jax
Didn't do the flip
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- Jan 19, 2005
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:Originally Posted by K_19 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Quote:Has anyone had any low-mid, upper bass resonance issues with their LCD-2s? I had a very odd experience which cropped up suddenly and I thought, therefore it might be a bad tube. I swapped out tubes and it seemed to be OK. I didn't listen much because the next day I'd committed to ship them out to my friend in CA to have a listen to them while I am on vacation since he could take his time with them, and otherwise had no way of listenign to a pair. He builds amplifiers and does a lot of sound mixing/recording as well...used to work for Magneplanar, been in the biz a long time...very good ears. He was curious to hear them because he uses headphones all the time in mixing and recording. Today I got an email that he'd received the headphones safely, in great shape, and that they sounded good except for an annoying resonance in the 500-600hz range. I asked him to clarify, but haven't heard back yet. He was going to try it with a more powerful 2watt headphone amp of his own design (I don't know what he was using as an amp for that initial observation). So that brought me back to my experience just before shipping them out which I'd forgotten til he wrote. I thought I'd solved by swapping tubes (it kind of sounded like a driver tube going bad), and with the new tubes I did not hear it again, but only listened to a few cuts before packing them up. It was like some of the frequencies had a bit of a sympathetic warble...like the mids were being distorted by the upper low range. It could still be just a bad tube - my tube tester needs calibration so I don't trust it to tell me the right story. But I thought I'd check to see if anyone had experienced anything at all that sounded like what I'm describing. I don't know for sure if what he's hearing is the same thing (it could have been a bad tube and what he's hearing could be unrelated - as I said, he hasn't clarified as of yet), but it is in the right region that he noted. Anyone have any similar experience or comments? I was listening on my WA6SEm.
For what it's worth I've also had the same experience with my WA6SE (not maxed, original prototype unit). IMO it definitely depends on the tubes. I used my WA6SE with my RCA 6DE7 vintage tubes, which have been used for well over a year... and I heard resonances in those regions with certain music (nothing annoying but definitely there). Then I recently switched to a NOS pair of GE 6DE7 and it was totally gone. No resonance in that region whatsoever with anything.
I reported those resonances in my initial impressions of the LCD-2 and WA6. It really mucked around with pianos and some vocals. It does improve with changing tubes or amps, but it was worrisome at first.
Don´t forget source switching. I think people should hunt sources way way more then amps for the LCD-2. That is my experience anyway. I also had some resonances on piano with my tube amp but it´s completely gone after switching source and DSP module. And as I said earlier my Ref9 is my biggest amp upgrade for the LCD-2. But 9 out of 10 head fiers are hunting amps it seems. Me too in the beginning but all I learned is that the LCD-2 is really easy to drive well
Thank you Larry, and Oqvist! This is very useful information. The one single time I heard it happen, the day before I shipped mine out, I had just sold my Modwright Transporter (my former source) because I'd upgraded my source to a Modwright DAC prototype in my main system, and the Transporter just was not fitting into my office space because if it's height (the tubes sticking out). So the short version is that I have a REF 8 incoming. In the meantime I was just listening to my Squeezebox Touch directly into the WA6 using its own DAC. That's exactly when it started and I didn't even think of that! Swapping the tubes did seem to solve it though, but I'd never heard it before that.
Many thanks for the input here.