[jopi]

Dear fellow Headphone geeks,

Over the long weekend I finally finished my Bottlehead Paramour 2A3 tube amp kit and I would like to share with you my initial impressions.

My system consists of a Clearaudio Champion turntable with a Rega ST250 Quintwire arm and a low output moving coil Benz Glider cartridge along with a Phenomena phono stage as the analog front end and the Sony 775 SACD as the digital front.

Both are connected to a Bottlehead Foreplay preamp and the Bottlehead Paramour 2A3 mono blocks. Foreplay and Paramours are all stock without any modifications or tweaks and I haven't put in the recommended upgrades like C4S and stepped attenuators yet. I've decided to wire up the power amp for 8 Ohm speakers for now.

The musical presentation with classic and accoustic jazz is marvelous. Very convincing soundstage and tight imaging of instruments. I couldn't say whether the bass or the highs or the mids are great, they're all represented well without one area dominating. It's so good that I can't read the paper while listening.

I've used a vintage Marantz Solid State amp before and didn't listen with the K1000 a lot, because the sound was too harsh and metallic even with vinyl. With those tubes, there's no hint of harshness anymore. I could also only bear to listen to the K1000 with very good recordings, especially with vinyl, but the past days anything I've put on the platter spun all the way through. This could actually mean, that the tubes are smoothing out some of the detail I was hearing before. This may be bad and good depending on the recording and how you feel about Hi-Fi in general.

The one rock SACD (Rolling Stones) I've listened to was not quite as convincing, it may be because of the source (SACD) or that the amp is not as quick and fast as my Headroom Max/AKG 501 combination.

One bad thing is a constant audible hum (same level independent of volume) that comes from the Paramours. According to AudioAsylum's Bottlehead's support forum this will be drastically reduced by installing the C4S power upgrade that shipped with the kit, but I haven't put it in yet.

So far it's very encouraging. It can only get better from here. It was a lot of fun so far putting these babies together and for classic and jazz this combination beats the Max/501 easily in the imaging, soundstaging, representation of instruments department. The AKG 1000 sounds like standing on top of a high mountain and taking a deep fresh breath of air.

Let me have a couple of more weeks of listening and upgrading and tweaking and will give you an update.

Cheers
Joerg

 

[darkclouds]

That looks to be a pretty nice setup. I've been wondering about an all decked out foreplay and how it would compare to my ae-3.

How was the assembly of the foreplay with the upgrades (anticipation/whisper)?

 

[shivohum]

Interesting impressions. Thanks joerg!

 

[aeberbach]

You could also try making the filament supply of the 2A3 tubes DC rather than AC. It's a very simple full-wave rectifier followed by a couple of large electrolytics and should take care of some hum. I assume you have adjusted the hum balance pot or you would probably be noticing more hum in one channel than the other. Since I can't seem to sell my Paramour kits I will probably do this myself one of these days.

 

[jopi]

darkclouds:

The foreplay was more difficult to assemble than the paramours. I've purchased the anticipation and sweet whisper upgrades, but haven't worked on them yet. The foreplay is all wired up with Doc's special magnet wire (a major pain to work with though).

aeberbach:
Thanks for your suggestion. I've finished the C4S circuit boards yesterday and will put them in before the weekend. If I still have hum problems, I'll let you know.

 

[Nick Dangerous]

True. A fully decked out Foreplay is more complex to assemble than the Paramour/Paraglow amps by an order of magnitude. DC filaments seem to be the way to go... Doc is probably going to implement DC heating as the standard for the Foreplay II.

 

[rlmoss]

Jopi, I've got Xmas break & had just written Doc Bottle on a few topics. First, how important is Foreplay---I'm going to have to rely on either on iBook dvd-cd drive or Phillips Jackrabbit (portable DVD/CD-RW, usb, firewire, & video ports). I'd be able to control volume with the virtual slider on Audion, iTunes....whatever.

So I asked Doc if he had any data on average time to completion. A long time ago, I built my first integrated amp from a heathkit---with point to point wiring.

I'm relieved that Paramour is easier---my reading of Doc's site is that he wants beginners to start with Foreplay.

cc'd letter to Doc as enclosure; it raises issues about how to get a headphone input from Paramour & how to wire both a headphone jack and run line to the Loth BS-1.

Many thanks,

 

[jopi]

Quote:

Originally posted by rlmoss First, how important is Foreplay

I don't know. Most everybody says that the combination of foreplay/paramours works magic, but obviously you can just start with the paramours and add the foreplay later.

Quote:

So I asked Doc if he had any data on average time to completion. A long time ago, I built my first integrated amp from a heathkit---with point to point wiring.

It took me about 15 hours (including staining and finishing wood box) for the two paramours and I'm by no means a soldering expert. The C4S I just completed in another four hours, but I'm having a problem with it so it's not over yet.
Although you're asking the wrong question. When you get your kit, don't rush it, but take your time and make sure you get it right in the first place.

Quote:

I'm relieved that Paramour is easier---my reading of Doc's site is that he wants beginners to start with Foreplay.

I can only guess here:
1. There's less power in the circuit, if you fry yourself, you're more likely to survive the shock. (It might be important, since you're going to law school!)
2. Foreplay costs significantly less. If you find out that you've got two left hands, you can still pay your school tuition.
3. I could understand to some extent the circuit and how it works. The paramours are still a mystery to me. So debugging the foreplay would be easier than the paramours at least in my case.
4. Foreplay without options ships with regular type hookup wire. The upgraded version comes with Doc's special pain in the rear magnet cable. I had to buy a temperature controlled solder iron to work with it. (You may be more experienced and not need it.)

Quote:

cc'd letter to Doc as enclosure; it raises issues about how to get a headphone input from Paramour & how to wire both a headphone jack and run line to the Loth BS-1.

If you want to use non AKG K1000 headphones than you can try to just wire a 8 or 4 Ohm high wattage resistor across the speaker binding posts. I haven't tried that myself though.

Good luck!

 

[jopi]

One more update:

Installed the C4S upgrade for the Paramours and hum is inaudible now.

I'm working on putting the upgrades on the Foreplay and use my Max as a preamp.

Tune in again, when the Foreplay is back in the system with C4S and stepped attenuators.

The last thing left then would be trying out different taps from the output transformer to get the best match for headphones.

 

[pigmode]

jopi,
How does the K1000 connect to the amps? Is it possible or desirable to convert the Paramours for regular headphone usage? Maybe a curcuit similar to that used in the Fisher 400 might answer?

 

[wallijonn]

Greg Freeman came to my rescue when i had a hum problem on the crown d60/k1000. he told me to disconnect the video cable from the dvd player. hum gone.

 

[jopi]

Quote:

Originally posted by pigmode jopi, How does the K1000 connect to the amps? Is it possible or desirable to convert the Paramours for regular headphone usage? Maybe a curcuit similar to that used in the Fisher 400 might answer?

I don't know the circuit in the Fisher amp.

I was worried about the impedance mismatch at first, too and asked questions in the Bottlehead forum and even called Doc etc.
General consensus was to build it stock first and wait and see and of course they were right. The 8 ohm tap works great. I don't think anybody would be disappointed with the sound off the 8 ohm tap.

Doc posted some instructions on how to modify the Paramours to make them theoretically better working with the K1000 and I will try it after I'm done with building out my Foreplay.
Another idea would be to put a 8 ohm resistor across the binding post and another 120 ohm resistor in series to the headphones. This would also work with headphones other than the K1000.

Here's what Doc wrote:
Quote:

re the Paramours with K1000s- The output transformer used in the Paramour is interesting in that it was designed for PA use. The cool thing about this is that the primary taps marked .625W, 1.25W, 2.5W, 5W and 10W correspond to taps of 8K, 4K, 2K, 1K and 500 ohms. Because of the cap coupling to the transformer in a parafeed circuit there is no DC present on the output transformer primary. If I was only going to use the Paramours with the K-1000s, and not loudspeakers, I would be inclined to disconnect the common lead of the primary from ground, disconnect the 8 and/or 4 ohm tap from the speaker binding post, and then connect the primary common to the 8 ohm tap, and then be sure the secondary common tap is connected to circuit ground in place of the primary common. By doing this you create an autoformer with 8K,4K,2K,1K,500,8 and 4 ohm taps that would be sort of a budget version of the MQ TL-404 c-core autoformer I use on my studio amp. The final step would to connect the 10W/500 ohm tap to the positive speaker binding post and rig up an adapter from the binding posts of each monoblock to a 4 pin connecter for the AKG cabe. I will mention here that there is another combination of taps that *might* be a bit more more optimal for headphone only use ( cap couple the 2A3 plate to the .625W tap, and the AKGs to the 5W tap) , but this is already getting a little complex. You could do a simpler version that would retain the ability to use 8 or 4 ohm speakers- just leave the Paramour OT in stock transformer form and tap off the 10W tap to another jack or binding post for the headphone connection. My experience has been that the autoformer connection sounds a wee bit better. Also note that other connections of the primary common that are discussed on the Bottlehead Forum are not safe to do for this setup. This ONLY works on an amp with a parafeed out with the coupling cap between the plate and high end of the primary winding - the primary MUST be at DC ground potential for this to be safe so the common tap MUST be attached to ground, not the top of the 2A3 or 12AT7 cathode resistor, NOR can you have the coupling cap between the common tap and ground. At any rate, this is a way to get 3+ watts into the AKGs, which should get them pretty close to 108 dB peaks. This is purely an offering of an experimental idea. No warantees are given or implied. If you try it, test the voltages first and be systematic in your modification procedure. If you smoke 'em, I'm not paying for 'em.

 

[jopi]

Another update on my project:

Anticipation upgrade is running in the foreplay for about a week now and hum is only noticable during pause in music and most of my records have louder tape hiss than the little bit of hum. This makes the DC filament power supply a low priority for now.

The sound is absolutely gorgeous! For the first time I don't listen for how the bass is doing, how the imaging is, whether I can distinguish the first violin from the second and all the other stuff that just distracts from the music itself. As soon as the music starts, I get sucked right into it and I can only pitty the people that talk audiophile trash talk when reviewing gear instead of feeling the music.

Next step are the output transformer taps.
I've talked to Doc Bottlehead yesterday on how to do some rewiring on the output transformer to put more watts into the K1000 and I will try that over the weekend. Although I can't imagine how these phones can sound any better than what I've got. There's enough volume and I hear more bass than with my Max/AKG501 combo. Alas, I'll never know unless I've tried it.

I'll return with another update after I'm done with that.

 

[TimSchirmer]

What? No speakers?

Seriously, that is an AWESOME setup. I'm sure it kills many speaker setups! Not to mention you now have some very lovely new nightlights! NOTHING beats tubes and vinyl.


Hehehe... i'll have to go hear it sometime. I'm still waiting for my Szekeres to arrive. When I get my music hall, a decent phono preamp, I'm going to stop there! My poor wallet can't take it anymore!

 

[scottder]

I too have been looking at building the foreplay, possible as a tube based "Listening station" for Home. Fed from a CD and possible a PC. Anyone have any thoughts on a good match with the Foreplay and headphone amp. Preferably something in the same pricerange as the Foreplay.

Scott

PS - I've also thought of the EAR+ from Mapletree Audio, but I am looking ot get my first real taste of tube sound and have read from others that the EAR+ is rather neutral sounding.