[jopi]

Hi again,

Today was my big day and I finally decided to get stuff on order:
* AKG 1000 from Headroom.
* Foreplay preamp and paramours mono blocks from Bottlehead.

I know some other folks here have tried this combination sucessfully. Is there anything I should be aware of? Any modification to the foreplay or paramours to match the 120Ohm AKGs?

If anybody is eager to hear a review, it'll be a while. The paramours will ship in about eight weeks and I've got to put all that stuff together too.

Actually that's almost the best part, I'm feeling like two month before Xmas when I was a kid. Waiting for the toys can be more fun than having them.

 

[Nick Dangerous]

Got in on Doc's KILLER $399 deal for the Paramours, aye? Man, if I needed another pair of SET monos, I'd be THERE. $200 apiece for 2A3 monoblocks?!? Bwah hah hah that's too damn funny! Doc has got to be totally insane.

Concerning the AKG/Bottlehead connection, I tried the Paraglows with the AKG-K1000 tonight and liked it. Very good sound... perhaps the best tube amp/K1000 combo I've yet heard (and this includes the Ear V20, go figure. Let's do an A/B and see what's what).

The Paramours should sound fairly close to the Paraglows. The main difference is the Paramours relative lack of bass. You will almost certainly need a subwoofer with the K1000/Paramour combo.

You're going to have a lot of fun building that stuff! Deliberately take your time and enjoy it.

 

[aeberbach]

That is an INCREDIBLE price for those amps.

You need to be aware that 120 ohm K1000s on a tube amp designed for 8 ohms is a big mismatch. I just went through this with my 300B amps. The expensive way to fix it is to order some suitable transformers with a 120 ohm secondary. The cheap way is to use a 10W 8 ohm resistor across the output terminals and a 100 ohm resistor in series with the headphone lead (this is per channel). Depending on your amp this may reduce overall volume too much, but it's worth a try.

The audible effect of the impedance mismatch was a shift into harsh treble dominance, adding the parts above brought it back to what I had expected.

 

[TimSchirmer]

I hate being soo poor. That is one killer setup you've got going there.

 

[jopi]

Quote:

Originally posted by Nick Dangerous Got in on Doc's KILLER $399 deal for the Paramours, aye?

You've got that right!

Quote:

You're going to have a lot of fun building that stuff! Deliberately take your time and enjoy it.

Jo! Has been almost a decade that I've wielded the solder iron and it's about time to get electrocuted again.

 

[jopi]

Quote:

Originally posted by aeberbach The cheap way is to use a 10W 8 ohm resistor across the output terminals and a 100 ohm resistor in series with the headphone lead (this is per channel).

I can see what the 8 ohm resistor does, but what are the 100 ohms per channel in series going to do?

Also, shouldn't I try to match 8 ohms by using a
1/8ohm = 1/60ohm + 1/xohm --> x = 9.2ohm resistor?
Is a nominal 120ohm resistance for a headphone meant per channel or for both channels, I assumed 60ohm per channel for my formula above.

Thanks for your help, this will be my first masterpiece so I could need some coaching.

 

[aeberbach]

For the theory I'll have to rely on one of the other more experienced DIYers to jump in. This is what the guy that runs Electraprint told me - apparently the 100 ohm is so the K1000s see a matching impedance looking back into the transformer.

If you can actually buy a 9.2 ohm resistor in 5 or 10W I'd say go for it, but it might be hard to find.