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Two issues almost sidelined my living room system:
First, our McIntosh 240 amp has been sent away for a refurb, which means an absence of perhaps two months.
Second, our MartinLogan ESL9 speakers have developed a problem. One of the speakers has severely diminished high end. Yes, the panel works, but with hardly end treble. I've performed the recommend checks (swapped amp sides, cables, swapped DC power supplies, even tried another amp, all to no avail. ML sent me instructions to swap the internal boards, someone I can do when I make time.
So what to do in the interim:
Being a true Audioasylum inmate, I:
Purchased another pair of speakers (Revel Performa3 F206)
Pressed into service a "space" amplifier, a Crown XLX 1002 (used previously in my desktop system.
Well, the amp is certainly different from the Mac. It'a Class D; high end is etched, but necessarily fatiguing. No hum or (to my ageing ears) audible distortion. So, for the moment, it works well.
The speakers: A surprise. Great definition and balance; plenty of dynamic range and surprising excellent imaging. These may be a keeper, even assuming I trouble shoot and MartinLogan's. The Revel's seen easy to drive. Not quite as much low end as the MLs, but I have a nice Hsu Research sub. I might have consider the F208 model, but the 206's were more than enough to unpack and wrestle into position.
So, music is back in living room. I do look forward to trying the Mac with the Revel's.
Rather an impractical approach, but not unknown in these circles.
Follow Ups:
I concur with Abe's comments for the most part and I believe he and I have the same NAD C298 class D amp with the newer Purifi technology which offers a more refined sound than the only other class D I'm familiar with and is not dissimilar from SS class AB amps.
You may enjoy having a set of speakers with a different presentation to swap in every once in a while.
I've managed to keep upgraditis at bay with this approach.
Enjoy and let us know how the Revels sound with the Mac when it's back.
Gsquared
I expect to do so.
I recently upgraded the backplates on the big stats and they were out of service for a while. No worries - just lean on garage and HT systems in the meanwhile!
I think ageing bumblebee caps. Last serviced over 20 years ago. The Crown will serve for now.
I think ageing bumblebee caps. Last serviced over 20 years ago. The Crown will serve for now.
for fifty years, I confess hybrids like the ESL9 are not my cup of tea. The monopole woofers cover the first four octaves into the midrange (up to 380 hz) where the fundamentals of virtually every instrument and voice occur. Then all the harmonics are handled by a dipolar panel with decidedly different radiation characteristics. I find the seams audible and distracting.
Floyd Toole was really big about consistent directivity across the bandwidth so I suspect the Revels are more coherent in that respect.
What went wrong with the McIntosh amp?"Pressed into service a "space" amplifier, a Crown XLX 1002 (used previously in my desktop system. Well, the amp is certainly different from the Mac. It'a Class D; high end is etched, but necessarily fatiguing."
Unfortunately there are several powerful and cheap "pro amps" that don't sound so great. I once owned a couple Samson amps that I put into service for surround channels in my HT setup as they didn't cut it for the main 2-ch stereo system.
As an aside Class D in and of it self doesn't necessarily sound etched and fatiguing. I've experienced Class D over the past couple decades and have seen them improve incrementally over time but no Class D, or any solid-state amp for that matter, will sound like tubes.
Hope you get your McIntosh 240 and ML speaker back to normal soon.
FWIW the Crown XLX 1002 even measures poorly and your comments correlate with the chart:
Edits: 11/02/24
Ergo ASR and sites the measure equipment comprehensively are generally very useful
Dmitri Shostakovich
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