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AUDIO FORUMS >> General Discussion and Support >> R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
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Message started by Jeff of Arabica on 12/20/18 at 06:47:59

Title: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Jeff of Arabica on 12/20/18 at 06:47:59

It is always a sad day to lose someone who has had such an influence on so many in the audio industry. I, like many others here on this forum, have purchased many tubes from Ron. I was and still am amazed on how well he ran his business. Communication was lighting fast, professional and courteous. As far as his shipping speed, it defied science.

Anyway, I learned of his passing through his estate auction that was advertised in one of the threads here. I spent way more than I had intended overall, but ended up with many wonderful items, all acquired or collected by Ron for good reason. While most of my purchases was LPs and optical disks, I did purchase three sets of speakers, a set of monoblock tube amplifiers, a phono stage, and some other miscellaneous audio gear. One of the most exiting buys was his main reference speakers, the Essence Audio "Amethyst 10A Reference" designed by Dale Pitcher. I will make sure they are properly setup, fed and continue to provide aural bliss in my listening room.

Though my interactions with Ron were business related, I developed a respect for him personally and I imagine many here feel the same. May his contributions to the industry live on!

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Lon on 12/20/18 at 13:05:25

Very sad to hear and thanks for the update.

Looks like your toy pile keeps getting bigger! (I'm envious as mine has to get smaller) ;)

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by HockessinKid on 12/20/18 at 13:33:27

Jeff,

Very sorry to hear about Ron's passing, he was one of the good guys in the audio game. I understand from other posts on Audio Circle that the auction company did a miserable job handling pick ups at the house, forcing Ron's widow to help buyers move boxes, etc. Just very sad.

I hope you enjoy your toys. I understand those new speakers are monsters (650 lbs?). Hope you have a fork lift to put those babies in their proper place😎.

HK

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by mark58 on 12/20/18 at 14:24:04

Hate to hear Ron's gone. Looked like he accumulated a bunch of stuff like a lot of us. I would have helped out Mrs. Sheldon if I'd known about the Estate Sale. Somehow I missed the notice here. I googled it and looked at photos, I likely would have bid too much for some of that audiophile Vinyl...maybe a tube tester? Or Tubes? We'll never know.

Jeff, those speakers look impressive. How efficient are they? How much do speakers like that go for? I've never seen them before...here's a pic of one speaker for those who haven't seen them...

PS...a pic of the actual speakers Jeff bought...just open pic in a new window and reduce. Beautiful speakers...

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by stone_of_tone on 12/20/18 at 16:49:53

Very sad to read indeed, the passing of Ron Sheldon. Reiterating what Jeff stated: "Communication was lighting fast, professional and courteous. As far as his shipping speed, it defied science."

J of A, those Speaker's went to a good home in yours. ....look forward to your impressions.

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Jeff of Arabica on 12/20/18 at 18:42:28

Quote:

J of A, those Speaker's went to a good home in yours. ....look forward to your impressions.

Thanks Stone! I most certainly will post some pics and details about these speakers once I get them installed and aligned properly. Apparently they came with charts and a protractor as the modules are designed to be time aligned so proper placement is critical. May take some time to get them set properly in my listening room. Hey, the journey is half the fun, right? ;)

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Jeff of Arabica on 12/26/18 at 05:48:08

I got around to connecting my newly acquired Essence Audio 10A Reference speakers today. Here is a pic of the assembled speakers being driven by my almighty ZMA. These are lesser efficient speakers and definitely welcome the additional power the ZMA offers.

Based on the owner's manual that Ron retained (could be the only one in existence!), I was able to determine some basic specifications on the speakers. They are 8 Ohm, 89dB efficient with a frequency response of 18Hz - 35 KHz!

They are very interesting and unique speakers. Apparently, there were only about 100 pairs ever made by Dale Pitcher. They are comprised of five transmission line modules, stacked from largest to smallest. On the bottom is the bass module, followed by the mid-bass, midrange, tweeter, and super tweeter modules.

The key to these speaker systems is the alignment. Dale included five alignment charts (one for each module) that is to be used to properly setup and orientate each module in relation to one another. The purpose of this exercise to to make sure that based on the distance from your ear to the ground ("B") and your ear to the top center of each module ("A") each module is in proper alignment to the module below. So, you start with the bass module. You then align the mid-bass to the bass, then the midrange to the mid-bass, and so on and so forth. The reasoning behind doing so is to ensure that the timing is perfect, or as close as humanly possible. Dale was big on making sure that the sound produced from each module arrives at your ear at the same time. Aligning the modules is critical for this to occur.

Here is the "Bass to Mid-Bass" alignment chart....

Anyway, I wasn't sure the ZMA would have enough juice for these big boys but they are driving them quite nicely! I have not taken the time to precisely measure and align according to the charts, but my plan is to do so tomorrow. Fun stuff!

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Lon on 12/26/18 at 12:28:29

Challenging set up Jeff, but you'll have fun with the task. You're living the dream!

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by HockessinKid on 12/26/18 at 14:01:24

Good luck with the set up Jeff. I bet it will sound exceptional once you get everything properly aligned. Enjoy.

HK

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by stone_of_tone on 12/26/18 at 16:33:28

Very nice, Jeff. Keep us posted. I see you're using solid state replacement for input tubes & inverter's? Do tell, ...very curious.

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Archie on 12/26/18 at 16:35:49

Those are heat shields. I use them on my 9 pin tubes that they fit. They are a bit tight on some 9 pin tubes. They come in lots of sizes but are sometimes hard to find -- old Mil-Spec stuff. I even attached a ground wire to one on my ZP3 for RF shielding.

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by stone_of_tone on 12/26/18 at 16:37:55

Oh wow? Interesting, I did not know this.

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Jeff of Arabica on 12/26/18 at 19:10:09

Thanks guys. Yeah, I am looking forward to the task at hand. Should be a fun and interesting (hopefully fruitful) exercise.

Archie is correct. I am using those Mil-Spec head shields. What I like about them is they also put tension on the glass envelope so they double as tube dampness. Also, like Archie did, you could solder a wire and connect it to the chassis to drain EMI away from the tubes.

I am going to listen to them as they sit today to get used to their sound. Then I will bust out the laser measurement tool and align according to the charts provided.

Also, sitting next to them is a set of 80 wpc Reference Two mono blocks from Canary Audio. They sound really good with the 40wpc ZMA but it is asking a lot fo the ZMA to move that much speaker mass especially at higher listening volumes. The Reference Two is 300B tube type amplifier (24 tubes in total between both mono blocks!)

Ill keep you all posted....

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by ScottNC on 12/26/18 at 19:11:12

Jeff,
I’m looking forward to hearing more on these, it should be an interesting journey you’ve embarked on. I’m curious as to how they are connected and powered.
Best,
Scott

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Archie on 12/26/18 at 22:45:41

Jeff, how tight are those shields on the tubes? I find they fit well on my 12AX7 and 12AU7 tubes but they are very tight on my Russian 6N1P (and others of this type). I stopped using them on my ZMA and CSP3 for that reason. I might go back to them though. They do seem to reject a lot of heat and you're right about the vibration elimination. I'd be nice to find some for the larger tubes but there are so many different sized tubes it's hard.

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Steve Deckert on 12/27/18 at 04:28:50

I didn't know Ron, but having seen this speaker in my wonderings, after a bit of research I quickly recognized it as "time alignment to the extreme".

My first introduction to the concept of time alignment came from Carl Marchisotto's work which when you look at physical time alignment with respect to driver placement, it really is intuitive. Having all the voice coils in a line source at the same distance to the ear has to have better focus. This is why if you angle a speaker 5 to 7 degrees backwards it sounds better because it creates a similar time-aligned effect of the voice coils relative to each other and the listener.

What I love about those cubes is that at least in theory, each cube can be toed-in or toed-out independently of each other creating an extremely integrated room/speaker/listener circuit. If it were me, I would do measurements from the listening chair at every frequency and find the optimal toe-in or out for each cube to effect the flattest response at the listener's head...

You might need an 25th Anniversary Zen Triode on each pair of left and right cubes... that should maximize the potential of this mans (Ron's) design which clearly deserves the effort ; )

Anyway, congratulations, a bittersweet one, but at least the speakers are in the hands of someone with the technical prowess to actually appreciate his work, and that's about all you can hope for! It keeps the idea alive and well. It could as a result of your posts and impressions inspire someone to try the same thing with open baffles!

Happy listening

Steve

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Jeff of Arabica on 12/27/18 at 05:27:00

Quote:

What I love about those cubes is that at least in theory, each cube can be toed-in or toed-out independently of each other creating an extremely integrated room/speaker/listener circuit. If it were me, I would do measurements from the listening chair at every frequency and find the optimal toe-in or out for each cube to effect the flattest response at the listener's head...

YES! That makes perfect sense! Thank you for that. My mind wasn't even going there but that is one of the blessings of these separate modules is the ability to not only move them backward and forward, but also to toe them in and out. Wow! I've definitely got my work cut out for me but I'm excited to see what I can get out of these bad boys.

Quote:

You might need an 25th Anniversary Zen Triode on each pair of left and right cubes... that should maximize the potential of this mans (Ron's) design which clearly deserves the effort ; )

Another idea I had not considered, and again makes a ton of sense. Collectively, it is a hefty job to ask of one stereo amp or even a pair of mono blocks (tube-based of course). I have the wiring scheme for tri-amping them so definitely a possibility. Now, that setup could very well be the end all, be all.

Great info and suggestions Steve. Thank you!

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Lonely Raven on 12/27/18 at 06:26:34

Time alignment is so important and often overlooked. I'd love to hear what you think once you get used to them, then align them yourself.

Not to get too off topic, but I recognize that sound diffuser - what brand/model is it?

Title: Re: R.I.P. Ron Sheldon of Cryoset
Post by Jeff of Arabica on 12/27/18 at 06:33:55

It is an Artnovion "Logan" diffuser. I really love their products. They are pricier but perform wonderfully and are SO much more atheistically pleasing then many others out there.

I will likely take the rest of this week to listen to them "as is," then take on the task of aligning them per the Essence alignment chart data this weekend. From there I will make some observations and report back on the differences.

The next step would be to do as Steve suggested and utilize measurement tools at various frequencies to determine the best toe angle for each module. Fun stuff!