Long time PV11 owner. I'm into SET amplification (DIY Hifi Billie 300b mono blocks that have their upgrade kit. VPI HW19 Mk4 TT w/ Morch up4 arm fitted with a Denon 301mk2 cart and my homemade Jensen jt-44-dx SUTs. Speakers are my own design - tapered quarter wave back loaded horns with foxtex fe206, fatal FE300 woofer and foxtex horn tweeter. Biamped using a Quad 303 (that also had to be resurrected from the dead) on the woofer. I use a minidsp HD2x4. Originally had just the 206 in the horn but was missing the bottom octave so I went biamp with the additional woofer. I know I'm committing horn heresy but I need some bass man. The Faitals are also hi eff drivers and match SPL up nicely with the Fostex. I like that you can really hear the tonality of the bass instruments instead of just the thump.
Recently brought the unit up to snuff with some new Mundorf output caps, Takman Rey resistors, new gold plated tube sockets, some new phono input rca jacks, IEC power socket and SMD stepped attenuator. Had a bum phono jack on the pv11 so that was the start of a repair that somehow ended up replacing some of the caps, tube sockets, redoing a lot of cold solder joints and tracking down various coughs and sneezes the unit was having. Here's a tale of the pv11 upgrade on this thread: https://www.conradjohnsonowners.com/vie ... php?t=1937. Halfway thru the thread I recount the upgrades I did.
I guess you can say I like to tinker and build stuff. Can't help it . Wish I had a proper shop though. In downtown Manhattan so don't think that'll ever happen. I like the sound of SET amplification and high efficiency speakers. It's not the flattest system but there's an aliveness to the sound that I enjoy and I think makes the reproduction more real. I'm a pro recording / mixing engineer so I listen to pro studio setups all day. All SS amps with near, mid and soffit mounted speakers. I'm old enough to have worked with all the Urei, JBL, Altec, Tannoy, Westlake, etc studio monitors. They're all great and get real loud cleanly. So at home I wanted something diff. btw, I used to have a pair of Urei 811s (bless my wife's heart for indulging me) powered by my 8 watt 300b amps. Those suckers were so efficient that with only 8 watts our neighbors at the other end of the block would think we were having a block party. We actually had folks ringing our buzzer asking if we were a new club. Liked them a lot but they were just too much for our loft. Sold them to a studio In Massachusetts and nearly broke my back moving them.
So hi everyone and glad to perhaps add a different voice to the conversation.
Here's pics:
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