Been back home a few days and wanted to update about my turntable issue. I'm back on the Mofi table, there are are couple issues with the Dual I wanted to sort out and they're going to take longer than I expected. That said, I hooked the Mofi up again. Same "not great" performance, low bass notes distort and complex passages jumble up. Rechecked the setup yet again, all within spec. So experiment time set in. Played around with arm height and not much difference. Then I started rolling the downforce off. The OC9 'sweet spot' is at 2gr. I haven't checked with a gauge where I am now, just trusting my ears. I'd guess it's in the high 1.8's now and things sound MUCH better. So good in fact, my sleep is taking a hit from staying up late, "just one more side!". For my room, I can push the amp to about 60% volume before the wheels start wobbling. My wife tells me that's plenty loud enough. Funny how that TT setup was "perfectly fine" with a different amp, or should I say that amp HID the poor setup. The decware really brings out any issues upstream.

Now that that is sorted, I borrowed a Schiit BiFrost to experiment with.

I was moving some gear around this week and thought Id give some what I feel are some semi hard to drive speakers a whirl with the ufo2.1 . I dont have specs on these speakers and online info is minimal on Audio Concepts speakers from  a small independent company in Wisconsin. Built in the back of a church are claims I scraped up online.
My scratch n sniff test thinks maybe 85-87db efficient ??? Only other amp I tried with them when I acquired them was a maybe 65 watt chnl Yamaha integrated amp from 90's. Sounded like the Audio Concepts wanted more power/current to bring them to life. These are oddly designed speakers as in they are a sub / satellite system but the crossovers are house in their own boxes about the size of a 20 watt receiver. High quality drivers and parts all around and even cabs are built from 1 in thick mdf with real oak veneer ( the grain is thick/deep is how i know its real wood veneer.)
Satellites have a 4 in mid and maybe 1 in tweeter both kevlar it looks like. The passive sub boxes have a single 10in driver in each. Id post pics if I could figure it out. The crossover boxes have binding posts for each driver with no jumpers so thats alot of wire to pass juice through.
I was thinking no way this is going to sound good but the results ? I ended up listening to them all night with various cd's ( dac in the box still) I got great volume/texture , detailed bass and dynamics with the ufo2.1 . I did have to turn volume knob up about 2-4 notches more then with klipsch8000f's but over all results were pleasing.
I think source material got a bit more picky with the harder to drive Audio Concepts but even the worst(less dynamic recording) was still an enjoyable listen.
My 2.3 watts muscled up for sure.

<sigh>

Did it again. Read the whole 17 pages of the development thread for the 2.3 watt UFO25. My occasional activity to substitute for not actually having one, yet.

I just wonder, what are people thinking buying DW PP amps? It's like a category error. LOTS of other companies offer PP tube amplification, and used is very affordable. Maybe DW is even better. But who's the SET specialist?

I mean, Steve has to design new PP amps because he has to find out. But I have NEVER seen anything like the UFO25 development thread elsewhere on this site, for any amp, or any DW product. Steve can be hyperbolic, so you have to sift a bit. If I subtract all the non-SET hyperbole, what I've left with is smoking with hyperbole. Somebody got pretty excited over the birth of this amp. I don't think it was the beer.

Reading this and going, "Yeah but I need those extra 15 watts per channel to really fill my room" is like flying across the ocean to Ogami Itto, who makes one of a kind samurai swords, and saying, "Cool, but what I really want is your top carving knife. Way more practical back in Oklahoma." Why ja bother to go then? And wait two years? CARVE THE DAMN TURKEY WITH A SAMURAI SWORD

That's absolutely right. The PP is too HIFI for me. The Zen more natural, "real" sounding. We're all different.

A bad VR tube had me shaking up my tube complement and I now have an RCA 0B2 for the input tubes (my monoblocks use these 0C series as they only have to power one tube) and Chatham 0D3W for the output tubes. This has given me a tight low end and a wide open midrange, a truly clear and dynamic presentation.

In time we'll see if the Sarah unseats the Monoblocks as my time and teleportation machine, I'm looking forward to that comparison. SET for me either way.

We're all different, have different rooms and musical tastes and preferences.

Finally had a chance to hook up the Rachael amplifier, a .4 version from 2014 with ufo outputs , the tubes it came with as I bought it , wing C el34's , mitsubishi 7dj8's and a coke bottle rca 5u4g and still listening to the Klipsch rp8000f's ( cant seem to quit them) .
I did change a few things that may or may not matter. I swapped speaker wires to something I found in my cable bin, I always thought they were Audioquest wires for some reason (idk why) but after cleaning them up all I could find on them was 'Isola Breitenbach mlas hf 10c Swiss made' . I also swapped out my 'dac in a box' for a recent hand me down Emotiva first generation dac . The previous owner wasnt thrilled with it so I had no idea  what to expect but it had a remote for volume control so........
I havent thought 100 watts was twice as loud as 50 watts since I was in high school but Ive also never played around in 'low watt land' like 2 watts vs 6 watts . I didnt notice much of a volume/headroom difference between the Rachael and UFO2.1 at all , at least not with the cd's I was listening to. I did however keep thinking to myself all night while listening to the Rachael , " how can it get any better then this? "  even knowing the upgrade road is miles long but also thinking " do I care? this sounds so good"
I tossed the UFO2.1 back in to see if I felt the same way and I absolutely did . They are so similar Ill have to spend more time back and forth with the 2 amps to comment on the difference's I am hearing. Im stoked to have both amplifiers.
I was running the dac straight in, no preamp. The Emotiva dac I think is trying to pretend to sound better than the audio alchemy dac in a box? but not so sure it does. My experience with dac's is these 2 outdated entry level dacs only but the Emotiva does have a remote : )

@tempest62
"Fear of 2.3w?

Yup, guilty.

Same fear as I have for 3.2, 5, 6, or 8w"

understood and these statements from audiophiles are what had me question the low watt world to the point I almost didnt bother pursuing a UFO2.1.........

50-60 feet out of my listening room window my neighbor sits on her porch to smoke. Last night 8-9 o clock she asked me to please turn it down ( i was listening to some laid back music, Earl Klugh soundtrack covers to be exact) and she didnt care so much when I tried explaining to her about the whole 2.3 watts per channel thing. I normally dont have that window open and this is first time she has complained about my music volume

Decware Flea Watts Annoying Neighbors All Night Long

20w isn’t overamplification. What it provides is some headroom.

I got shit for headroom with the 3.2w amp I had, which was the primary limiting factor in my setup.

Just my opinion.

Sean, btw your remote is awesome. I think Donnie had something like that at one time.

I had a 300w Bryston 4B-SST at one time. Sounded like a Mac truck slamming into a brick building. LoL

Sean, I really like your remote!!

I still have my dad's old "living room amp" from the mid '60s.
It's not the beautiful tweed version shown in your schematic.
But I'm pretty sure this version had not had the guts messed with much by that time.

It is a Fender Vibro Champ, "blackface" I think it's called. It's all original, except for the tubes. I know Dad replaced the 6V6 at least twice. You could buy tubes at the grocery store back then or any hardware store.

It was made post-tweed, but before the all silver grille cloth and control panel came out.  WAY before they added the second 6V6, powering it up some.

I have tried to get my daughter to play it, but she is afraid she'll  "mess it up."  She knows it means a lot to me, so she went out and bought a current run Roland with distortion built in. OK, What ever.

The face has a Design and Circuits Patented '64 notice, so, I have to assume there is an update to the original schematic.

Here's a pic:

Same Old DD Blackface and Silverface Champs and Vibro-Champs were produced from 1964 to 1982. All these amp circuits are virtually identical, they are all Class A amplifiers but there is a slight difference in the build quality of the cabinets in the later silver face years. I.e. type of wood/mdf and use of fasteners.These later Champs sound different from the 5F1 and other Tweeds. They all have the addition of Treble and Bass controls. These controls cause quite a bit of signal loss and scoop out mids. The filtering in these amp models is increased giving the amp a slightly stiffer response. For these reasons these Champs have less overdrive but they do have more cleans. These amp have a different cab with a "fixed baffle" rather than the "floating" kind found in Tweed Champs which sounds different. The Vibro-Champ version add a bias varying tremolo (via a second 12AX7) that's really nice. It's smooth, musical, and has a wide range of sounds. That's a really nice blackface Vibro Champ you have.


Now here is the secret if you want to save a lot of money and are interested in a Vibro champ. The Fender Bronco was a guitar amplifier made by Fender. It was the first Silverface amplifier introduced in 1967 to sport the modern-looking "tailless" Fender amp decal, which became a standard feature on other Fender amplifiers in the early 1970s. The Bronco was a student amp to go with the matching Bronco guitar. Bronco amplifiers were shipped as a part of the Bronco "student" package offered during that time, which also included the matching Bronco guitar, introduced that same year.

Some early Broncos used the early-mid 1960s "tailed" amp logo. The schematics and manuals listed the Bronco and the Vibro Champ as the same amp, except for the red letters and labels stamped on the control faceplate (Vibro Champs have blue labels and lettering like the rest of the Silverface amplifier models). The controls were also the same. It was discontinued in 1975

It’s all about the speakers. My Hegel runs with the volume at about 6 to hit 90db through planars. My zkit runs 1/10 the power but hits 90 db with the volume at 4 with my Lii’s, and sounds better doing it.

@brad- I hear ya,  I ran a Bryston 4b cubed for a while. What a tank.

This thread is progressively undermining my assumption that I needed monoblocked UFO25s, solely to get 6 watts/ch.

Sounds like one UFO25 would be enough after all. I have 2 on order. The least sensitive speaker I have is 90dB and I don't listen at more than 80dB (more like 70dB at the loudest of times). I'll have a CSP25, a ZBIT and a ZROCK upstream of the amp, so gain galore.

I now open the floor to naysayers. If you persuade me to go with monoblocks, Decware makes $4 grand more. Maybe I can lure Steve in here too.

An idle mind, and 2 years to wait...

Many thanks for that input Steve. I was indeed hoping that monoblocking would have a sound quality advantage, and not be solely about getting more "physical" dBs out of my speakers. I'm definitely OK with choosing speakers to match amplification, if needed. Just makes the speaker choice simpler!

But you have short circuited my tiny comprehension levels technically. If someone says "balanced" I automatically visualize XLR in/out terminals and cables.

My DAC is fully balanced, but what about the rest of the chain of boxes and cables out to the amps? No XLR connections on the Decware amps, preamp or boxes I will be using, except into the ZBIT from the DAC. What is "differential balanced," anyway?

Yes, I see that. But would it not be the case that any RCA to RCA connection upstream from the amp prevents balanced connection to the amp? IOW, if I'm using a CSP325 and/or a ZROCK into a pair of UFO25s, it would seem there is no way to run them in balanced mode. If I want balanced, I have to go straight in from the DAC to the amps.

I can't go full balanced anymore.
When I was using just my Revox for a source, I was balanced all the way to the speakers, using a bunch of pro gear, all balanced. It was what I had been using for ages.

I sometimes used a differential speaker between every pair of speakers on a four track recording. Four main speakers and four more speakers between each pair hooked together so the second four only responded to a difference signal between each pair of mains.
Very early surround sound and it was sometimes very nice, depending upon the recording, of course.
Four track was fun to play with at times.

Using a turntable again, there is no balanced signal available to me. Same with my disc machines.  
Only DAC I have is from the era when computers were first introduced to pro audio, very old item, but it has balanced outs.
I just don't stream enough to even have it hooked up to anything. And honestly, my fancy dancy sound card coming out of my music computer sounds better than the old DAC, just using RCAs when I play a digi file.

I wonder if Steve is contemplating making a balanced run through all his gear as an option for some.
That would be awesome.

same old DD wrote
Quote:


check this out

TEAC TN-5BB MANUAL BELT-DRIVE TURNTABLE
A high-performance belt-drive analog turntable with XLR outputs, the TEAC TN-5BB turntable delivers precision sound for your favorite records.


$1,799.99



Prp-Ject X8 True Balanced Connection  $2499
https://youtu.be/0rjVMVewcM8
We’re launching a whole line of new “True Balanced Connection” components that feature a balanced connection for your phono setup. The X8 is our first turntable to feature this new phono technology.

Turntables look back on a long history. Over time, many things have changed, not only from technical possibilities, but also from the environment. Wireless networks are omni present and countless electronic devices make your home „smarter“. This means there are now a lot of additional electromagnetic fields, which could interfere with your turntable‘s signal. This was simply not the case 30 years ago. To ensure the best connection to your phono preamplifier we designed our „True Balanced Connection“.


Pro-Ject X8 True Balanced TT WHAT'S TRUE BALANCED?

Balanced audio connections are usually known from the professional sector like recording studios or live concerts. It is very important to have a stable & interference free connection, as these signals will be highly amplified. The same applies to the connection from your turntable to the phono preamplifier. The big advantage of a balanced connection is its ability to remove picked up noise and interferences. And best of all, cartridges by nature are already balanced signal transducers! With True Balanced your are simply using everything, literally everything, that your cartridge is picking up from the record groove. You are not throwing away half of the usable signal, like is done in typical single-ended RCA phono connections.

The X8 comes with a 5pin output jack and with our standard semi-balanced Connect it Phono E 5P -> RCA cable. By upgrading it to our fully balanced 5P to XLR version (available separately) and using a balanced phono stage, like our Phono Box DS3 B or any of our RS/RS2 phono stages, you are fully set-up for the True Balanced experience. This leads to increased dynamics, less noise and improved signal to noise ratios. You can imagine it, like hearing parts of your music that literally were not there before.

"Pro-Ject is hanging its X8 hat on “true-balanced” connectivity, all the way from the cartridge to the phono stage. According to Pro-Ject, any pre-mounted moving coil cartridge – including the factory-fitted Ortofon – will dispatch a balanced signal via the Austrian company’s 5-pin output jack when adapted to XLR with a 5P/XLR cable (sold separately). In the box, we get a semi-balanced Connect-it E 5P/RCA fly-lead.

Thanks, Joe.
I can only drool more at this point. Very interesting!

All stereo turntables have five points of connection, but some are tied together to the ground, unbalancing at the source.
These tables solve that.

I want to read more about that Austrian adapter for when I modify my newest Dual TT. It could just get a new plinth with XLRs.
If it's just the cable, I can do that, but I am more curious about any other concerns that may emerge.

I double checked my Pre and it has 1/4'' ins, in keeping with old Yamaha gear having one foot in pro audio and one in consumer audio, but they are not TRS, like on all my Crowns. I can't go balanced TT outs without a different phonostage/Preamp.

Just a kitten's paw full of coin, right?


I need to buy a car first and maybe a better pre or DAC next, but all of them have some decent specs and super features.

I tend toward a "J" tonearm, maybe because I am used to setting them up.
First tonearm I ever set up, after I got my old Garrard worked out, was a 16"  J-type on an RCA transcription TT, which only ran at 16 and 33, that my uncle (radio personality) owned. It was built in the late fifties but he wanted a stereo cartridge on it. He had the arm off still after sending it in to have a cartridge head installed.

All I had to work with was a straight line on a piece of paper that fit over the spindle. I figured it out.
I think I spent as much time getting the hole in the paper aligned with the line on the paper as I did the rest of it. I was fourteen at the time, but coming along.
He saw that and gave me a job to do.

One of the best ways to teach someone something is to ask them for a favor that involves their interests.

I re-did it twice more before it sounded right to me, though. I know I had a few albums I knew with me. Probably Steppenwolf, Beatles, got first listens but I don't really remember the rest.

tempest62 cuts to the bone.

THIS is the kind of comment from the front line that makes all the difference.

OMG, The Torii...

But no, I am building a shrine to SETware. I must proceed with the assurance of a sleepwalker, and remain pure.

Two UFO25s, the second POSSIBLY unnecessary in practice, but as I understand it the extra 3 watts gives me 9dB more headroom until clipping. Why am I even doing this...

9dB is a big increment, not huge. 20 watts would be so much nicer... But if I'm going to wait two years, I will only take this decision once.

I can see how a larger room would demand way over 10 watts. Steve's Torii MkV page practically yells, THIS THING SOUNDS LIKE OUR SET AMPS. It's like he's daring me to stray from the Path.

I must keep the faith, and return to the UFO25 development log, which has been read so far (is this possible?) half a million times.

Oh my User...

Quote:


I regret to inform you that the 3 extra watts will give you 3 or 4 dB more headroom, not 9. A 20 watt amp would give you 9ish dB (math available on request).

I've said several time how much I love my balanced mono UFOs, but I didn't do it for the watts, I did it because I wanted balanced amps and the short speaker cables that monoblocs allow. The watts are a nice bonus, but not really a game changer IMO.

I look at it like this: compared to a single UFO the 2nd one makes e.g 88 dB efficient speakers sound like 91 or 92 db and 92 dB sound like 95 or 96, and so on and so on.

The important number is the Racheal is 6 watts per channel. So when you mono them you use two channels per (mono) channel equals 12 watts per channel. Which adds up to 24 watts total for your system.

The per channel is typically most interesting because you usually connect one channel to a speaker and you use the speaker sensitivity and the power per channel to give you an idea of the maximum volume you can expect before clipping.

HTH

Ah yes, CA. You are right. Doubling the watts add 3dB. So the Torii is 6dB louder (@ a given distance?) than a pair of UFO25s, roughly.

And with a 90dB speaker we start, with one watt, at 90dB, which is effing loud.

Sounds like you get the amp that sounds best to you, then make sure you have speakers sensitive enough to achieve what you want. In fact with a 9dB difference between a Torii and a single UFO25, it would almost seem like sensitiive speakers are a good idea for both.

Maybe the insistence on more than 2.3 watts is often about not wanting to change the speaker to fit the amp. Thus the title of this thread. No reason to fear 2.3 watts if your speaker is sensitive enough.

It's too bad we don't have more good head to head comparisons of different DW amps. I watched Thomas's review of the Torii vs. the UFO2 but not much stuck out for me. Maybe I should watch it again. Then there's the Audiophiliac saying that the anniversary amp is "more musical" than the basic UFO, and making an entire review out of that one conclusion.

Yep. Quite often they hardly even show the actual device they're talking about.

Heh heh, then there are the reviewers you never see, just their hands holding the product and tilting and rotating it for 20 minutes...