Bass – Yoshio Suzuki
Drums – Hiroshi Murakami
Piano – Takehiro Honda

Dropping price again to $1800. I drove them with my 25th Anniversary ZenUFO. No doubt, many of you have heard a little bit about Omega speakers. The company owner Louis Chochoes produces high quality speakers at affordable prices. These DynaTens share many of the same characteristics as other Omega's - natural sounding, transparent and wide soundstage. These go deeper/lower than his single driver speakers. They compared quite favorably with my Klipsch Fortes but at half the price retailing at $3,295.

Sold.

My Goodness those were sweet prices!!!!!!!!!

Tripp Lite isolation transformer is sold. Thanks!

Sounds great Mike be great to give the II’s some play time! Maybe swap out and put the other pair in the box for a quarter? Randall

Muggsy Spanier "The Alternate Takes in Chronological Order Volume 1 (1939-1944)" Neatwork cd

Bluebird and Commodore alternates.

I know for the Taboo Mk IV when I had it I was told that as long as the tubes were generally 30 or above on the meters they were good.

James is right, how they sound is likely the best indicator of their health. In these instances I put a new pair in and compare the sound with the previous pair. It's easy to evaluate.

Quote:


How does it sound? That is more important than what the meters say IMO.

You are going to want a 10 Amp 250 volt slow blow 6mm x 30mm fuse, I have been using ceramic--they just seem more robust to me, safer for handling. Here was my source:

https://tinyurl.com/TLCFuse

what specs should i look for when ordering replacement fuses? Thoughts on ceramic vs glass? what size should I be looking for? I see 250v and others with different voltages. Can someone please recommend some good replacements and where to buy? 8amp vs 10 amp?
thank you.

This is how the bias meters look with the EL34s now.  

Perhaps I am driving myself crazy, but I thought that the KT77s were perhaps creeping downward on the bias meters, so I swapped in my EL34s that I had used.  While I initially thought these fixed the issue, now I am not so sure.  The bias meters seem almost equally between 20 and 40.  Is this too low?  If it wasn't the tubes, what could it be?

All tubes are SOLD, thank you to you buyers, you know a great deal & tube when you see one!

Moncef Genoud Trio "Pop Songs" Muzak Japan cd

Hi All - Does anyone out there have a photo of the 300b in cherry? I'm scheduled to receive mine in September and am betwixt and between walnut and cherry. I am unable to find a good photo of what the cherry looks like. Please post or direct me to one such photo. With appreciation!

On to another disc from the "Enjoying the Ride" sixtieth anniversary Grateful Dead box set, Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, NY (3/16/73), disc 3

I was in the mood for a "Dark Star" and this one hits the spot.

Continuing the "heartbeat jazz" pace with this album that I didn't know existed until last week, and glad I found it. Ballads associated with Trane, sung supported only by piano and bass. Sweet.

"I Wish I Knew – Yvonne Walter Sings The Coltrane Ballads" Muzak Japan HQCD

Adonis Rose Trio + One "For All We Know" Storyville cd

The "+ One" is the lovely Gabrielle Cavassa. This is certainly a nice and gentle way to begin another hot day. This could definitely be marketed as a Cavassa album. The trio supports her quite ably, and the recording is very balanced.

Looking in the details of the Hazen grid papers, Steve wrote this:

"The next test was to see what happened on our pentode wired EL34 push pull amp called The TORII MK II, and again the same results were observed. The final test was to do our original Zen Triode amp with the Russian 6P15P-EV tubes, and again, simply amazing. In every case an increase in performance was seen and dynamics improved with head shaking improvements in clarity and imaging."

So I expect the mod is effective and beneficial also on pentode wired amplifiers, like my taboo.


From the internal pics i can't recognize any visible alteration, but i have no original to compare and also don't have the schema.
If i can see the original schema, surely troubleshooting will be easier.

For sure I'm excluding transformer, tubes, voltage input issues.

Thank you all guys for the valuable help here!
let me clarify some points:

-yes, it was shipped from Steve with 240v wired power supply
-i thought Hazen grid mod can be beneficial if using SV83, i didn't realized it was only for triode operation. but i will de-solder one leg of the cap today and see what happens.
- i need to understand if someone rewired it at one point for triode operations, but I'm not that good to understand it by myself, but very glad if posting some pics someone can understand it.
- yes, it was supposed to use 12ax7,au7 or at7 depending on the gain needed. EL84 as power tubes and 5u4g as rectifier.
-RME can put out voltage from 0 to 9.9v but i'm paying attention to not overload Decware input stage.

What a legendary amp! I am also looking into the Taboo MK2 series. Can you share more about your experience with Lucid Mode?

Did you notice any microphonics with the Reflektor 6N23P? Mine (1974 SWGP) sings beautifully but occasionally picks up cabinet vibrations.



                                                                                                                             -----------------------
                                                                                                                                   iq test free

When a non-audiophile is convinced, that is the clearest proof of the quality of ZROB. I especially sympathize with the feeling of "completely different" bass that you describe. Completely removing the room sound processing system and still achieving 3D sound space is an amazing achievement.

@Sxmthuan how many hours have you put on that Amperex PQ 6922? Some NOS tubes need 50-100 hours to settle. My Tesla E88CCs initially sounded "off" but opened up beautifully after ~80 hours.

Fredrich Gulda's Beethoven Piano Concertos.



DSD Rip from SACD

Ugh!

Thanks for sharing those impressions Sai. My favorite has become a pair of the RTC E188CC with slanted dimpled getters, but they didn't start out that way, I had to put a lot of hours on the pair and then they just became the very best driver tubes in my SEWE300B. Great sound stage and this magic spaciousness that no other tube has. I had to get just the right tube complement around them to bring out the very best in them, and when I added Amperex 95C1 in all three of the voltage regulation spots dynamics doubled both subtle and very overt dynamics.

We use a reflektor 6n23p now and then and love that one too!  A LOT! [smiley=icqlite20.png]

Right on!  Our HeresyII's are in their original boxes stored in the shop. Man I WISH we could fit them in somewhere in the house. Tried to figure a way for rears in the theater system, but just too big for rear surrounds...
Have fun Randall!  By the way, the 1951 Tung-Sol  (dark brown base- Zenith labeled) mouse ears 6sn7gt is turning out to be -among- my favorite input tubes. And..its pretty too! I rotate 4 different input tubes these days... This Zenith one will stay in for a while.. next up will be the reflektor 6n23p    All the best~ Mike

Hmm. . . I don't think that would necessarily cause distortion without giving full volume. . .

I looked up the RME DAC and see that it puts out 4 volts.
Could that have something to do with the distortion?

Do you plan on playing your own digitized music say from a USB drive.

If so this increases some of your options

See my signature

Enjoy the music

Thanks Lon. I couldn’t find a manual but looking in the old Taboo forum it seems like the MK3 is where it changed from 12A_7 tubes to the current 6922/6DJ8/6N1P types.

You may well be onto the solution James. I haven't been able to find what input tube the Mk II used, the Mk III used a 6922. . . . Hmmm.

I finally found the manual for the Mk II and here is the input tube info--seems perhaps the 12AX7 may be the best choice if the amp is used without a preamp:

INPUT TUBE INFORMATION
The SE84TS is designed to use your choice of
three different input (or signal) tubes.
12AX7 - Most Gain
12AT7 - Medium Gain
12AU7 - Low Gain
Each of these tubes will lend a different signature to the overall sound of the amplifier. If
you are using a standard 2 volt source like a CD
player with NO preamp, you will probably find
the 12AU7 to have not enough gain. With a
preamp, it could become your favorite tube.

https://www.decware.com/newsite/SE84TSowners%20manual.pdf

Quote:


Yes, I agree there should be no Hazen grid mod in a Taboo, unless someone rewired it (badly) for triode. Also, are you sure that it has a power transformer compatible with European voltage?

One other thought, I believe early models of the Taboo used a ECC83/12AX7 input tube instead of the ECC88/6DJ8 type tube the current models use. I don't know which the MK2 uses, but if it you are using an ECC88 and it should be an ECC83 that would explain the lack of gain.

Playing Joshua Redman's "Words Fall Short" for a second time. A work that is growing on me.

"For The Last Time - Ruby Braff's Historic Final Performance With Scott Hamilton" Arbors 2 cd set, disc 1

I pulled a handful of Ruby Braff cds from the shelves and will listen to them over the next weeks. He was a continuously interesting player, always seriously working the traditional jazz field with sincere aritstry. He certainly ended his performing career on a high point with these recordings.

Bout to roll my Heresy in for the quarter, always enjoy!

Randall

Hello Easyrider,
You sure about the Hazen Grid mod ?
The Taboo is a single ended PENTODE amplifier, meaning the Hazen grid cap should not be in there. The grid should be fed by a separate feed from the B+ supply.  If someone actually did the mod on a Taboo, it would mess up the B+ feeding the suppressor grid. Take a look.
Now, I'm no whizbang at this stuff, so I may be off base here. But the Hazen grid mod on a pentode amp raises a red flag to me.

Cheers and good luck,     Crazy Bill

Duke Ellington "The Cornell Concert"

Woke up to see a deer in the side lot, which was nice. I love being so close to nature.

Starting off with another disc from the "Enjoying the Ride" sixtieth anniversary Grateful Dead box set, Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, NY (3/16/73), disc 2

Dear Sirs,
i'm a proud owner of a Decware Zen SE84CS, Zen SE84ZS, and i recently acquired a Taboo speaker amp, willing for more power.
The serial is 066 and it has the V-cap mod together with the Hazen Grid one.

The issue i get is that the amp is producing hearable distortion on both channels way before the low powered ZEN i have, it's playing music feeded by an RME ADI-2 DAC straight to the amp and driving Tannoy SRM 15X.
If i play music to very low level, distortion goes away. Seems like a power issue.

Impedance of speakers is always 8ohm and with a few peaks to 18ohm.

Even with the ZENs, that has 1/3 the power and engineered for lower impedances i get a great sound from this speakers at the listening levels i'm used to and way above.

So i can't Explain why the taboo seems not able to drive them.

OFC i swapped all the tubes, with different types, and checked the voltages coming from the DAC, to avoid saturation and so on.

I live in europe, so the first thing that came to my mind: sending it back to Steve for a check, might be very costly.
Any suggestions of what i can try to find the problem? i'm quite sure something is not working as intended.

The Bach Cello Suites were lost to time when a young Pablo Casals found a copy of them in a used bookstore and started to perform them. And the rest is history, for both Casals and the Cello Suites. His interpretation is very different from my favorite, Janos Starker, but it is certainly worth hearing. As Stravinsky said "Casals is of course a great man. He is in favor of peace and plays Bach in the manner of Brahms." But these days I don't think you can get away with playing Brahms with the romantic abandon Casals brings to his Bach.



16/44 FLAC download

I have the original EMI CD reissue of the Casals Cello Suites but the sound is, in a word, sucky. Much, much better is the Naxos remastering.

Well, I will say that I very much appreciated and enjoyed my talk with Steve going on a couple of years ago now. Including his daughter Sarah as well.  Handled business perfectly. Class acts~ Pretty cool update with this troubleshooting program.   All the best to Decware, Steve and all staff as well.  :)    Mike~

Right on James, but we're having to turn the heat up the last 2 days here. over 16 inches of snow in the mountains right in front of us the last 2 days. Happens here once in a while in early summer.
Nice today though at 54 degrees, but windy with showers. Guess we're going to have to turn the heat up a bit with some Mark Knopfler and then follow up with ZZ Top                  All the best~  Mike