Ok, here it is! My first official Zen garden! ... I gotta put in a big shoutout here for my co-worker Paul. He found it in his heart to part with a couple old school Zen amps and some old bass trap/diffusion panels ( on the rear wall reflected in the TV), and didn't rake me over the coals for it. Thank you Paul, even if you don't read this.

I get it... Zen... 'cause it's practically transcendental... Nice one, Steve! ( ,and a super thanks to you too!)

Super Phil, congrats on scoring some well-seasoned Zen amp--from a few decades of listening to them I can look at the photo and hear the sound!

I have one recommendation: isolation. Isolation feet etc. were something that I discovered with Decware and the improvement is worth seeking out.

Have a great listening weekend.

Thanks guys.

Once I heard it, I was scared to move anything, lol. The feet on the amps are pretty squishy. I am gonna get the black boxes at least moved down a shelf where they were before I moved it to this side of the room... Or I might move the amps down there. I don't know yet. It's not the best shelf, but it works for the time being. Everything from the side of the room the stereo is on is really just piled up behind me, so there is more work to do, lol

I confess it would drive me nuts if I had non-matching rectifiers in a pair of amps! I have a boxful of matching rectifiers so it just won't happen in my systems!

I don't own mono's or matching amps but I would probably do matching rectifiers as well. Fun experiment to try mismatches though I bet.

Without getting too far off topic, I have the CSP3 (fully dressed with A-mods) and the UFO25.

Question is : would people tend to use the same rectifier in both for synergy or does it (maybe as usual) depend on the entire system make up?  

I'm looking at getting upgrades to the tubes and using the stock ones as backups.

With two matching amps I would for sure be uncomfortable with mis-matched rectifiers--I'd want both channels to have identical tube complements so that I got a true mono when I was using mono material (I have lots) and a balanced stereo with stereo material.

In the past when using a stereo amp and a preamp I've tried different rectifiers in each. . . and kept experimenting. But when I fell in love with the Sophia Electric Aqua 274B rectifiers (and then the II version) I found that having that rectifier throughout to be the best for ME and my system (that's what I have now in my audio/visual system; my main system only has a rectifier in the SEWE300B, there's no preamp needed with that amp--which really surprised the heck out of me).

LiquidBlue and Lon,

Thanks for the feedback on the rectifiers.
As I suspected the answer is 'it depends'. Point taken for both cases.

To LiquidBlue's point about voicing the amp towards the clean/neutral side and pre to density, here's a little tidbit:

I've owned the CSP3 since last October and the UFO25 since last November. Believe it or not I have not 'rolled' any tubes yet. I'm at that point now which is why the original question. I've spent a lot of time getting familiar with the stock sound and rotated through all the input regulator tubes and the two input tubes that came stock in the amp. (probably have over 1200 hours on them)
   
The pre came with 3 6N1P's. I just recently decided to swap the one 6N1P in the pre with the 6N5P from the amp. I remember Steve describing the 1P as focused/neutral and maybe a little higher gain, and the 5P being warmer/fuller (one of his fav's). It wasn't night and day, but I couldn't believe the difference it made. To LiguidBlue's point, it made the soundstage a little more focused/crisp with instruments delineated more and wider soundstage (the amp?) all the while having a little more meat/density to the sound (pre?). I know this is in my room with my components but very cool none the less.
I'm really looking forward to doing some real tube rolling soon!

Phill,
Take us deeper into your listening space when you have a chance.

I will post the opposing wall pics a little later when I get that half of the room clean   I can describe things a little deeper...

...first though, this VR tube discusion is great. +10 forum points to Mr. chipster! Liquid Blue's approach is exactly what popped into my head when I read this. It happens alot here, which is nice. Then I don't have to type it all out myself cause it is already said. lOl
I don't have a pre-amp for my setup yet, but it is in the master plan.

The skinny on these amps are that one is stock(ish, at least),  and one has been 'hot rodded'. The details were briefly run by me, but I forget the exact mods. So, the finest matched pair would still not match. I only expected one, he showed up with two and I about freaked out. Sold!!

Don't match? Don't care!! Haha!

Sound wise there is a slight difference between them, in tone, not really in operation. My room is irregular so I can tweak to it...Hot amp on the one side, cooler one on the other, not that I really have to.

So, these pics are not really as much system pics, but really just capturing the moment of impact from the Decware asteroid that just crashed into my living room. It really is just me showing the first moments of good sound in my own home, and it WAS glorious! The gear has been here but I just could NOT get the speakers locked in, which traditionally I have been good at even without the technical knowledge I have picked up over the years. Now that I have the recipe I can start finalizing furniture, cabling etc. I have adjusted slightly to open the walkway a bit more and lost my intense cone of awesome, but it is replaced by a deeper and wider soundstage.

I was just thinking earlier that if I posted pictures of wiring and such I may just give a few of you heart attacks! It's far less that perfect... I think I will document it for myself to prove a couple things about some other things, but that will be another story at a much later date!

So, ultimately one of the amps will probably go into the bedroom, or on loan to my brother so he can get experience as well... I really only NEED one out here. The headroom is nice though, just saying.

I took some notes the other evening... here is a rough translation into English.

Listening level: low to medium

Various media, mostly jazz

At a low level the general tone had a natural feel, very organic. The effortless agility was very engaging. The gentlest and most dulcet of tones... mmmmmm. The speed and quickness of this setup easily did the Decware thing, which is to say that it gets out of its own way. There are no stumbles and definitely no falls. Maybe like a world class figure skater.

Not to say that there are no faults. The room interferes from time to time, but its not so bad. Stupid room.

Moving up the volume scale to medium... The heft and thickness, no, maybe heft and saturation, yea, saturation, made themselves eloquently at home in my bubble. Not at a loud volume by any means. Once the real stage was set the mids and highs danced very nicely in and out of my headspace, floating along on the currents created by the low end base layer like they were on a magic carpet. Not necessarily throughout my room in a three dimensional extravaganza, but nicely enough. { if a dozen diffusion panels fell from the sky, I would not complain! lol} I don't expect end game sound from an accidental alignment of the stars and my speakers... It's not that there is NO theory behind the setup, it is just far more haphazard than planned. Even at these louder/ fuller sound levels the the real shine came through in the intricacy of the stillness between the sounds. My previous brain would have expected this type of delicate detail to be diminished at high levels vs lower levels, but that is just not he case anymore. It is this space between the  sounds that I believe gives way to the feeling of listening the the musician instead of the instrument. Some day this concept and 'being the mic' are going to have a celebrity deathmatch in my mind... I will let you know who wins, but I am betting it will be a tie.

I made a note to remind myself to keep breathing through the rests in the music... Is this normal? I think I may have a problem.

Seriously though... phenomenal to experience in my own chair. just amazing.

other scribbles included something about the bass and anti-gravity.

there is also a joke about everyone ever in history who has ragged on tube gear for its inefficiency. F#@$ those guys... Just kidding, kinda. Everyone is entitled to... you know.

other scribble: room tuning vs room treatment; just treating a space does not create the magic, the system has to be tuned to the room after the room is treated. Might sound nice, like mine did for weeks... 'nice' is not good enough. Once the system is locked in there is not stopping it...

yet another scribble on the range of effect- Soft influence over a large area at low volume complemented by a strong command of the listening space at higher volumes. Full engagement throughout the spectrum.

Last note is how the bass tuning opened everything all at once. I was confused by things when I first turned the sub on. So, I cranked it. Give me the worst and I will weed stuff out from there I thought... I started turning it down bit by bit... alllll the way down, almost. At just above audible a bubble strongly resembling the Dec-cave ( I am pretty sure Steve is Batman) opened up like a vortex in the room and away I went!

End of notes.

Thanks for listening!

... but, with your eyes?

Nevermind.

Cheers.

Seriously, this is my life.
I'm back. Again.

Right so, none of this would have worked, didn't work, before the sub woofer. I picked up a subwoofer for the car on a one off deal from a guy ( Dual 4 ohm VC, wired for 8 ohm), bought the competitor brand's pre built box whose specs are slightly large and put it in the trunk. After my trunk stopped locking I brought it in the house. So I stole the plate amp with hi gain inputs from a JBL PB12 that wasn't worth a spit... viola.

Also there is a tripplite power conditioner feeding the amps.

OFC 12ga?/ 4mm banana jacks

Silver tinned ofc interconnects, except for the silver Interconnect/ silver rca on the phono line


If that is not all of it, you will have to wonder for the rest of eternity, I'm turning in finally!

Wow Lon! '97!
That explains the almost 23,500 posts!

I have known about Steve's work since then, about... Lots of guys said 'Oh, yeah, I know Steve! I'll introduce you!' Never happened... turns out most of them "knew of" Steve, or had just met him once. The rumors of the corner horns swirled in my head for MANY years before I was able to finally hear them at my interview. Later in the years it was my fault... between health issues and social/ other anxieties... but I am here now and could not be happier!


I have used the amps separately, just a bit, but not in the current configuration. It is on the agenda in the next few days hopefully. I sure would like to get one into the bedroom. I have a pair of Klipsch KG-4's to hook up back there. I can't wait to go to bed with the sweetest jazz ever as my lullaby.

Using the aforementioned setup as a guide to set the system up in the room, I have removed extra unneeded wiring and am in the middle of pushing everything back to a respectable distance from the wall. My bubble expanded on the first movement, which was about four inches back and three inches out. Moving the same amount again destroyed everything, but a third time returned my soundstage and gave me the bass I was missing in the original setup that was supplemented by the subwoofer. Everything is nice again, but without the subwoofer.

So, there I am relishing the more finalized setup. Then, a thought occurred to me. It was something Steve had said about the Axpona rooms. He mentioned using the sub out of phase to cancel unwanted low end. So, I experimented with that setup and have a few hours in testing. It is such a subtle thing... what it does for the nuance in the low end is really interesting.

Gotta go! Amps to build, emails to send... enjoy your day everyone!