alper_yilmaz
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Hi folks,
I just wanted to share my recent experience with my SE34I.2+. I have this amp since 2011 when I moved from Brooklyn, NY to Istanbul, Turkey. When I moved I oredered some high-efficiency Omega speakers but I was never happy with the outcome, as the bass was always lacking. Even with a Dali subwoofer, I was not satisfied much; maybe since I am a bass player, I would like to hear more bass than most! Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to do any room treatment as the system was in the living room. Lots of tube rolling yielded only slight improvement.
Upon this, I brought my TORII mkII from Brooklyn and used it for quite some time, but somehow I still was not satisfied with the bass most probably due to the speakers and I sold the whole system and moved on to a Copland push-pull amp and a pair of ProAc speakers.
In the meantime, the SE34I.2+ was still at home and I even took pictures to sell it. Somehow, I did not have the courage to do it, and at one point, I converted it into a headphone amp by adding some resistors at the outputs. However, later on, I decided to move onto a TABOO mkIII and the SE34I.2+ was retired one more time.
Just last week, I decided to set up a system in my bedroom for late night listening while reading. I picked a pair of Rega RS-1's (desktop speakers with 89-90 dB efficiency). I am streaming music from my Mac Mini via an Apple TV and it is optically connected to a Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100. The cables are all DHLabs. As the 6N2P's I used to use the amp with had high gain, I switched back to 6N1P's for less volume (as 6 watts per channel into 89-90 dB speakers is quite high for late night listening, I needed the 2.1dB less gain). The volume is still too high but I like the headroom and how easily the SE34I.2+ can drive the Rega's.
The last few nights, I have listened to Bartok String Quartets (by Vegh Quartet), Beethoven piano sonatas (by Wilhelm Kempff), Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues (by Daniel Barenboim), and some Steve Kuhn. I am so happy to put the SE34I.2+ back to work! I hope I won't consider switching to an SE84, which I am already having the itch for! Otherwise, the SE34I.2+ will retire one more time and I am not sure if it can take that anymore! :) The SE84 would cut the volume by more than 3 dB's and I might really like that. Furthermore, I have always liked SV83s (or EL84s) over EL34s (or similar)...
Anyway, I have been very happy with the outcome so far, and I just wanted to share it with you folks...
Best,
Alper
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