. They have specific salesman that are the only ones allowed to demo and sell this kind of merchandise. They are no threat to the rest of the krell dealer chain, or any other manufacturer. And yes they sell a BUNCH of krell. They keep at least 6 of the fpb850cx monoblocks in stock at all times for immediate delivery. ($37,500 a pair)

As far as amplifiers go the voltage gain is far lower than other amplifiers of this type. Its the amount of power output that is significantly higher than all other amplifiers designed for headphones. The amount of class A current that can be delivered was designed for dificult loads such as k1000's and qualia's. The signal to noise ratio is way up there too, so while you could use this thing with earbuds, it would be a real bad idea to do so. I'm sure with some very minimal resistor changes i could get it unity gain stable if i wanted to. At a voltage gain of 2 (6db) it is not going to add any detectable noise to any signal.

Once you ditch their amplifier and hook it to something real they sound VERY nice. Certainly at least he60 nice. Their amp though... Yikes is it ever bad. Sounds darker than dark. By the way these headphones with the koss amp play significantly louder than any other electrostic headphone ever made. Louder in fact than virtually all dynamics too. 2400 volts peak to peak stator to stator is almost twice everything else.

What you really want is a mint condition mc275. Way more balls than a mc225. And should you ever see a pair of MC300 monoblocks, or the even more rare mc350 monoblocks find a way to grab them. Output tubes for the mc350's are absolutely impossible to find!

most of the older ones are voltage doublers directly off the ac line. You can convert the doubler to a quadrupler and then it works fine. You need 2 extra diodes and 2 extra disc caps.

There are a number of ways of making a toroidal transformer, one way is you wind the primary all the way around the thing, then afterwards add the secondary also around the entire core. This definitely adds capacitance between the primary and the secondary. The otherway is to wind the primary on one part of the core (say about 40%) and then do the same thing for the secondary. Way less capacitance and basically equivalent to an EI core except the magnetics are more efficient. The torroids i use are split primary and secondary this way. Not sure about the others. As far as balanced vs fully isolated, i use both, but in any case they are wired as fully isolated. So when there is a center tap on the transformer i don't use it. Instead i use a .75 inch diameter solid copper ground rod 10 feet long and pounded into the earth. Then a significantly large copper strap runs inside the house where it is attached to the ground plugs of the power strips that distribute the power. The idea is to get rid of all conducted and radiated noise on the neutral leg. Starting with 220 which is already balanced definitely helps.

What is in the tripplite voltage regulator is an 8 tap transformer. Picks the appropriate tap via relays for +5, +10, +15, +20, -5, -10, -15, -20 % I have a picture of the insides of the lc1800 somewhere. Years ago, people raved over the lc1800. Don't remember if the lc1800 is isolated or not. Kind of limited for power... (at least for people like me)

1/1500 second F9.6 yeah baby

I do so love a job well done... I sure hope it can hold the weight of a few birds... (warning: huge pictures) http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/birdbath2.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/birdbath3.jpg

That one is good for 500 watts. So it really depends on what your home system consists of. If its a headphone only system, (amp, cd player) it should be more than plenty. Don't forget about shipping weight. The one in my picture is about 125 lbs. (maybe more, have not moved it in quite a while)

this is the 3kw unit http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=displayproduct&lstdispproductid=275163 which means mouser sells many of these units. There are definitely cheaper places, and lots of places to buy things like this used.

Here is what i use for my audio system at work. http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/sola.jpg Works way better than any audiophile grade crap for home use as long as you don't exceed 1800 watts. Cheaper too.

Wilson MaXX series 2 (main system) B&W 801 matrix 3 (family room) Quad esl 63 (basement) B&O 4000's stacked (bedroom)

Nope, no smoke. I'm reallly allergic to just about all kinds of smoke. A single cuban puts me away for weeks. However there is that 1 gallon bottle of J&B Significant deteriation in the pictures, which is why i scanned them in. I do have the original negatives somewhere, probably not in much better shape. 50 to 100 year archival life. HA

I use a 2kw/cv transformer for my work system. Works great. Things just like it are available everywhere used, for far less than all the bullshit that's sold with an audio name on it. Picture tomorrow.

Oops, yeah quad esl 57's... I still have 2 pairs of 63's in the basement It was definitely a rock and roll system. The wood box is a helmholz subwoofer with a 15 inch jbl driver. 18hz, no problem.

Here are some blasts from the past proving i'm more nuts than the rest of you. Circa 1976 to 1977, my first and only apartment, before i decided i needed several thousand square feet to be happy. Notes: The panels are magnaplaner tympanii 1's The tripple stack are 3 pairs of quad esl 63's with the levinson supertweeters The two turntables are thorens td125's with rabco arms The other turntable is a b&o 4000 with a specially fitted arm to take any cart. Stax electrostatic phono cart Original Ma Bell speaker phone First sony color projector and "portable" color camera Betamax 1 Revox A77 mark 4 (i think) At one time with both sets of speakers at the same time, 200 watts per channel x 8 http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bfp1.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bfp2.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bfp3.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bfp4.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bfp5.jpg http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bfp6.jpg

go look in the ruh ro thread around april 18

1) OVERPRICED (as in way overpriced) 2) inefficient (as in lots of heat generated, about 50% heat) 3) all the multi-wave crap is just that, pure crap, and not good for some equipment 4) inability to drive some loads, producing more distortion in these cases than plugging direct into ac. Other than that, they are fine boatanchors.

ever so slightly different. Net result is the same. .05uf cap in series with say 10 ohms in series with what amounts to a short (diode bridge with electrolytic) to the other side of the ac line. Absolutely equivalent to a .05uf cap in series with 10 ohms directly across the ac line. Which is pretty much what is inside many of the line filters available today. Including the quiet lines. Does nothing for common mode noise (that which is on both sides of the ac line at the same time) The led blinker does absolutely nothing except look stupid. Paul missed a great opportunity to make even more money on this piece of bullshit. Make a version with .1 uf caps and a RED led for "low frequency noise" Make a version with .075 uf caps and a YELLOW led for "low middle frequency noise" Make a version with .05 uf caps and a GREEN led for "middle frequency noise" (this is the one they are selling now) Make a version with .025 uf caps and a Blue led for "high frequency noise" ... The real solution is to fix the problem of noise generation in the first place. Not to remove the noise after you have made the noise.

noise harvester: Another piece of PSaudio snakeoil. Someone sent me one in the mail, and i got it yesterday with a schematic. (with a few errors) Quick bottom line. small resistor (or fuse) in series with .05uf cap in series with a full wave diode bridge. Output of diode bridge goes to an electrolytic cap, then into a led blinker circuit. The way it works is as a high pass filter where instead of just shorting the spike (and the cap heats up), some of the energy goes into the electrolytic to make the led blink. More of the purest and most evil of snake oil. Backed up by a video that is pure fraud in the first place. Most products already have some kind of parallel cap including many power filtering devices. So there is absolutely nothing new here, just a blinking led. If you have spikes on your line due to el-crapo dimmers, then you should replace the dimmers with devices that actually work right in the first place instead of trying to remove the noise that should never be there.

finally sweet success http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/magnet7.jpg

45 minutes with a sawsall... http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/magnet6.jpg and boy are my arms tired. There has to be a magnet coil in here somewhere. Must be getting close, i see wires