Hi,

I'm building an archival system primarily for pre-war 78rpm shellac recordings from the 1920's and 1930's. So far I have a Garrard 301 in a huge oversized CLD plinth with two Ortofon 309s and Expert's truncated styli. I have two McIntosh C8 pre-amps which are necessary for pre-RIAA equalization. I have a pair of vintage Klipsch Heresy II's which I eventually will want to replace with a couple full range drivers but I'm going to start off with them for the time being as I've already been using them for 12 years. My question is which amp would be compatible and ideal for my setup? The Torii, a pair of Zen triode, or Zen triode integrated?

thanks!

78 archivist

Hi 78, and welcome to the forums!

My first gut instinct is the same as Lon's... only I would likely just narrow it down to the SE34I.3.  It has a touch more warmth, weight, headroom when compared to the SE84C+.  The transparency is very close but you might enjoy it's forgiving nature in this set up.  Otherwise, you could upgrade it with VCAPS and clearly be pushing the envelope of what is possible.

Steve

Hey 78, awesome! I know the sound of shellac pretty well. I grew up with a wind-up Victrola that was my Dad's parents' and then became his. I also had a friend who had several 78 portable players that sounded pretty darned good. The sound on those discs can be astonishing. I'm a big fan of early jazz and hot dance, so I'm a big fan of the music too.

I know. I've heard shellac on really fine systems too, it's amazing. I have tons of pre=war music on cd, because I do cd, I know it's not the ultimate sound and there's much better in the analog realm, but for a number of reasons I'm a cd person who loves pre- and post-war music, mainly jazz.

I have a few friends who collect 78s, mainly of Texas bands of the country swing variety, much of which has never been on any other format, it's a lot of fun for them. Would be frustrating for me. I know the thrill of the hunt, but the thrill went out for me about fifteen years ago when I as in my forties and struggling to define and rally into my final years of my state career with a wife who was not really supportive at the time with my music habit. Just can't imagine collecting records again, vinyl or shellac, cds are easy and there is so much out there to discover and enjoy!

Well, when I started becoming obsessed with music, much of the music I desired to collect was not available on lp or very hard to find, this was before I got interested in the sound of recordings as well. I made due with tapes and tapes of the lps from others. Then the cd revolution began, and suddenly hundreds of lps I'd been wanting to hear became available at once, and hundreds to follow. My course was clear. I found ways to make cds sound better, Decware was a big help in that department. I discovered cabling, isolation of components, power conditioning. I will clearly admit the sound of vinyl and shellac is amazing, but I've learned to really love the sound of digital done right. And so I have collected over 15,000 cds and some amazing equipment for playback.

As for the "one channel option": yes, you could turn one channel way down. In the earlier incarnations of the Integrated you could keep one on standby or even off. Alternately if desired you could use a very high quality "Y" adaptor to connect both amp channels to one preamp channel.

Oh, most of my shellac listening was to one speaker, so I know whereof thou speakest, and yes it's something else.

I just no longer seek "the holy grail" sonicswise. I want a system that makes most of my material sound really good, and with my CD/SACD sources and Decware speakers and amps and the good cabling and power conditioning I have I've achieved that goal. For me it's about the music far more than the sound itself.

Handling and archiving and using a collection of shellac discs requires more patience than I have! Kudos.

Document certainly isn't the ONLY label doing pre-war music, let alone the only one doing "race records" on cd, there are Yazoo and a few others for that genre. I'm much more a fan of jazz and hot dance and there are a number of good labels for that, my favorite being Jazz Oracle. I have every one of their releases, most with restoration and mastering by J. R. T. Davies, whose work I appreciate.

Anyway, I think you'll really enjoy the Integrated. Enjoy the long wait.

And I did mean non-jazz pre-war. For sound quality I was very impressed with the recent Frog Blues & Jazz Annual CDs which come with the 'magazine'. They've only had two releases so far.

Well, there's a chance a used one will come up. Jump on one if you see one and want one, as they sell within days!

And if you haven't tried them out, the Yazoo cds should have music that interests you and the sound is not bad.

Thanks Lon. I like all of it so a little advice from somebody whose taste I respect is helpful.

The most basic amplifier will give you about two watts power, which may be enough with your speakers depending on your room. You could run it wide open and control the gain/volume from your preamps.  The amp has a "volume control"--not as easy to use as on the other amps, but usable. I think it might meet your needs, if your room is small to medium.

If you have the time the best thing to do is really to call and talk to Steve. That's the easiest way to reach him, and he's always talking. He can answer all your questions and give you the very best advice.

Won't be any problem with the volume switch located on the new Integrated. In fact, you'll be able to play around with the volume levels between the devices, or if you leave it turned all the way up it's practically "invisible". . . .

Arch,

I think that you'll not have to worry, you'll have your preamp volume at quarter to three quarters probably for most use. And yes, there will be a slight improvement without the volume controls in the signal path, whether it's enough to make a difference in your circumstances (surface noise, preamps in the chain as well) is another question, but if you're not going to use them, why have them in there!

Well, it's possible one of the denizens here will know, and if you can reach Steve. . . but maybe audiogon or a blues forum, etc. . . . Sorry, you're in territory I've not trod before myself.

Sure, that would be fun!

Well, I love my Torii. It's fantastic, and as you say has all the power you could ever need.

I will say though that there's an organic bit of magic the Integrated I had had that the Torii doesn't. That Single-Ended Triode thing. . . and I only went to the Torii because my speakers and the size of my room needed it. I adjusted and love the Torii for what it does to my three sources. But. . . as you don't need all that power (and really, you may NEVER need it) I'd recommend going with the Integrated. That amp just has something special, it's a subtle something special in comparison to the glory of the Torii.

I mean a dreadnaught sometimes makes more sense than a battle cruiser. . . and gets the job done "better."

To be honest, the definitive answer to your question would come from that future phone conversation with Steve.

I've been recommended by a 78rpm audiophile that I should not keep the signal stereo, that I should sum to mono prior to either of my C8 pre-amps.

If I do go with Rachel, the 'integrated' amp, and say I do use a Y-connector from one C8 main output into the left and right of one input on Rachel would that halve the voltage and the volume I'd get out of the speakers? Also I don't even think I care to have the ability to hear mono through two speakers.

Is there any chance a pair of the Model SE84ZSM and its 2.3 watts would be sufficient to drive my 94/db 8 ohm Heresy II? Considering how empty the Model SE84ZSM sub-forum is here perhaps that's the real ZEN I'm looking for?  :P

Eventually I'll want to upgrade to a pair of Zen Open Baffle speakers which is 95/db. So if SE84ZSM can drive my Heresy II's sufficiently then it would only get better when I upgrade to crossover-less drivers.

My thread on audiogon received no replies, the amount of audiophiles in the world doing what I have to do must be countable on two hands or less?

I agree with you on that. This is so old school, most experts in this area probably don't even have an email account.  ;D

Some shellac record dealers still don't. Everything's by phone or snail mail.

edit: (dunno why smilies don't show?)

Rivieraranch,

Pre-mid 1920's were all acoustic recordings and they are primitive although they still have lots of charm and presence. Post-mid 1920's electrical recordings became standard and are non-ironically not primitive. Nearly every audiophile forum on the internet people can't stand the noise of 78s. They want black backgrounds but where did this psychological desire for metaphysical reality come from? I used to crave it too and the blacker the background the more annoying the slightest vinyl tics and pops could be. I too wanted and enjoyed pristine metaphysicalness not to get too philosophical on you. Quite the opposite with shellac has what I call white backgrounds, snowish noise which becomes indistinguishable from air, physicalness. As important as the background differences are, the foregrounds is what will astonish you. I've done true A/B test between shellac and vinyl. Vinyl doesn't come anywhere close to the depth and imaging of shellac. Yes you read that right, and I mean it 100%. A $10,000 mc cart can't compete with my $40(+$165 truncated tip stylus) Stanton mm cart ever. The source, the format, is number one in fidelity impact as we all know.

I already mentioned the differences in groove width and rpm speeds. To make a direct analogy, it's like comparing unmixed 2" tape at 30ips vs mixed 1/4" tape at 15 or 7.5ips. I used to spend a lot of time in a vintage studio listening to those formats through McIntosh MC240's.

Don't get me wrong, I've been collecting vinyl for 15 years, and have owned more than 7,000 individually selected LPs and 45s. Vinyl's a good analog source that sounds and looks pretty with super delineated vocals and instruments, while shellac's none of those it will simply grab you by the balls with inexplicable holography like you've never heard it, unless you're familiar with 2" 30ips tape. Please excuse my language I can't convey more accurately without it. Trust me I'm still flabbergasted by it, I reluctantly got into 78s because the music I was getting into was from that era, I never expected to hear what I'm describing now as most re-issues are either mediocre or poor and to top it off in digital format.

After consulting with a few other shellacfanatics, I think I've figured out my setup now. I'm going to sum the channels to mono before the C8's and then use another Y-adapter from each C8 to two different inputs on Rachel to revert back to 'stereo'. Until I upgrade from the Heresy II's I'm going to stack one on top of the other, probably with a stand in between so they're not actually touching, this way I'll have a single vertical wall of mono. I simply have no desire to hear stereo anything anymore.

Very nice.

Hopefully not too much longer to wait!

My favorite radio station (publicaly funded) based out of Edmonton (I live in Calgary) has a musician named Roy who does a show on Mondays night called the shellac shuffle. Check it out on Internet radio if you can:

http://www.ckua.com/02/02/12/A-SHELLAC-SHACK-SHUFFLE---78s-FROM-THE-T/landing.ht...

The amp is on its way now. Can someone here give me some advice on how to bridge to mono with Rachel? I never received a response from Steve after asking a couple times already. I'm only going to be playing mono 78s, so do I still have to take a Y-connector from my C8 out to Rachel ins? And do I also need to purchase an extra wire to bridge the speaker outs? Never done this before and would like whatever I need already delivered when the amp gets here.

thanks,
78 arch

Right before Rachel arrived I blew my Klipsch Heresy speakers when I accidentally grabbed the volume knob instead of the channel balance knob and slammed it to full volume on my Scott 299 amp. Very stupid mistake I know. So when Rachel arrived I still hooked her up bridged to mono with one of my blown Klipsch Heresy's just so I could get an idea of the sound difference. My new speaker just arrived in the mail yesterday, a full range 15" Alnico Audio Nirvana driver. I hooked Rachel up to it, and lo behold my brand new driver sounds blown just like my Klipsch speaker. Certain vocal ranges, especially baritone, sound fuzzy almost identically with the Klipsch. Now this has me wondering, did I damage Rachel by playing the Klipsch with it? And in turn am I damaging my brand new Audio Nirvana driver by playing it with Rachel?

I have to say, the vocal ranges without the fuzz distortion, sound wonderful with Rachel but obviously I have to figure out what the problem is here. Anyone have ideas?

Awesome! Your leap of faith paid off!

Decware amps are special, and I'm glad you have your Rachel.

Ok one more complaint. The attenuator makes a hum when it's not turned all the way down or up, and grows louder as it approaches 12 o'clock from either direction. Any way to get rid of this?