Leads… Bi Wired Cat 5 leads, DIY silver highways, fine wires, OFC’s, and Dave’s Special solid coax leads with drain wires.Attachment:
cables.jpg
Power conditioner hiding in the cupboard below the screen. Sound deadening on rear wall open cell diffractive foam (correct me if I am wrong here).
Anyhow on to the music, first off we listened to XXXXXXXX from Dave's collection on CD via a passive attenuator then some classical and also some Herbie !@#$%^& using the Pass F5 which had been thoroughly warmed up, Having built a Pass F5 myself in 2010 using a regulated supply I was familiar with its sound, and true to form in Dave’s high quality build It did not disappoint, with extremely low, clear and defined bass, crystalline and precise top end and reserved yet clear midrange. Nelson Pass truly has designed an excellent amp with this one.
Next we tried the Hiraga in the same system with the same few tracks, the amplifiers certainly sounded different and but not dissimilar, To my ear the Hiraga has ever so slightly more midrange a little less tightly controlled bass although it still extends to the same depth as the F5 however the treble is slightly less bright. I could certainly live with either amplifier. One thing I did notice was the F5 was noticeably quicker to thermal stability in comparison with the Hiraga and the difference between the sound from cold to warm – or warm to hot rather was more pronounced with the Hiraga.
I actually like both amplifiers for different reasons. The F5 portrays a very clear and distinct sound stage as discussed on the night where the Hiraga displays a little more emotion in the music – somehow… If you have the required skills then either amplifier is a worthwhile project to build.
The next amp in the list was Mark Houston’s 6AS7 single ended class A triode amp fed via the La Pacific which boasted approximately three watts of output. With Dave’s fantastic Osborne speakers this amp gave excellent results showing that moderate to high sensitivity speakers do not require a lot of power to sound dynamic. Voices and instruments had an excellent earthiness and a certain realism and of course the classic single ended triode sound that so many are fond of.
After this we auditioned the La pacific in two forms marks veroboard build in a gold box and Paul’s point to point copper PCB construction, both were used with 36V of lithium batteries providing a very clean power source for phono preamplification.
Personally I am not a vinyl enthusiast but done correctly it can sound very good and after some setup tweaks both preamps performed well. The Hafler did not fair so well there was a glitch with the setup somewhere when we tried this.
And I nearly forgot… the other preamp. My 6SN7GTA tube preamp built in a rack chassis. This is an unfinished build in need of some tweaks to the power supply to reduce the turn on thump and output cap charge times there was some promise shown with this design but it is a work in progress.
Please see a few more pictures attached apologies for the clarity they are from a mobile phone with a grubby lens. I did not bring my camera unfortunately.
ListeningAttachment:
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Tube preamp > Le Classe AAttachment:
Tube preamp Le Classe A.jpg
Action shotAttachment:
Action shot.jpg
ListeningAttachment:
Listening 2.jpg
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