Conrad Johnson Owners.com

I didn't get a chance to stop in either of the rooms with Magnepan, but they did have a presence. Part of the craziness of the show is that the number of rooms is so overwhelming that it's easy to wander around aimlessly, not knowing where to start, and also getting sidetracked by numerous things (a...

Interesting info! Good to know if I ever take on a refurbishing project, or have to repair one of my pieces.

Oh, just remembered--Wharfedale had a nice pair in one of the first rooms I saw. And no surprise, they used a ribbon for the higher frequencies. I could live with these also.

Any members here attended the show? If so please share your thoughts on the ultra-high-end stuff and if any were up to par or fell short, what are your thoughts? I'm stretched for time at the moment as I'm having to put together show reports for different sites. But overall, it was an exhausting vi...

What brand did you end up getting? The listing seems to be a generic 6C4 placeholder. I'm thinking back. The PV14L shipped to me with Philips-ECG 6C4s, and I had ordered some NOS Tung-Sol 6C4s which were more microphonic than the Philips. (Philips-ECG was a parts replacement company--a local electro...

Late, late reply here! I use a P11 with an earlier Martin-Logan system with a powered bass unit, and there are no issues whatsoever. Can it play deafeningly loud? No. But I only listen at moderate volume at the most, and the powered bass unit does the heavy lifting with the low frequencies. So it's ...

I agree. Our personal experience, and hearing the experience of others with the same family of amps, is the best path to take. How are you liking the PV14L? I'm on my last set of M8080s and am going to see if Colomor (eBay, via the UK) still can provide me with a few sets of them. I never found a 6C...

I have the smaller sibling to the P12...the P11. (The P11, P12 and P8 were all the same basic circuitry up to the output stages.) I've been running KT-120s in my P11 since I bought it several years ago. When I first bought the P11, it was from the second owner, who was a friend of the family of the ...

We're lucky at these US audio shows--there isn't an issue with photographing equipment, as the press usually photographs most everything anyway. AXPONA even has a disclaimer saying that we should expect photographs or video will be taken where we might appear in them. With a press pass, that opens t...

I'm possibly heading to AXPONA 2024. (Depends on my better half's surgery, whether or not she moves it up at all.) Due to room cost and availability (a story in itself), I'm only staying over Friday and Saturday nights--Marriott's prices have more than doubled since 2019. (The room I got in 2019 wit...

At the US shows, vinyl is a little more prevalent in exhibitor rooms but otherwise, nearly all of the rooms offer streaming, whether it's from their own hard drive of selections or via Qobuz (who was a sponsor at AXPONA this year). C-J barely makes an appearance at AXPONA--the company itself has nev...

Personally I like Cardas. Great people with a wide range, honestly described. Agreed, and some cable buyers don't realize that Cardas also produces copper for other high-end cable manufacturers. So their actual copper wire is in others' products, although (wisely) they won't say which ones. I had a...

The power difference is only about 2.5dB between the two amps, which is an audible change but it's not nearly doubling the subjective loudness. It's still interesting to compare different amplifier designs though! 👍 I thought of finding a Premier 140 or a pair of Premier 12s but even there, that's o...

I don't plan to (and actually, can't afford to) replace my Premier 11 with anything else. But I do notice at audio shows that the modern tube amps sound a lot like (or maybe too much like) solid state amps--I don't hear the same attraction with those as I do the Premier 11. (Granted, this is with un...

I can't listen at high levels anymore myself, so I appreciate the sound I get from my KT120s. With tinnitus, actually, listening at higher volumes only causes the ringing in the ears to pulse loudly with the music, so it's too uncomfortable to turn it up. Some days are worse than others. I'm pretty ...

There is a modification to change the Premier 11 to use EL34 tubes (I believe it was called the Premier 11 XS) but that would only cut the power in half. But I did have a very similar problem using the EV-1 phono stage with my PV14L and Premier 11--at one or two on the preamp, even with ~91dB/2.83v ...

I have similarly found that I like the KT120 over the 6550 tubes that were in the amp when I purchased it. I find that with all of my other system improvements, I can now just sit and enjoy music and not worry about the equipment.

Hola Roberto! I never considered using KT150s as I felt it would be a waste of money due to these amps not making full use of their power. Even the KT120 is underutilized but I am hoping that not pushing these to their maximum will help extend their lives. I almost considered having my Premier 11 mo...

I just don't see a lot of phono preamps set up to do that on the fly. Even if the dip switches are external, they are almost always put on the back or underneath the unit which makes access difficult. With my Phonomena, I first have to move the phono stage out a little, and the feet tend to stick t...

That is actually my dilemma. I would like to switch between a few cartridges, even a dedicated cartridge for 78 RPM records (as I have some I want to archive). The Dynavector I'd like to use for certain types of recordings (it's a lower-output moving coil), and the Nagaoka for others. My 78 RPM cart...