Audiophilepure

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“I soon discovered how much the bias changed, depending on the time of day. Between 5 and 10:15pm, tubes biased for 190mV would drop to as low as 183mV. Conversely, tubes rebiased to 190mV at dinnertime would later rise to 196 or 197mV. Because each tube seemed to respond differently to voltage fluctuations, vigilance was essential to determine the correspondence of bias to sound. Ultimately, I contacted our locally owned utility company, which is considering installing a more powerful transformer that will provide more stable voltage during times of peak demand.
I wanted to discover a setting at which the tube-like warmth and sweetness I’d heard during Nick Doshi’s visit and at audio shows could be toned down a bit. With the bias centered at around 180mV, I was blown away by the air around Jamie Barton’s mezzo-soprano in the Sibelius song “Var det en dröm?” (Was It a Dream?), from All Who Wander (24-bit/96kHz WAV, Delos DE 3494). The way Brian Zeger’s piano hung in space on a three-dimensional soundstage was very special. Captivated, I continued. With Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, the Doshis communicated Barton’s willingness to venture into the depths of emotional emptiness. I sat mesmerized by her instrument and artistry, hanging on every note.

R

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“I know a number of seasoned audiophiles who have or are about to give up the search for the sonic Holy Grail and are looking to downsize their systems. For them, the AVM Ovation CS 8.2 would be a good solution. In addition to the advantage of saving space, there would also be a corresponding savings as a result of the elimination of several sets of interconnects and power cords.

For audiophiles who are starting out but do not want to make the investments in multiple boxes and software again, the CS 8.2 is a solution. There are those who would argue that anyone owning a unit such as this simply isn’t an audiophile. Well, that’s an opinion. I’m saying that the convenience of the CS8.2 is desirable, but what counts is the sound quality. As I said earlier, this is a unit that I would be quite happy to own. Given the build and sonic qualities, plus the convenience.”

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“The Stereo 100’s rear-panel toggle lets you choose between connecting its KT120 tubes’ screen grids to an Ultralinear (UL) tap on the output transformer’s primary or to the tubes’ anodes, creating faux triodes. Per the owner’s manual, the Stereo 100 is specified to output 100Wpc in UL, but no power rating is given for Triode mode. I assumed it would be about 30Wpc, but it appears I was wrong.”

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When one is considering an amplifier for one’s system, many factors come into play. A few of these are how much power is needed, whether one prefers solid-state or vacuum tubes, and especially whether or not an amplifier the matches the rest of one’s system. The Merrill Audio Element 118 deserves to be part of a system that has associated equipment that might not be top-of-the-line, but close to it. I could even imagine one building a system around the Element 118 and then acquiring the rest of one’s system to match its high-level of performance”

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“The existence of a coherent field of micro detail manifests both as an ambient field in the mids and higher ranges and also as low-frequency ambience. Ambience is usually a property of the high frequencies; here, we distinctly had it in the bass. Imagine that — bass ambience. Normally, a really full bass foundation means you are listening to a solid-state amp, which also usually means there’s a little muddiness or a one-note quality that isn’t quite natural. What I heard here were the color and lifelike presentation of tubes — like the famous tube midrange but in the bass. Most of you have heard the way a solo voice, via a tube midrange, can glow and radiate out from center stage. Now think of that in the bass. It was really nice. Unfortunately, my Lansche 5.1 speakers do not quite fully extend to the deepest bass regions. Pity. I’d never missed it before, but I would have loved to hear what a high-resolution speaker with really deep bass could do with these amps.”