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Message started by s3steve on 09/13/19 at 14:38:12

Title: New CSP3 Owner
Post by s3steve on 09/13/19 at 14:38:12

New member and first post.

Just a little back ground, I bought a SE34i.5 just before Christmas last year. I was looking for new tube amps that could handle 16 ohm speakers. There really isn't a lot of new quality tube amps out there with a 16 ohm output. The speakers in question are Altec Lansing 605B's.

The Altec's sound much better then the Klipsch Chorus they replaced I just not as loud.

So my solution to this was to add a CSP3 preamp into the mix, and an upgraded version!

Right out of the box this has improved the SLP count and the increase in clarity and soundstage are very noticeable and it's only got 3 hours on it.

Looking forward to spending some time with the system this weekend!
I'll leave another review once I get some hours on it.

All in all, I'm a happy camper!



Title: Re: New CSP3 Owner
Post by Lon on 09/13/19 at 14:45:37

Welcome, and congrats! I have had a CSP3 with the Anniversary mods for some time now and have to say: WOW, this is a great preamp and a KILLER headphone amp--probably the beset I've ever heard! It gets better too as it seasons, but it does sound very very impressive right out of the shop! ENJOY.

Title: Re: New CSP3 Owner
Post by chapsjon on 09/14/19 at 01:39:34

Welcome! I'm a relative newbie as well with a CSP2+ and Mini Torii. The Mini Torii was used when I purchased it about 9 months ago and I just picked up the NOS CSP2+ a few weeks ago. Lon is right about the CSP as a headphone amp. I really appreciate what it adds as a preamp, but am even more blown away when I plug in headphones.
Strangely, I am currently using my CSP2+ with a SS amp as my Mini Torii is in a different room and when I got the CSP2+ I hooked it up to my SS system just to see what would happen. The improvement was so significant, I haven't even tried it with the Mini Torii yet; partly because the Mini Torii sounds great on its own.
Decware has definitely increased my already profound enjoyment of music. The only problem is I have become so passionate about it that I keep thinking how great it would be to change my SS amp over to a Torii.... My wife has went along so far but that would significantly raise the bar of investment...

Title: Re: New CSP3 Owner
Post by will on 09/14/19 at 23:20:28

s3steve,

I really loved my Beeswax capped CSP3 before, but for what I wanted, it required very careful power/tube/cable/vibration setup for my specific need for musical openness and very fine detail at medium gains. This made it quite flexible with more recordings. Set on the clean side, it sounded really good on overly dense or dark recordings, and I could easily add weight/body/dynamics for lean recordings by adding more CSP3 gain while turning down the Torii gain. And very revealing space and fine detail, detail that was balanced and complex, more than solved downsides of having more in the signal path, while helping all recordings sound realer. Now, heavily modified, all these things are better! I really can't imagine wanting a better pre or headphone amp.

I also really loved my Torii IV before. Now, also heavily modified/tuned over almost three years, I am finding really great sound transform to nearly impeccable in my setting. I love it with just the Zbit, but more with the mysterious OTL qualities of the CSP3 also. A cool thing about Decware to me, is Steve builds in his sense of balance and forgiveness, but with the quality of parts and design, leaves a fair bit of room for altering the amps pretty notably with cables, tubes, power refinements, vibration control, etc. My hearing is pretty sensitive, and I have carefully tuned for a very revealing, resolving, and musical system that can make most recordings sound pretty real without pain....But within this, I can hear every cable, foot, resistor, cap, wire change with these simple revealing amps tuned optimally and not hobbled by other lesser components, cables etc. This gives a lot of tuning latitude for personal refinement.

I saw yesterday Palamino is selling his Torii III. https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1568390297

You would have to check with Pal, but I would imagine he might be able to get it Decware for the Anniversary mods and checkup, and have it shipped from there with a new warranty.

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